Property Tax Appeals Take Toll on Governments

Note to self: Have property tax bill lowered too.

In New Zealand, your property taxes go up only if the assessment on your property rises more than the average assessment. So in a falling house market, getting a lower assessment via an apeall does not automatically lower your property tax bill. The assessed value of your house would have to decline more than the average for that to occur.

seymour wrote:

In New Zealand, your property taxes go up only if the assessment on your property rises more than the average assessment. So in a falling house market, getting a lower assessment via an apeall does not automatically lower your property tax bill. The assessed value of your house would have to decline more than the average for that to occur.

That is why New Zealand laws do no apply in the United States and vice versa. Many property owners in the U.S. are tired of supporting professional parasites and an entourage of appointed tax cheats.

Jinny wrote:

<quoted text> That is why New Zealand laws do no apply in the United States and vice versa. Many property owners in the U.S. are tired of supporting professional parasites and an entourage of appointed tax cheats.

In New Zealand, the house price surge of recent years did not generate a windfall for local government. Likewise, the ongoing house price bust is not is not causing a catastrophic decline in property tax revenue. I think US city and county governments and property owners would be better off if something like New Zealand practice were adopted.

What goes up must come down. Best is to make sure things don't do up in the first place.

Property taxes all but remove the concept of ownership of private property....there is no such thing

a lot of chatter above about what goes on in new zealand!! hello!! this is the united states a sovreign nation with its own laws!! we do not have any provision that allows adopting laws of foreign nations to either usurp or influence!!- of course - home owners should get lower property assessmsnts for declining values!! we are already carrying 50% of the nations population with a free ride on everything!! enough is enough!! lower taxes and get the freeloaders off their duffs and to work for a living!!--

We may think we own our homes, but we actually rent them from the goverment. Stop paying your property taxes and watch uncle sam evict you.

The heydays are gone, our local governments were having a field day during the housing boom, raising taxes on over inflated home prices, telling us our homes were worth BIG money...They raised the taxes like the greedy little pigs they are, then oops, the housing market crumbled to ruin and lay in ashes, now we want our property values to reflect what our homes are really worth...They (local governments) are crying the blues, "how are we going to pay for this and that" if we lower the property values? They took in a wind fall of money during the "boom" and didn't save one red cent, now they are broke...It's time to put government on a diet, they can live within their means on a sensible budget like the rest of us, but be forewarned, the government is tricky and likes to play with #'s...They lowered are values last year, but raised the millage rate, ah, are taxes didn't go up or down, they remained virtually the same (maybe a hundred dollars less)...Better keep a watch on them, they are a deceitful bunch of pigs...

Mr_Bill wrote:

Note to self: Have property tax bill lowered too.

T-upgrade?:-0

I searched a county database and discovered, to my dismay, that out modest home was assessed higher than the mega-mcmansion sitting on the equivalent of two city blocks.

Fight as I did, I still only compelled the assessors to lower my assessment to $2000 below that of "the estate." Property assessments are often unfair, and in our area, tied to "who you know and how important they are."

It can be the worst kind of discrimination.

Proposition 13, officially titled the "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation," was enacted by the voters of California in 1978, an example of grass roots democracy. Homes are mostly valued at their purchase price and taxes increase about 1.3% per year. Now that values are declining, for $30, homeowners can file an appeal to lower their valuations and, by following the rules and citing 3 comparable homes selling locally, taxes are reduced accordingly.

That's how I forced a reduction in my own taxes. I waited for a rainy day and under the auspices of taking my unwilling Peke for a walk, I wandered around taking pictures of equivalent homes. One was the exact same model as ours, except that it was ten feet longer and 12 feet wider than ours, on a double lot. That was Exhibit A, as the owner was assessed at $2000 less than we were.

Two other comparable homes were assessed as much as $4000 lower and the Mega-McMansion came in at the same rate as Exhibit A. The assessors were arguing that it was the size of our lot, not our house, as it was composed of a major property and footage acquired from neighbors in order to meet building requirements.(We were being assessed at $1000 for our DRIVEWAY, for God's sake.)

My ace in the hole was the Megamcmansion. There was no arguing after that. Even so, our assessment is only $2000 below the Mega which is still unfair. The assesors say that even though the Mega has the equivalent of two city blocks, most of it is undeveloped.(One of the reasons for this is that the owner's diveway is actually built on a now inaccessible fire lane to the woods beyond.)

But this is dear old dirty northeastern PA, where judges sell kids to juvenile facilities for cash and office holders who embezzle from the taxpayers get probation because they have "suffered enough." The first Mayor Daley of Chicago once called our area the "whorehouse of politics." HE would know. And it has never gotten any better.

pythias07 wrote:

a lot of chatter above about what goes on in new zealand!! hello!! this is the united states a sovreign nation with its own laws!! we do not have any provision that allows adopting laws of foreign nations to either usurp or influence!!- of course - home owners should get lower property assessmsnts for declining values!! we are already carrying 50% of the nations population with a free ride on everything!! enough is enough!! lower taxes and get the freeloaders off their duffs and to work for a living!!--

This forum is a worldwide one, in no way limited to American issues or American points of view.

My point is that American property tax practice could learn something from New Zealand practice.
Combine a house price roller coaster with USA property tax practice and you have a mess. Combine that roller coaster with New Zealand practice and life goes on tolerably well.

Imitation of foreign technology, business practices, and yes, laws, etc., is the royal road to human advancement. No point in every nation and culture reinventing the wheel.

New Zealand has quietly imitated many USA practices. For starters, the official name of the national legislature is not "Parliament" but "The House of Representatives." I trust that wording is familiar to most readers of this thread.

Yeppers wrote:

The heydays are gone, our local governments were having a field day during the housing boom, raising taxes on over inflated home prices, telling us our homes were worth BIG money...They raised the taxes like the greedy little pigs they are, then oops, the housing market crumbled to ruin and lay in ashes, now we want our property values to reflect what our homes are really worth...They (local governments) are crying the blues, "how are we going to pay for this and that" if we lower the property values? They took in a wind fall of money during the "boom" and didn't save one red cent, now they are broke...It's time to put government on a diet, they can live within their means on a sensible budget like the rest of us, but be forewarned, the government is tricky and likes to play with #'s...They lowered are values last year, but raised the millage rate, ah, are taxes didn't go up or down, they remained virtually the same (maybe a hundred dollars less)...Better keep a watch on them, they are a deceitful bunch of pigs...

What you describe will be the first port of call during the current crisis: accept the fall in appraised values, but push for a higher millage rate.

If property tax revenues fall, some things will have to be cut. Unfortunately, the choice of what to cut will not be yours or mine to make, but that of city and county executives, who will cut those things that will cause the maximum of annoyance. There's a lot of things that could be cut with little harm, but allowing those things to be cut would lead to voters believing that tax cuts are a good thing, and we can't have that, can we?

Much of city and county government is about jobs for ones friends. Saving money means laying people off, which turns county executives from Santas into Grinches. Nobody wants to be a Grinch.

seymour wrote:

<quoted text>
What you describe will be the first port of call during the current crisis: accept the fall in appraised values, but push for a higher millage rate.
If property tax revenues fall, some things will have to be cut. Unfortunately, the choice of what to cut will not be yours or mine to make, but that of city and county executives, who will cut those things that will cause the maximum of annoyance. There's a lot of things that could be cut with little harm, but allowing those things to be cut would lead to voters believing that tax cuts are a good thing, and we can't have that, can we?
Much of city and county government is about jobs for ones friends. Saving money means laying people off, which turns county executives from Santas into Grinches. Nobody wants to be a Grinch.

I agree, but we live in the real world in certain things are inevitable. Many cities in the state I live in have had to make "hard choices". They'd laid off people that were hired during the "boom", we all know (now) that the housing market was false, therefore the government jobs created were also false along with wasteful programs that needed to be cut...City and county officials due tend to cut programs they know will get a "rise" of taxpayers with the old, "see I said you wouldn't like what we had to cut" so they can justify the need for wasteful spending...Now it's time for them to get back to reality, they should have saved up for a rainy day while the money was still coming in but they didn't and now they don't like it...

Yeppers wrote:

<quoted text>
I agree, but we live in the real world in certain things are inevitable. Many cities in the state I live in have had to make "hard choices". They'd laid off people that were hired during the "boom", we all know (now) that the housing market was false, therefore the government jobs created were also false along with wasteful programs that needed to be cut...City and county officials due tend to cut programs they know will get a "rise" of taxpayers with the old, "see I said you wouldn't like what we had to cut" so they can justify the need for wasteful spending...Now it's time for them to get back to reality, they should have saved up for a rainy day while the money was still coming in but they didn't and now they don't like it...

If there;s one thing I've learned about public finances in my life, it is that the public sector is incapable of creating a rainy day fund. Exception: Norway parks its surplus oil and gas money on Wall Street. Norway has a National Surplus instead of a National Debt. IN the English speaking world, when tax revenues rise because the regional economy is doing well, the public sector quickly finds ways to spend the money. Smoothing out the business cycle never crosses anyone's mind. When the economy goes sour, and tax revenues go into free fall, what is cut? Capital expenditure by state and local government, for projects that are not self-financing via tolls. So a major response to the current crisis is work on streets, sewers, highways, and school/university buildings. All that's gonna have to move to the proverbial back burner...

No Child Left wrote:

That's how I forced a reduction in my own taxes. I waited for a rainy day and under the auspices of taking my unwilling Peke for a walk, I wandered around taking pictures of equivalent homes. One was the exact same model as ours, except that it was ten feet longer and 12 feet wider than ours, on a double lot. That was Exhibit A, as the owner was assessed at $2000 less than we were.
Two other comparable homes were assessed as much as $4000 lower and the Mega-McMansion came in at the same rate as Exhibit A. The assessors were arguing that it was the size of our lot, not our house, as it was composed of a major property and footage acquired from neighbors in order to meet building requirements.(We were being assessed at $1000 for our DRIVEWAY, for God's sake.)
My ace in the hole was the Megamcmansion. There was no arguing after that. Even so, our assessment is only $2000 below the Mega which is still unfair. The assesors say that even though the Mega has the equivalent of two city blocks, most of it is undeveloped.(One of the reasons for this is that the owner's diveway is actually built on a now inaccessible fire lane to the woods beyond.)
But this is dear old dirty northeastern PA, where judges sell kids to juvenile facilities for cash and office holders who embezzle from the taxpayers get probation because they have "suffered enough." The first Mayor Daley of Chicago once called our area the "whorehouse of politics." HE would know. And it has never gotten any better.

Hey wasn't Bidenextolling the virtues of your area on the campaign trail. Hey didn't he grow up in the house next door to you?

john wrote:

Property taxes all but remove the concept of ownership of private property....there is no such thing

Yep. We only THINK we own the property. Real Estate Taxes are the "RENT" we pay the government in order to keep what we think is ours. Don't pay your tax and you will see who REALLY OWNS the property.

The government is the one who must "take a toll" in the form of a reduction in their finances instead of Americans.
The average American family spends roughly 50% of their pay to state/local/federal government,that is almost to the point of slavery.
Once that number exceeds 50%,you are working for the government first,then your family second.

property taxes in NYS are so high because the politicans have bought union votes by giving pension and health insurance for life to public sector workers who retire young. all of the above are guaranteed, and those private sector taxpayers who get none of the above benefits are going to have to retire later (if at all) to pay for it. add in the importing of poor nontaxpayers (illegals) and you will have middle class flight from high tax states.