Property Taxes and a short aside on the Civil Liberties discussion. Can someone point me at a nice concise description of the difference between a "progressive" and "regressive" tax?
A snapshot of property tax impact (not a statement for or against property taxes): The timing's kind of ironic, but I received a statement from my mortgage company this week notifying me that my escrow amounts were going up due to increases in hazard insurance and property tax. (This is from the 7% 2000 - 2001 increases, not the upcoming 20% increase). I run on a pretty low margin, so the impact is probably going to be that I'm going to have to raise my tennants rent to cover a portion of it. (I'm going to eat a part of it as well since I do live in one of the units). Since I haven't been raise their rents on a market basis, I'm hoping it won't be too rough on them this year. I'm a bit concerned about next year when that 20% increase kicks in. If the city/county needs more money, they're going to have to get it from somewhere. If they don't raise property taxes, they'll have to raise sales tax or start a city-level income tax. Either of these will impact people's lives as well. Property tax makes sense to a point - it costs the city money to service properties and if one could buy a ton of property and sit on it at NO cost, it could be hard on the neighborhoods that property was in. On the other hand, someone who scrapes together enough to buy a house, improves it with a bunch of sweat equity, and means to grow old and die there should not be driven out of their property due to tax increases. In general, I'd prefer to see property tax held relatively steady with inflation and the occassional referendum and use income/sales taxes to handle increased funding needs. I'd personally place it on income. Exempt the first $XX (based on the poverty line) and flat tax all income earned after that point - whether it's from income, profits, capital gains, or any other source. As an aside, I'd like to see a law that anyone involved in setting tax law or policy is required to do their own taxes without the aide of an accountant or tax software. Anyhoo, Keith, on the Civil Liberties thing, can we leave parties out of it so that we can discuss it without automatic polarization? Yes, this town has been in DFL control for a long time, so it is easy to conclude that everything that has happened here is the fault of DFLers. It's probably not that simple, but I really don't care that much. We have some new and different folks serving the city now, so lets expect them to do better than their predecesors and lets hold them to it. Let's not make it a partisan issue. For the record, I like the idea of the city taking a stand that it will defend the rights and liberties of the citizens of Minneapolis. - Jason Goray, Sheridan, NE __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
