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August 6, 2008 - 5:59pm.
Legislators Must Act Soon! It should be obvious by now that we need to eliminate or at the least aggressively reduce property taxes as they are. However, I am against the property tax petition at www.texastaxpayers.com because increasing the sales tax is just applying another regressive form of taxation that hurts those who can least afford it. Instead, a more fair and more evenly distributed SYSTEM OF SEVERAL TAX SOURCES are needed that will replace the burden of property taxation on any ONE segment of the population --- otherwise, we simply are shifting around the burden to another population group that also is overburdened. By the way, we also need to reduce the new business tax to a more sensible level and redistribute that burden as well. So far, our officials are a big disappointment in determining a more fair distribution of taxes, which basically is used to finance public education. Honestly, it is NOT such a big deal to determine a few sources for financing public education and our lawmakers have been slacking-off for the past decade in reviewing such a fix. Time to deal with it more swiftly. Let your Senators and House Reps know how you feel about it. Contacts: Governor Rick Perry: http://www2.governor.state.tx.us/contact/ Citizen's Opinion Hotline: 1-800-252-9600 Senate: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/Members.h... House of Representatives: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/welcome.php ---
Capitol Hill Blue's columnists, blogs and reader comments Capitol Hill Blue is an independent, non-partisan news site that belongs to no political party and subscribes to no political or philosophical point-of-view. Our columnists are welcome to their opinions but readers should understand that their views do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies of this web site. We also welcome comments to selected opinion columns and in our popular ReaderRant discussion forum. Please remember, however, that we believe in civility on this web site and comments may be reviewed, moderated or removed if we feel they contain obscenities, racism, bigotry, anti-Semitic remarks or attack other posters. Our goal is reasoned discussion on issues facing this nation and we do not feel that goal is served by personal attacks and by seeing how many cute adjectives you can attach to an elected official or politician's name. Copyright © 2008 Capitol Hill Blue
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Mr. Stern: It's facile to
Submitted by churlpat on August 6, 2008 - 9:35pm.Mr. Stern:
It's facile to say that the fix is easy, but you don't offer any fixes. Have you something concrete in mind?
What IS a fair tax? If you can answer that question you are not only eligible for Mensa you're eligible for sainthood. We've been trying since the first tax was imposed to answer that question. No one has done so, so far as I know.
Churlpat -- a plutarch by any name is still a plutarch
OK... let's walk out on that
Submitted by almandine on August 6, 2008 - 9:46pm.OK... let's walk out on that limb.
How about the Fair Tax... even for Texas, not to mention the US. Got any experts out there?
I provided a basic or
Submitted by pstern on August 6, 2008 - 9:48pm.I provided a basic or general idea above:
"Instead, a more fair and more evenly distributed SYSTEM OF VARIABLE TAX SOURCES are needed that will replace the burden of property taxation on any ONE segment of the population —- otherwise, we simply are shifting around the burden to another population group that also is overburdened."
To go a step further:
I am NOT advocating an increase of NEW taxes or taking too much from certain taxpayers.
I AM advocating reducing the school tax portion of property taxes and then providing a better distribution of it in the state taxes we currently are paying.
In this instance, we reduce a large amount of the taxes paid by homeowners and then systematically but intelligently make-up the difference in several other taxes via VERY small increases; thereby, replacing the amount taken and redistributing it by increasing by a small amount each of those taxes selected, e.g., hotel tax, transportation tax, luxury tax, sales tax, service tax, etc., etc.
It's like balancing the budget —- which our lawmakers also have a hard time with —- only we would be BALANCING OUR TAXES more among the entire community instead of overburdening certain groups, like homeowners or businesses.
Mr Stern: You are “not
Submitted by churlpat on August 7, 2008 - 3:44pm.Mr Stern:
You are “not advocating an increase of new taxes or taking too much from certain taxpayers.” "too much?" ROFL!
I'm sorry, but I cannot make any sense out of that. Go back to what I previously said about fair taxes. There exists in the world no such animal, never has, never will. If you have a regressive tax the poor are paying what they perceive as a disproportionate share of the taxes. If you have a progressive tax the rich are paying what they perceive as a disproportionate share. A tax on businesses is almost always a regressive tax because the poor are going to pay an equal percentage on purchases as is paid by the multimillionaire. Since the business owner is not going to pick and choose those he wants to pass the tax on to.
You advocate reducing some part of property taxes that is earmarked for schools, favoring instead tax revenues from “the state taxes (you) currently are paying.” Sales tax? Income tax? Excise tax? Gasoline tax? Inventory tax? Gross receipts tax? What I think I hear you saying is you think property taxes are too high, and that the governmental units assessing the taxes need to find other sources to run their government. But you don't want to take anything but very small increases in any one tax.
Any change you make to increase any tax has an a negative effect upon someone, somewhere. Please refer back to the paragraphs above. So long as people have different income levels, different family sizes and types, differing housing, etc., etc., there can never be fairness.
In many ways, a property tax to finance county and city governments is about as fair as you are going to get (which isn't very.) The reality is that YOU and you alone determine how much property tax you are going to pay. If you live in a million dollar McMansion but don't want to pay the taxes, you simply sell it and move to something smaller. Note though that even if you pay rent, you are the one eventually paying the property tax, because the landlord isn't going to absorb the tax. She's going to pass it on to you. If you want to cut your taxes by 99 percent move out of that million dollar house into a $10K trailer.
I will submit to you that taxing a lot of different things a little more is just as unfair in both long and short run as taxing property. Someone is going to get pinched. Government's impossible task is to try to see that the pinch applies equally to everyone. How? See my previous post re sainthood.
Churlpat -- a plutarch by any name is still a plutarch
By the way, one of the big
Submitted by pstern on August 6, 2008 - 9:52pm.By the way, one of the big problems over the years in finding a fix has been that the GOP platform has been vehement in "No New Taxes" and "No Tax Increases", even though the legislature has diverted some state taxes, fees and penalties onto local governments, who in turn have overburdened their local homeowners and other residents.
Why do taxes need to be
Submitted by woody188 on August 7, 2008 - 12:46am.Why do taxes need to be collected at all. Why can't we find a way for the government to fund itself.
"There is no such thing as
Submitted by pstern on August 7, 2008 - 5:53pm."There is no such thing as 'fair' taxes."
Maybe not completely fair, but overall it can be more fair than it currently is.