In -coming from the tax reform
battle-front:
While I am gathering more data on the 16 billion stock transfer tax give -away by the state, here’s a letter that you can all relate to….
Friday, March 12, 2010If you are a Ticonderoga property owner … I urge you to read the FRONT PAGE article from TODAY’s Washington Post…. It concerns the bleak outlook that still remains for home prices all over the country.Here are my thoughts about the article:
We are all sorry about the national DECLINE in property values that have occurred over the last several years. Many of us have held out the hope that property values may have “bottomed out” and might soon go back up.
But — if you read this Washington Post article – it’s hard to believe that property values are not still falling – and may be for some time to come! It’s sad news, and it will hurt all of us! It comes on top of major declines in home values that have already occurred all over the United States. To reflect this decline, many communities have LOWERED their home assessments.How is it, then, that in Ticonderoga, our assessments are proposed to go UP an average of over 30% ??? Would these new values accurately reflect real selling prices in today’s depressed economy?
Sorry, but it just doesn’t seem to make COMMON SENSE!
Many of us feel that our property tax system is BROKEN. New York State has some of the highest property taxes in the country, often consuming 10, 15, 20% or more of a family’s gross income — all without regard to the family’s financial circumstances.
We desperately need state-wide property tax reform that will LIMIT a family’s property taxes based on individual household income! This would enable many NY families to continue to afford their homes when their income drops due to loss of a job, retirement, or illness. Such legislation is pending * [S4239A and A8702] and it would help renters as well as homeowners — but the NY legislature has yet to pass it.
In October 2005, the Ticonderoga Town Board issued a unanimous resolution asking the governor and legislature to pass earlier versions of this legislation. This was an excellent position taken by our board in support of the community.However, the Ticonderoga Town Board now seems to have abandoned the pledge it made in October 2005 NOT to do a Ticonderoga reassessment or revaluation until new legislation is passed.
To the best of my knowledge, no public hearing was ever held prior to making this decision (which was reportedly made in 2008), nor was any public statement issued by the Ticonderoga Town Board announcing it.
There are fairer ways to deal with Ticonderoga property tax problems than the proposed 2010 revaluation, coming - as it does - at this critical time of DROPPING home values!Please pass this article on to friends and neighbors concerned about our Ticonderoga property taxes.
Thanks.
- Rich Wray
Ticonderoga
RJWray@hotmail.com* If you support this pending legislation to reform property taxes, please let our state legislators know.
P.S. You are still welcome to visit the web site www.EyeOnTi.com, where you will find a copy of the October 2005 Ticonderoga Town Board resolution.
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WHILE WE WAIT…3/9
……for Albany to stop stuffing around and for our public servants to stop kissing Wall Street’s –this is a family blog so let’s say –feet…Oh wait…maybe you didn’t know that Albany gives back to Wall street (every year) 16 BILLION in stock transfer taxes ( a penny and three quarters a transfer and up) taxes that are collected and then returned to the boys on the street….those admirable characters who brought us this shattered economy in the first place…note: since the buyer pays the tax is the rebated money returned to them or???…
…this massive tax rebate is an insane sweetener so that Wall Street won’t move to …let me see…maybe Bung Street, Alaska?… for that they get a tax rebate bribe of 16 billion?!?
Or is it just that our public servants are really serving another master? You guessed it THE STREET!
YEP, WITH JUST HALF THAT SWAG WE COULD CLOSE THE BUDGET DEFICIT IN NYS AND WITH THE OTHER HALF restore public SERVICES AND also REFORM THE KILLER PROPERTY TAX….
…..and while we’re waiting
….for the federal government to send the marshals and the auditors to Albany…or for the Senate and the Assembly to pass the Omnibus property tax relief and reform bills that are languishing there…
Let’s think again about that 16billion give back to Wall Street ….that’s 1 and ¾ pennies per transfer …and up….how does that stack up against the destruction of our parks and schools and infra structure?
How does that stack up against the loss of your home to pay your property taxes? MUCH MORE ON THIS SCANDALOUS give-away LATER….
This week 6 LEGISLATORS IN Ulster County voted with Susan Zimet NOT to foreclose on school tax delinquent properties….3/5
Zimet (a fellow founding member of the Omnibus Property Tax Solution Consortium) has been consistently voting against the practice of making counties the villains in tax delinquency foreclosures.
The tax delinquency foreclosures and property auctions are the final act of lunacy in a fatally flawed method of raising money for schools, medicaid, and other public services.
You have heard me rant and rave against the inequities of the property tax…now let’s look once again at the end result of its absurd formulation…let’s look at the school tax delinquencies which are mounting as we speak.
When a taxpayer defaults on the tax the county makes up to the school district for the delinquencies…”makes them whole.”
That means the other property taxpayers in the county not only pay their school taxes to their school district but they also pay the delinquent taxes to other districts through their county property taxes.
Lest you blame the victims of the tax who are forced to default because the tax has outstripped their income and gone merrily on its way to consuming all their assets and finally their family home, let’s see what happens to them.
Their home (or farm or property) is put up for auction by the county.
If they owe $15,000 in taxes and the home sells for $80,000 and they wait for their $65,000 in equity back so they can perhaps shelter their families, they’re in for a shock.
The county takes EVERYTHING! It has been called “profit” in some county bookkeeping I’ve seen…. SWAG would be more apt…
Are you furious yet?… or-like a highly placed official who should have known better - are you shaking your head and saying, “Oh no that can’t be. It would be illegal!”
Suck it up kid…welcome to the disgusting world of the killer property tax…with all its nasty ramifications.
The Omnibus Consortium and all its supporters are the major force for overturning this monstrous tax….keep up with us…..
I remind you, I am not anti-tax if the tax is logical and administered fairly…….just anti- the PROPERTY TAX because-as it is currently insanely constituted- it is IMPOSSIBLE to administer it fairly!
Once again I advise you to log on to http://www.omnibustaxsolution.org/
to see which groups are working with us…and keep up with this blog to see what‘s going on.
Please call us-the contact numbers are on the website.
I just got an informative call from tax reformer Bob Lambert in Delmar…he’ll be sending us some of his innovative ideas on reducing local taxes…..
We need to beat this hydra headed monster, the property tax, with every weapon we have.
Zimet (ZEE) and her 6 admirable colleagues in the Ulster legislature (we’ll post their names when we get permission) are aware that a break in the property tax chain at the county level is a blow for equity and progress.
Where are all the other legislators?
We are awaiting the results of our latest meetings in Albany…not the least of which was with the Lt. Governor, Richard Ravitch.
Of course the questions this week in Albany are “who’s on first?… who’s on second?…and who’s going home?”
That will matter A LOT …Will we have a budget? Will it cripple us further with more and more stress on the property tax as Albany wantonly and haphazardly slashes its share of funding?
There is a movement in Washington by legislators there to cut their own salaries….
In Albany there has not been a whisper of shared sacrifice ……the only sacrificial lambs are homeowners and renters poised on the edge of ruin.
?????????????
WELCOME TO LIMBO…3/2/2010
…where we wait while the feckless government in Albany sorts out its priorities, positions, and power plays.
Who will decide the fate of millions of citizens facing ruinous property taxes and the ultimate loss of their homes?
Will we have schools, parks, homes or just layers and layers of government consuming everything in sight like a plague of locusts?
Will there be a budget that includes relief for homeowners and renters?
Who will do the budget? Will there even BE a budget?
…and finally, will Albany still be obsessed ONLY with ITSELF in the weeks ahead like some AUTOEROTIC TEENAGER?
Welcome to NYS…the state of limbo!
