DL Open Thread: Weds., July 31, 2019
I’m a News-Journal subscriber. Some times, many times, in fact, I’ve asked myself why. But there’s a brilliant piece, the kickoff piece of reporting, by Xerxes Wilson, in today’s paper about the inequities of how property taxes are assessed in Delaware. It’s subscriber-only, and worth getting a subscription for. A brief excerpt may whet your appetite:
It is a systemic issue stemming from the fact that Delaware’s three counties haven’t updated the property values used for taxing purposes in some four decades.
It has led to a situation where some residents – often those with the most valuable homes – are taxed pennies on every dollar of their home’s actual worth, while others pay taxes based on closer to the full value of their property.
It produces head-scratching comparisons like this throughout Delaware: From the oceanfront beach mansions to the rural expanses of Sussex County and from northern New Castle County’s Chateau Country down to blighted streets in Wilmington.
These disparities exist among new and old homes, from town to town, neighborhood to neighborhood and in some cases block to block.
Critics say it has created a taxing system that gifts a hidden tax break to the wealthy, a break paid for by the relatively property poor. If you believe one’s tax bill should rise parallel with their property wealth, it is an unfair situation.
The problem is there hasn’t been a comprehensive update of those property valuations in 45 years in Sussex County, 36 years in New Castle County and 33 years for Kent County. Some cities have updated, but county governments and local school districts, which take in the most property taxes, use the outdated figures.
Some of the situations cited in this initial article will make your blood boil. Buy a paper, or get a subscription.
CNN Debate Moderators Used Conservative Talking Points To Frame Debate. I think they were cowed by Trump. You can’t spell ‘coward’ w/o c-o-w. Grow a pair. Of anything.
Nixon And Reagan: Racist Forerunners To Trump. The tapes don’t lie.
Bipartisanship West Virginia-Style: State leaders are pushing for a federal subsidy to build a hyuuge ‘mammoth underground storage facility — big enough to hold the U.S. Capitol complex, or 10 million barrels of the liquid byproducts used in plastics manufacturing’. They’ve been paid off handsomely by the industry. Uh, guess they won’t be banning plastic bags any time soon.
Rural Hospitals Shutting Down In States That Didn’t Accept Obamacare. I’m sorry, but these fucking mouthbreathers who voted for Trump and their local RWNJ’s who hate anything with ‘Obama’ in it have nobody to blame but themselves. Why should I feel sorry for them?
What do you want to talk about?
Read the Reagan quote, racist off the charts, but not all that surprising. As for reassessing property values I doubt I’ll live to see it, the politicians are all cowardly to the quick and fear the rich. If performed it would balance the states budget unto perpetuity, until the politicians effed everything up again.
That quote needs to be broadcast far and wide. Here it is:
It’s also worth noting that this exchange had not been released until the author of the Atlantic piece FOIA’d it. They know how bad they sound.
why not just reassess the property values each time a house is sold or transferred.
Because many homes are not sold or transferred.
some, not many. and the article gives only examples that would have been moot if the taxes are based on the most recent sale price
You have nothing but your opinion to back that up. Many, many people spend 20 years or more in a house. Many more live in houses that their parents paid off.
It’s just a weak idea. You’re better off realizing it than defending it. There’s nothing at stake but your ego, as nobody is going to take your advice anyway.
I’m starting to wonder if bad police behavior is exacerbated when more than one cop is on the scene:
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/horrifying-video-shows-dallas-cops-violently-detain-man-who-called-911-for-help-and-then-died-as-they-mocked-him/
From the News Journal Article:
“This court made clear its view that real property in the three counties of Delaware should be reassessed,” attorneys for New Castle County government wrote in court filings. “However, this is not the right case, and these are not the right plaintiffs or defendants, to achieve that goal.”
I don’t necessarily disagree with that statement, but the court system appears to be the only recourse when politicians refuse to do their jobs. Matt Meyer should be ashamed for fighting this.
Right. I’ve seen no rush from New Castle County Council to do this on their own.
They won’t do it until/unless they’re forced to do it. We can only hope that the court is the action-forcing mechanism.
Glad you read the full article.
Pols won’t touch this — fear of raising taxes, however unfounded, scares them all off. The courts have to intervene and enforce the laws on the books about fair assessments. It seems like this case, however imperfect, may achieve this.
As for re-assessment when a house is sold, that creates a huge problem. Say there are 2 identical houses, side by side, each assessed at $25,000. If one of them sells for $75,000, that buyer will pay three times the taxes of the house next door, not to mention three times what the previous owner paid. Would YOU buy a house under those conditions? In general, any house with a sale price over the assessed value will never sell under that rule.
Not that it’s not being done. See California, state of.
You mean the state where they raised taxes and the economy boomed? I don’t think that applies here.
As for the fear of taxes, I’ve read (though I can’t find a link) that the median payout before more than 50% of people will accept a 50-50 bet (a coin flip in the experiments) is $2.20. That is, most people won’t accept a 50-50 bet, which is what they perceive reassessment to be.
In truth, though, it’s a 2-1 bet — in other jurisdictions, given a revenue-neutral reassessment, the results split almost evenly between higher, lower and staying the same. So while you have only a 1-in-3 chance of winning, you also have only a 1-in-3 chance of losing. That’s right about the level at which people will accept the risk, if you can educate them about the fact that there are actually three possible outcomes. But it won’t be easy. Americans don’t like draws.
Mathematically, you’re right, but until the results are in and everyone can see what they’re going to pay, a huge number of people are convinced (without any knowledge) that THEY will pay more. Which, to my point, reassessment has to be mandated. We have a state law that is not enforced. What to do? Courtroom time.
I didn’t know about Florida.
And as for California booming when they raised taxes, we’re talking property taxes and the Proposition 13-Jarvis movement in the 1970s. The cap on property taxes crippled all sorts of institutions, not least the state university system.
“until the results are in and everyone can see what they’re going to pay, a huge number of people are convinced (without any knowledge) that THEY will pay more”
Yes, that was my point.
The reason I mentioned California is that the booming economy of today is why property values keep going up there. That’s not Delaware’s situation. This is a low-tax state, which is why we have a constant influx of retirees from higher-tax states.
The UC system crippled?
UC has 10 campuses (the latest in Merced opened just 13 years ago). A full professor salary ranges from $86,800–$158,400. They manage 4 federally funded national laboratories, 2 observatories, 5 medical centers, and 1 super computer. They have an $11 billion endowment and annual budget of $34 billion.
If only all institutions were so crippled.
With all due respect, California isn’t really germane to the discussion. Though it is worth pointing out that, if you can’t raise property taxes, it means increases in other taxes, most of them more regressive.
Given that the US doesn’t tax wealth, property taxes are one of the few ways of making the idle rich pay their share.
Delaware’s tax profile is totally out of whack, in part because the state derives so much revenue from playing Grand Cayman of the Mainland. But we have no sales tax (though the gross receipts tax acts as a hidden sales tax, it’s only about 2%, much lower than most sales taxes), property taxes are among the lowest outside the deep South, and even our income tax, once among the highest, is now only middle of the pack.
I have long advocated a statewide property tax for school funding, a need made more urgent by the public’s reluctance to tax itself by referendum. This would have the benefit of concentrating school district efforts on education instead of wasting time plumping for a tax increase every couple of years.
Or Florida as well.