Re: Best response to landowner tax complaints?


sinister wrote:

> There's a lot of political momentum in my locality (MD suburbs of
Wash DC)
> for cutting property tax rates.

I don't know if any of this helps, but some pseudorandom thoughts
anyway.

You could also point out that it is not property taxes that are too
high, but rather income and consumption taxes and try to explain the
reasons for supporting a tax shift from production to property.

However you know all this, what I really wanted to babble about is Tax
jurisdiction.

The most common model seems to give Income taxation and Consumption
taxation powers to National and Regional governments, and Property Tax
powers to the
Municipal government.

So, when the discusion is framed at the Municipal level, as yours is,
this division of power leaves you without a reasonable argument, since
the government in question can typically neither lower production
taxation instead of property taxation, nor shift production taxation to
property taxation.

This leaves you in the unhappy position of being a Tax apologist,
usually not a popular position.

So, propose an even _bigger_ property tax increase, and at the same
time, a per-capita usage property tax exemption. Convince your
neighbours that property tax does not need to be reduced, just shifted
from the average Joe owners to the fat cat large land owners.

That may work since by and large you are agreeing with them that
_their_ property tax is too high.

I always say that those who use more than their per-capita share of
land should compensate those that use less. This basic concept seems to
appeal to most people.

.

Relevant Pages

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