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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael M who wrote (66393)	12/13/1999 3:04:00 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

My property taxes are 3800 a year and our neighbors across the street are paying 500. IS that equitable? If we were paying the SAME taxes the state would have more money to do more with. OR the State could lower my taxes and raise my neighbors so we each pay a fair share- but it is not a fair apportionment of tax burden that we pay 7 times more than our neighbors. I don't care how you justify it that isn't fair. I see this as a clear discrimination case.

To: Michael M who wrote (66393)	12/13/1999 11:37:00 AM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Do you think your property taxes would be lower now without 13? Please check for once before answering. Yes I do. Let me tell you why. It is not because rates would actually be lower. They would likely be the same, which rate-wise is the same as the rest of the country. But property values would be lower- in some cases much lower- because under the current system we have a situation where there is a HUGE incentive never to move, under any circumstances, because the current homeowners are reaping the rewards of rapid price appreciation with no increased tax liability. Its like an economic sieve... nobody ever moves, companies that located themselves here 20 yrs ago are growing, and new workers HAVE to come in. In one town in Burlingame where a few hot software companies are located there are 7 houses on the market between 500K-1mm. Seven! This stupid property law is strangling business around here. The real tragedy in all this is that a side effect of this law is that boucoup revenues from businesses are being sacrificed too, since the no-reassessment policy also applies to business (in fact I think it was Macy's that tried to overturn it once when they went into a new Mall and had to pay X times more in taxes than their competition). I am sure the authors of the law didn't think this through, but they have created an anticompetitive climate that should be illegal - I have no idea why it is not. As far as your "please check for once" silliness, you are underprepared to debate me on this if you really expected me to answer that property tax rates would be lower. Take a basic economics course.