Zone1 Most Taxes Should NEVER Increase

DGS49

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2012
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Pittsburgh
In my home town of Pittsburgh (where nobody actually lives) there is a brouhaha currently over the County Executive's proposal to increase the millage rate for County taxes. It's only money so I don't care about it, but to me it raises an interesting issue.

For some reason our county (Allegheny) cannot do periodic system-wide reassessments. My cynical side says that the reason is because government employees are incompetent and lazy, but regardless, it "cannot" be done, and it hasn't been done in a generation. To avoid screwing property purchasers and people who build new houses, we have a "base year" assessment program that calculates what the property would have been worth in the Base Year (even if it didn't exist), then calculates the taxes based on that mythical value.

For this reason, County tax revenues do not go up at the same rate as county real estate values (and the cost of doing what the County does) and the executives have to raise taxes from time to time. What they do is propose an outrageously high tax increase, live through the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the local TV stations' interviews of old ladies who will have to become homeless if this happens. Then they cut it in half and raise the taxes by the amount that they intended to in the first place, telling "us" that we have dodged a bullet and should be grateful.

But seriously, if they just reassessed the property every couple years (this is the age of computers, is it not?), then we wouldn't have to go through this bullshit. Our taxes would go up, but there would be some logic to it.

And the same principle should apply to income taxes that are collected as a percentage of earnings. They should NEVER have to be increased. Especially if there is a graduated tax chart, and tax revenues increased at a rate greater than everyone's income.

If you have a fixed tax like a per Capita tax or a fixed amount, like the Federal gasoline tax, then it makes sense to have to increase that amount from time to time, but for other taxes, they should never have to be increased. Temporarily in times of war or national emergency, but after the cause goes away, the rates should revert to the norm.

Parenthetically, how long will it be before the Feds start charging a "road tax"' to EV owners who pay no gasoline tax? It's the right thing to do, eh?
 
Good points, but I would say that SPENDING should never go up, local, state and especially federal. In 2024 it's way out of control and has been for a long time.
 
In my home town of Pittsburgh (where nobody actually lives) there is a brouhaha currently over the County Executive's proposal to increase the millage rate for County taxes. It's only money so I don't care about it, but to me it raises an interesting issue.

For some reason our county (Allegheny) cannot do periodic system-wide reassessments. My cynical side says that the reason is because government employees are incompetent and lazy, but regardless, it "cannot" be done, and it hasn't been done in a generation. To avoid screwing property purchasers and people who build new houses, we have a "base year" assessment program that calculates what the property would have been worth in the Base Year (even if it didn't exist), then calculates the taxes based on that mythical value.

For this reason, County tax revenues do not go up at the same rate as county real estate values (and the cost of doing what the County does) and the executives have to raise taxes from time to time. What they do is propose an outrageously high tax increase, live through the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the local TV stations' interviews of old ladies who will have to become homeless if this happens. Then they cut it in half and raise the taxes by the amount that they intended to in the first place, telling "us" that we have dodged a bullet and should be grateful.

But seriously, if they just reassessed the property every couple years (this is the age of computers, is it not?), then we wouldn't have to go through this bullshit. Our taxes would go up, but there would be some logic to it.

And the same principle should apply to income taxes that are collected as a percentage of earnings. They should NEVER have to be increased. Especially if there is a graduated tax chart, and tax revenues increased at a rate greater than everyone's income.

If you have a fixed tax like a per Capita tax or a fixed amount, like the Federal gasoline tax, then it makes sense to have to increase that amount from time to time, but for other taxes, they should never have to be increased. Temporarily in times of war or national emergency, but after the cause goes away, the rates should revert to the norm.

Parenthetically, how long will it be before the Feds start charging a "road tax"' to EV owners who pay no gasoline tax? It's the right thing to do, eh?
The only good thing that I ever saw come out of CA government was the passage of Proposition 13--the Jarvis Gann property tax initiative of 1977. It was and is one of the fairest property tax laws I've seen and seems to follow the logic that you are advocating.
 
In my home town of Pittsburgh (where nobody actually lives) there is a brouhaha currently over the County Executive's proposal to increase the millage rate for County taxes. It's only money so I don't care about it, but to me it raises an interesting issue.

For some reason our county (Allegheny) cannot do periodic system-wide reassessments. My cynical side says that the reason is because government employees are incompetent and lazy, but regardless, it "cannot" be done, and it hasn't been done in a generation. To avoid screwing property purchasers and people who build new houses, we have a "base year" assessment program that calculates what the property would have been worth in the Base Year (even if it didn't exist), then calculates the taxes based on that mythical value.

For this reason, County tax revenues do not go up at the same rate as county real estate values (and the cost of doing what the County does) and the executives have to raise taxes from time to time. What they do is propose an outrageously high tax increase, live through the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the local TV stations' interviews of old ladies who will have to become homeless if this happens. Then they cut it in half and raise the taxes by the amount that they intended to in the first place, telling "us" that we have dodged a bullet and should be grateful.

But seriously, if they just reassessed the property every couple years (this is the age of computers, is it not?), then we wouldn't have to go through this bullshit. Our taxes would go up, but there would be some logic to it.

And the same principle should apply to income taxes that are collected as a percentage of earnings. They should NEVER have to be increased. Especially if there is a graduated tax chart, and tax revenues increased at a rate greater than everyone's income.

If you have a fixed tax like a per Capita tax or a fixed amount, like the Federal gasoline tax, then it makes sense to have to increase that amount from time to time, but for other taxes, they should never have to be increased. Temporarily in times of war or national emergency, but after the cause goes away, the rates should revert to the norm.

Parenthetically, how long will it be before the Feds start charging a "road tax"' to EV owners who pay no gasoline tax? It's the right thing to do, eh?

what is a millage tax??

do you mean mileage tax??

and how do they charge you now??
 
Never and always makes a statement false. Milage should not go up right now as the crazy value ride in our recent past should more than make up for even drop in milage. Computer age? Values should be updated every 2 years? Computers have not advanced to that extent at the auditors office. Mass appraisal has inherent weaknesses. If it were as simple as the layman thought on most subjects there would be no need for experts in any field. Systems are developed for reasons. In this day of YouTube and Google so many people think they are experts at every thing meanwhile the populous is probably more stupid than ever in history. I recently was fishing on a headboard for perch. Ten people on this boat. The entire boat has 24 perch on it. I had 14 in my bucket. So half of all perch on the boat is in my bucket. A woman sits beside me and asks why I catch more than anyone else. I was at first impressed with the woman, thinking hey here is someone that might actually be willing to learn something. I tell her exactly what I do in order to catch the perch. She looks at me and says that can not be all there is to it and goes back to doing exactly what she was doing before. Lol
 
Taxes and government spending are unfortunately now unsaveable.

To save the government from its spending and debt, you’d have to slash so much.

And any politician who would want to be responsible like that wouldn’t be able to be elected in an election, especially when you have leftists in the main stream.
 
Taxes and government spending are unfortunately now unsaveable.

To save the government from its spending and debt, you’d have to slash so much.

And any politician who would want to be responsible like that wouldn’t be able to be elected in an election, especially when you have leftists in the main stream.
Not when so many are addicted to that candy man.
 
I'm willing to accept as a given that the government's legitimate expenses will increase with inflation. So government revenues will have to increase in the same proportion. My question is why don't governments set up systems to keep things in alignment.

OTOH, having worked for 8 years for the Federal government, and many more years than that in private industry, I know that a competent manager, given a free hand, could eliminate 25% of government spending - regardless of which government entity you are talking about - with no deterioration of the services that government provides. That's a whole different issue.

To me this is a good argument for government executives with private sector experience, and for term limits as well, so that for at least some of their tenure, politicians don't have to worry about getting re-elected.
 
In my home town of Pittsburgh (where nobody actually lives) there is a brouhaha currently over the County Executive's proposal to increase the millage rate for County taxes. It's only money so I don't care about it, but to me it raises an interesting issue.

For some reason our county (Allegheny) cannot do periodic system-wide reassessments. My cynical side says that the reason is because government employees are incompetent and lazy, but regardless, it "cannot" be done, and it hasn't been done in a generation. To avoid screwing property purchasers and people who build new houses, we have a "base year" assessment program that calculates what the property would have been worth in the Base Year (even if it didn't exist), then calculates the taxes based on that mythical value.

For this reason, County tax revenues do not go up at the same rate as county real estate values (and the cost of doing what the County does) and the executives have to raise taxes from time to time. What they do is propose an outrageously high tax increase, live through the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the local TV stations' interviews of old ladies who will have to become homeless if this happens. Then they cut it in half and raise the taxes by the amount that they intended to in the first place, telling "us" that we have dodged a bullet and should be grateful.

But seriously, if they just reassessed the property every couple years (this is the age of computers, is it not?), then we wouldn't have to go through this bullshit. Our taxes would go up, but there would be some logic to it.

And the same principle should apply to income taxes that are collected as a percentage of earnings. They should NEVER have to be increased. Especially if there is a graduated tax chart, and tax revenues increased at a rate greater than everyone's income.

If you have a fixed tax like a per Capita tax or a fixed amount, like the Federal gasoline tax, then it makes sense to have to increase that amount from time to time, but for other taxes, they should never have to be increased. Temporarily in times of war or national emergency, but after the cause goes away, the rates should revert to the norm.

Parenthetically, how long will it be before the Feds start charging a "road tax"' to EV owners who pay no gasoline tax? It's the right thing to do, eh?
As everything is now stream lined by computers and the internet, and thus workload reduced considerably, you would think taxes would come down. For example, nearly everything HMRC and government department wise is all online in the UK. So we don't deal with anyone, I verified a friend's passport photo yesterday, all online, no human needed, yet tax never falls. If any kind of single tax comes down somewhere, it's offset by red tape and increases elsewhere.

Vehicle Excuse Duty increases £5 every year, £335 now to tax my van, in return, I get an extra 5 potholes to negotiate 🤔
 
Taxes and government spending are unfortunately now unsaveable.

To save the government from its spending and debt, you’d have to slash so much.

And any politician who would want to be responsible like that wouldn’t be able to be elected in an election, especially when you have leftists in the main stream.
trumps-brain-is-fried-not-just-fried-its-burnt-at-this-point-v0-lafrk2mgh0vd1.png
 

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