Well, we're starting to gain ground. Our long hard efforts are beginning to see payola, but is what they are offering enough? Is this another pacifier to put The People back to sleep?
Several lawmakers now are backing repeal of property tax on homesteads only. This would mean that farms, businesses, and landlords would still pay property tax.
Law makers like it because it only requires a little more than $2 billion in replacement costs instead of the $6 billion collected from all property tax. But ask yourselves, why are they so adamant about finding replacement money? The answer is because they don't ever want to stop spending your money lavishly.
Where is the debate to implement the 27 recommendations of the Governor's commission headed by Justice Shepard and former Governor Kernan? There is no way to know exactly how much would be saved until the steps are implemented, but we can be pretty sure it would cover a lot of the property tax replacement.
This is where The People have to start being savvy in our watch over our legislators. This is where the game gets interesting. More than anything they want us to go back to sleep, leave them alone, and stop showing up at the Statehouse so they can continue their fleecing of us without oversight.
Do you know that there are many legislators that laugh at you and I behind our backs. They laugh about how stupid and gullible we are and what easy marks we are.
They are going to raise other taxes if they repeal homestead property tax. Be careful. It's possible to repeal homestead taxes without raising other tax. They can find a way to save $2 billion by implementing a 21st century government rather than the 19th century government we have in Indiana.
It's up to us to oversee our government and hold their feet to the fire.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Repeal of homstead property taxes is getting legs in the legislature
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(Atom)
6 comments:
No.. this is unacceptable.
Lets divide this up:
Business Property tax is not ultimately paid by the business. Businesses exist to make money, and they get that money (eventually) from consumers of their goods or services. Any business oriented tax is functionally identical to a sales tax, only much more hidden from the voting public.
Taxing landlords ultimately puts the hardship on renters, who are in even less of a position to pay the burden than home owners.
Shifting the burden to farmers is despicable. Farmers' average yearly income is typically about mid to low middle class (this last year was unusually high though). They obviously need much more property to operate than say a lawfirm, yet make far less. Their income is subject to the flow of international weather and commodity markets, and have no way to just charge more for their product like many businesses can. Also, their relatively low percentage of the population guarantees that any politician playing the vote numbers game is likely to ignore them.
Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on the lunch menu.
Oh you are so right. And you know by taxing landlords, we also don't provide an incentive (no property tax) to investors to buy up the 15,000 abandoned houses we have here and rehab them. Those houses would disappear overnight practically if there was no tax. Investors from around the country would want them.
Let's keep this discussion alive. I'm very concerned that this is where they try to make us think we have a win, when really they are putting us in a worse boat than we were in.
It is what this legislature does best=pitting one side(homeowners) against the other (business) thereby getting away without solving anything. In the meantime the citizens are taken off track and quibbling amongst themselves. Nic ploy, don't tall for it focus on contacting and telling them eliminate property taxes for all.
You guys HAVE TO keep pressure on about spending reductions.
PUSH HARD against the same legislators who pretend to be your friends but turn about and introduce bills for massive spending programs. They ALL want to spend on something, it's they NEVER want to cut their own program babies.
CASE IN POINT: CONFRONT Sen. Delph!!! He is pretending to be your tax eliminating friend, but he is proposing a new program for state and local government to investigate, litigate and prosecute immigration violations against businesses at a huge cost for state & local government!
Sure, many people favor immigration reform. Like many people favor ALL KINDS OF STUFF that costs us money.
Now is the time to cut taxes and spending, not create new ways to spend money.
I'm not an immigrant, I have no immigrant friends, I don't employ immigrants, I have no dog in that fight I just want legislators to stop pandering and being hypocrits!
Melyssa,
Do yourself a favor and educate yourself on the abandoned house issue. It's not because of property taxes that these house are abandoned and it never was. In fact, it really doesn't even play into the equation.
Put you butt in your car and drive to Cleveland, Philly, St.Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and a dozen more cities that have, unlike Indianapolis, tried to address the problem.
I've been to them all and property taxes are on the bottom of the list.
And you want out of state landlords buying these properties? Sorry, that's part of the problem now.
So is taking away a property tax of $800 on an inner city home going to cause me to buy a house for $30,000 then drop $50,,000 into fixing up then hopefully sell it for $65,000?
Here's a hint, get off the property tax bs issue as an answer to the abandoned house problem.
anonymous 8:12
The real answer is repeal with no additional taxation. All this talk of "replacement" and no further talk of dismantling our 19th century government and the rebuilding of one that is presentable in the 21st century, is the problem.
CUT SPENDING!
By the way, did you know we're still paying 1% tax for the now long gone Market Square Arena?
Post a Comment