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.