TaxNightmare.org

Important -information-catch up on the issues….Wednesday, August 25, 2010

If you remember only one fact please remember what Frank says below:

It is important that New York policymakers seize this opportunity to phase in an effective middle class circuit breaker.  But it is equally important that they adopt a long term strategic approach to moving a significant amount of costs from the local to the state levels in a way that achieves true tax reform.

Frank Mauro-Fiscal Policy Institute–author of the Omnibus Solution

I think the reference to the state’s “shifting the burden of paying for education onto the backs of local property taxpayers” refers to the fact that, while it provides “state aid”, it does so only on a year to year basis, based purely on its own political and fiscal considerations, rather than committing to a coherent revenue stream for the outyears that would help local districts do the same and ultimately help reduce local costs. (And in fact it has even reneged on commitments to increase needs-based aid mandated by CFE.)    Since education costs have been constantly rising (in part due to the state’s own mandates), and since the state is loathe to raise state income or other broad-based taxes, the pressure has naturally fallen on local school districts (and local governments in general) to shoulder an ever heavier burden, most of which falls on the backs of the property taxpayers.  That way local officials get most of the blame for the tax increase (and/or reductions in programs and services),  and Albany gets to shortchange, with relative impunity, its responsibility to educate the state’s children and its past commitment to revenue sharing and other municipal and county programs. That situation has of course intensified over the past two years. 

John Whiteley- Legislation and Policy  expert- OMNIBUS CONSORTIUM

…And a great observation from Rachel (Omnibus Consortium and coordinator of Westchester for Change)…

GIOIA, CAN YOU PERHAPS PUT INTO YOUR BLOG SOMETHING ABOUT THE NEW YORK MIDDLE CLASS SOON TO GO ON THE “ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST”  PERHAPS WE COULD GET AN ECOLOGICAL GRANT TO SAVE THE SPECIES,??

Above is a picture found carved in a cave…

The artifact dates to the second century BCE.

The carving depicts the Albaniac CAP CULT- a primitive group even by 200 BCE standards- in a ritual “CAP DANCE.”

This cult dominated the Albaniacs ruling hierarchy.

Instead of planting corn the hierarchy insisted that the populace dance the Cap dance during planting season.

The populace grew tired of starving every year while their neighbors -who planted corn rather than dance the “cap dance”- flourished.

They decapitated* the CAP CULT leaders and very quickly began to thrive.

YOU HAVE TO SUSPECT A SCAM….

when so many of the Albany politicians and the gubernatorial candidates are ALL cap happy.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Yeah! Let’s cap the property tax septic tank and that’ll keep the smell from coming out…and then we can keep filling it up with crap!

Somebody call Mr. Cooper (my septic guy). He knows you have to clean that septic out regularly or the stench will persist.

But then there are so many smells in state government they figure the confiscatory property tax is just one more stink.

Their plan: Hold your nose and “cap” it.

Even the pols have to admit a “tax levy cap” won’t lower taxes.

IN FACT  CAPS GUARANTEE THAT INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY TAX BILLS  WILL CONTINUE THEIR PRECIPITOUS RISE!

But they keep pretending that property taxes won’t go up (compounded each year) more than the so-called cap they’re furiously peddling …and that’s downright misleading!

Okay, it’s a blatant lie.

 Caps just provide the state coffers with cover as they continue to shovel their responsibilities onto local property taxes.

This stinky cap proposal which they’re touting as a “property tax cap” letting people believe it will cap their actual tax bill at 4% or 2% isn’t an individual property tax cap at all.

For shame! Such duplicity!

The only legislation that will roll back your individual tax bill-and not increase your neighbor’s bill- is our Omnibus Circuit Breaker and property tax reform bill.

That doesn’t suit the pols who need to silence the clamor about the property tax smell -and quickly; they need to mask the twenty years when they let the situation deteriorate.

Paterson (The state can’t afford relief and I am the state, that Paterson.) and some wannabee governors need a quick fix which isn’t a fix at all, ergo tax levy caps. ( Some suspicious folks even think it’s a shoot out to take down Silver –to his credit a Circuit breaker proponent- before ‘guess’ who becomes the Gov…..my goodness would pols play such nasty games with taxpayers ????)

A circuit breaker and reform of our inequitable tax structure would mean real work. Hell they’d rather just cap it and forget about it…and forget  the misery it’s causing families.

By the time you get your first huge bill under the levy cap, and wonder what the hell happened to the cap promises, they’ll have their pampered butts safely in a red leather chair in Albany or Wall Street; and they’ll be blaming somebody else- maybe road workers or kindergarten kids- for the failure of the tax levy cap to do a damned thing for homeowners and renters except to sink them further into penury.

These pols care only about having power over the many billions  you send the state government in tax money and fees- loot that they can spend any which way they want; and saving our family homes from confiscatory property taxes is NOT the way they want to spend that money-not even a little of it.

BE CREATIVE GUYS…PICK A GOOD TITLE FOR THE CARTOON…August 9, 2010

A couple of suggestions I got from tax reformers and neighbors:

… BUT IT STILL STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!

… EVENTUALLY YOU GOTTA CALL THE 

    COMPANY (OMNIBUS) TO CLEAN IT OUT.

… HOW CAN YOU PUT A LID ON IT WHEN ALBANY POLS KEEP STUFFING MORE AND MORE CRAP IN!

… LET’S HOPE ALL THE CANDIDATES ARE CLOSE BY WHEN IT FINALLY BLOWS UP!

FROM SOMEWHERE IN AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION……8/5/2010 11:30 PM

…..THE OMNIBUS TAX SOLUTION CONSORTIUM MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS MET … TODAY….IN FORCE..

What! You think the cap pushers wouldn’t like to get us all in one room and BOOM!!!!

You know how pushers are. They sell you dreams –cheap- but it costs you dear in the end.

Cap pushers are no exception. It’s an election year; people are being ruined by chaotic property taxes.

So here come the pushers, “PSST…You want relief?  Here’s a quick fix my friend, the CAP-sule (sorry) of your dreams….nobody pays anything and presto, your troubles disappear.”

Yeah right!

Omnibus is here to tell you that dunce caps won’t do it for you.

You wake up with a tax levy cap on your head after the election; look at your property tax bill and WHOA!!!! It just went up 8%…and besides you’ve got a dunce cap headache.

…and the pusher’s fanny is firmly ensconced in a leather chair at the capital.

OOPS! It wasn’t his fault. Sh-t happens.

 Not going to happen if we can help it.

We will move forward to protect you from false and misleading information and continue to fight to lower your property tax bill….

·         We will show you how the circuit breaker can reduce your taxes and the cap (soft, hard, dunce) can only ensure that your personal tax bill will continue to go up until you lose your home.

·       We will shine the spotlight ON WHO COUNTS FOR ALBANY POLITICIANS….easy… the folks who can be counted on to stump up the campaign lolly-the uber-rich and the Wall St. gang.

·       …and WHO DOESN’T COUNT- families now paying property  taxes that are consuming  10-20-30-40% of their income …the middle class …children, workers …small businesses…

When the league of Women Voters-among so many other pro bono unimpeachable groups- tells you the Omnibus circuit breaker is the best form of property tax relief and the politicians running for office tell you the tax levy cap is just peachy dandy who would a sane person believe??

So Omnibus will be waging a campaign to remind you that on poll after poll when the circuit breaker was compared with the cap- as to what it will do for you -the CB won hands down.

Stick a feather in your cap and call it macaroni… or as the candidates would say- call it property tax relief.

So how about the reform part of the Omnibus bill?

Talk to the pols about reconstructing the bulk of our deeply flawed, chaotic tax system to make it more equitable and they lock themselves in their (sumptuous) rest rooms.

BUT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE MUST DO TO SAVE NYS ( no, not lock them in the John-but that works too)

We must clean up our tax house top to bottom.

MUCH More on all our plans later.

…we beseech the pols not to continually ask the people of NYS to feast on the crumbs from the table- which is what the candidates are doing so far.

When I read back on the bog postings from Albany  –the ups and the downs…whom we thought was a friend of the people  and who wasn’t – one has to conclude about these government officials and many of the candidates “If their lips are moving they’re lying.” (thanks for the quote, M.)

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BTW_Check out the membership of Omnibus …you’ll find Sue Zimet (ZEE) who just led a bipartisan victory on a moratorium of destructive hydro-fracking…we expect these legislators from both sides of the aisle to do the same for property taxes which are just as destructive in their  sphere as fracking. 

WHY NOT GUYS! …and if taxes on land weren’t so confiscatory maybe folks wouldn’t have to give it up to devastating mining practices like fracking.

Congrats Omnibus founding member ZEE Zimet.

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And below: three recent links from omnibus:

http://www.fox23news.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=93127@wxxa.web.entriq.net&navCatId=6

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/The-time-is-now-for-tax-relief-593201.php

www.wrpi.org