Chris Johnson: <snip>... sales taxes are among the fairest taxes available. One only pays in > proportion to what one spends, and one typically spends in good > correlation to what they can afford. Sales taxes are also pretty much > voluntary taxes, unless they are on food and shelter, which they are not > in this state. Further, if one does not like the tax rate in > Minneapolis, one can go to another city. > > Income taxes are relatively fair, too. One pays taxes relative to how > much one makes, which is a good measure of how much tax one can afford > to pay. > > But cities and counties in Minnesota cannot use sales or income taxes. > They can only levy property taxes, one of the least fair taxes. > I have neighbors who have lived in their homes for > 40, 50 years and more. Back when they bought their homes, they were > working full-time, and their homes cost $5,000 to $20,000 to buy. > Now they are retired, and their homes are "WORTH" $250,000 for property > tax purposes. They are stuck paying high property taxes with reduced > income. These people have not realized any financial gain, yet are being > taxed out of their homes. I recall back in the 1980s there were a number > of people in the Lake of the Isles neighborhoods who literally had to sell > their homes because they could not afford the taxes.
Mark Anderson: You know, I tried before, to no avail, to fight this perception that property taxes are "unfair." I don't see why sales tax or income tax are any more "fair" than property tax. Those retired people with expensive houses are consuming beyond their means. I guess I don't see it as the tragedy that others do when people have to downgrade their housing when their income declines. Property tax is a "voluntary" tax in the same sense that sales tax is, because the residents always have the choice to consume different housing. Chris Johnson: > > I sure hope Pawlenty [is?] trying to solve the state's problems with > > his budget, and not other jurisdictions. HE was elected to run the > > state. > > He's paying off his friends and supporters. Eliminate LGA > completely, and stop taking tax revenue from Minneapolis to pay for > other localities share of state-wide enterprise tax revenue, and > Minneapolis would be just fine. But that would gore the oxen of all > those neocons who support Pawlenty, so that'll never happen. Mark Anderson: Chris, I'm really confused here. First you say he's paying off his supporters by balancing the state budget (in part by cutting LGA). Then you say he won't cut LGA to zero because it'll tick off his supporters. Are you talking about different supporters in the different sentences? It's true that the Republican base in the suburbs doesn't like LGA because they get little of it, and the Republican outstate base generally support LGA because they get disproportionate amounts. So Pawlenty won't cut LGA our completely, because it would antagonize too many Republicans, even though it might please even more. Is that what you meant? Is there something insidious about this? Chris Johnson: > Those poor suburbs with so little taxable property -- like Edina > with Southdale and Bloomington with the Mall of America. Mark Anderson: Have you looked downtown recently? One mall is nothing compared to the many skyscrapers in Mpls. Chris Johnson: > Let's also ignore the fact that fringe suburbs are under pressure to > constantly grow their populations and commercial properties to pay for > what they are already spending. And ignore that the Metropolitan Council, > funded by Minneapolis and St. Paul is building sewers for those suburbs. Mark Anderson: Well I've heard conflicting stories on that -- don't know if we're truly paying for suburban sewers. But that's a good reason to stop money flying all over, so we can tell who's paying for what. The central city certainly shouldn't be paying for the expansion of the exurbs (sp?). Pawlenty got a good start; now we should finish what he began. I previously said: > > It's about time that we decide how much we want to spend and tax > > ourselves that amount. Nice job, Pawlenty! >Chris Johnson: > That's really a jaw-dropper -- complimenting Pawlenty on something he is > not doing in the least. I'd be all in favor of Minneapolis deciding how > much to tax ourselves and how much to spend. But Pawlenty and his cohorts > in the legislature have taken as much of the authority to decide > anything as they can away from Minneapolis. Mark Anderson: Well pick up your jaw and explain it to me. Pawlenty took away much of MN spending on localities, forcing localities to decide where they truly want to spend money. I celebrate this increase in accountability. As far as the state taking away Mpls' authority to place their own taxes; well you certainly can't focus the blame on Pawlenty for that. Mpls has never had such authority in the past -- the current government is no more to blame than any other for the last 150 years. And more important, there hasn't even been any request from our fair city to add such taxing authority. (or did I miss something?) The State certainly can't be blamed for not adding authority that hasn't been requested. Mpls much prefers the "free" money of LGA -- that way they get kudos for spending without being blamed for a tax increase. Mark Anderson Bancroft TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
