“Planet Election Guide: Property tax hike” plus 2 more |
- Planet Election Guide: Property tax hike
- Property tax digest may see little change
- New York's property tax pain: In down economy, burden soars for homeowners
| Planet Election Guide: Property tax hike Posted: 19 Apr 2010 07:27 AM PDT Dear Reader - We wish to keep our comments section as open and unfettered a forum as possible. However, in posting below you agree to the following guidelines: Be relevant. Keep your comments germane to the issue. Be respectful of others, the writer and the subjects of the story. Do not post potentially libelous statements or ad hominen attacks; obscene, explicit, or racist language; personal insults or threats. Never use another person's real name to disguise your identity. Be aware, in accordance with the Communications Decency Act, you are responsible for comments posted on this Web site. And while you may post anonymously, your anonymity is not guaranteed. All IP addresses are kept on file by Telluride Daily Planet. TDP is not liable for messages from third parties. TDP reserves the right to edit or remove any posting. Thank you for your comments, Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Property tax digest may see little change Posted: 19 Apr 2010 12:34 AM PDT By NEVIN BATIWALLA The Brunswick News Some homeowners hoping for property tax relief may be in for a rude awakening next month when Glynn County releases new property valuations. While a small number of homes will drop in value, resulting in lower tax bills for owners, thousands of parcels won't dip in value at all. How can that be when it seems almost everyone's house has lost value in an unprecedented nationwide real estate meltdown? To determine what a house is worth, the county uses a complex mathematical system based heavily on sale prices of other houses in a neighborhood. In years with a lot of sales, it works well because appraisers have more data from which to calculate a more accurate value for similar houses. But when houses are not selling, as in today's weak housing market, it becomes more difficult to determine a true value. "Our system doesn't work as well in low sales," County Chief Appraiser Bobby Gerhardt said. As a result, homeowners in neighborhoods in which no houses have been sold will likely see no change in their values, he said. A tide of foreclosures rolling over the area - which real estate agents say subsequently account for a significant number of sales at bargain prices - likely will have no effect on surrounding values. In most cases, foreclosures in a neighborhood are not factored in when the county determines a value for a house. The county considers a foreclosure to be an anomaly that doesn't reflect the true market of an area. Only when foreclosures make up all the sales in a neighborhood are they taken into consideration, Gerhardt said. County Commissioner Don Hogan accepts Gerhardt's explanation, but said a lot of residents who are struggling during a weak economy won't understand why their property tax bills are not going to decline. "I, personally, have an issue with the whole tax system myself," Hogan said. "I'm for a fair tax or flat tax." The fair tax, so called by its proponents, would replace all federal income and payroll taxes with a national retail sales tax. A so-called flat tax would tax all incomes at the same rate instead of at progressively higher rates for higher incomes. When the Glynn County property valuation is completed next month, it will be the first time in memory that there will be a net decrease in values, county officials say. Overall, Gerhardt expects the total assessed value of property to drop 10 percent, with new construction and stagnant values factored in. Values will slide as much as 50 percent in northern parts of St. Simons Island, he said. On May 15, the county will mail valuations to owners who have purchased property since last year, owners of property that has changed in value and people who requested that their property be revaluated. Taxpayers then have 45 days to appeal. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| New York's property tax pain: In down economy, burden soars for homeowners Posted: 19 Apr 2010 09:21 AM PDT (4 of 6) "Taxes have been pushed down to the middle class and the working poor, and communities are no longer viable," she said. In neighboring Rosendale, Ulster County, Gregory Coster said a tax assessment last year on his 47-acre property doubled his property taxes, from $8,000 to $16,000. He tried to sell the property, which he says is undevelopable, but was unsuccessful. Now he's fighting the assessment in court and gave for free five acres to neighbors -- just to get the property off his tax rolls. "It's almost unconscionable the level of taxation. It's so excessive," he said. When Lockheed Martin expanded in the Binghamton area a few years ago, some employees were buying homes in nearby Pennsylvania because of the lower taxes, some business owners said. "They can afford to buy the housing because the housing is fairly cheap, but they can't afford to sustain the housing because the property taxes are so high," said Terry Wood, president of Willow Run Foods, a food distribution company in Kirkwood. Nearly 1.7 million people left New York between 2000 and July 2009 -- the most of any state in the nation, Census data last month showed. The state's population has grown only because of an influx of immigrants and births exceeding deaths. But in some upstate counties, including Erie, as much as 4 percent of their population has left over the decade. As the price of homes fell in recent years, it made the tax burden even more apparent, economists said. For years, the tax increases were masked because the price of homes shot up to record highs and because a state property-tax rebate program, called STAR, refunds homeowners for a portion of their school-tax bill. The state's median sales price for existing homes fell 15 percent between 2007 and 2009, according to the state Association of Realtors. For the first two months of this year, the median price rebounded slightly, from $199,000 to $225,000. "You can do a lot of stuff when you're prosperous, with property values going up and you have more jobs coming into the community," said Kent Gardner, president of the Rochester-based Center for Governmental Research. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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