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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (392752)	4/15/2003 5:09:58 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

higher fed income tax flowing from higher property and state tax...talk about adding insult to injury Property tax tops list of least-favorite taxes Tue Apr 15, 5:54 AM ET Add Business - USA TODAY to My Yahoo! Thomas A. Fogarty USA TODAY It's scant consolation on this April 15, but there's something Americans dislike more than the federal income tax: local property tax. Thirty-eight percent of adults identify the property tax as the worst tax vs. 21% who cite the federal income tax, according to a Gallup Poll. Smaller proportions cite the Social Security (news - web sites) tax and state sales and income taxes as the worst, or ''least fair.'' The poll reflects a sharp change from 1994, the last time Gallup asked the question. Then, income and property taxes were neck-and-neck for the public designation as worst tax. For most of the 1980s, the decade after enactment of California's property tax-limiting Proposition 13 in 1978, the federal income tax polled as the worst. Larry Naake, executive director of the National Association of Counties, says local governments have increased property taxes as federal and state governments have required more without providing additional aid. His latest example: homeland security. ''Property taxes have been going up around the country, and maybe this is a cumulative reaction to that,'' Naake says of the poll. The average property tax burden was $885 per person in 2000, double the 1985 figure, according to the most recent numbers from the Census Bureau (news - web sites). Financial pressure on local governments seems unlikely to lessen anytime soon. The federal government is facing an estimated $400 billion budget deficit this year. Meanwhile, states are attempting to close a cumulative $80 billion shortfall next year. Property tax is particularly loathsome to Easterners -- 49% identified it as the worst tax vs. 26% of those in the West. All income brackets view the property tax as the worst, Gallup says. But among households with incomes of $75,000-plus, the gap tightens: 36% cite the property tax; 27% cite the federal income tax. Dale Eller, a security consultant from Erie, Pa., considers the property tax least fair because it hurts the elderly most and because local officials appear incapable of maintaining fair property assessments, the base on which the tax is levied. Dwain Willingham, a businessman from Mission, Kan., says the real problem lies with excessive, inefficient government. Picking the worst tax, Willingham says, is like deciding, ''Which is worse? Getting sick on bad shrimp or on bad clams?''