Taxes and More Taxes
Feb 21st, 2012 by Randy Toman
The Morning Call Newspaper Allentown, Pa. Front page carried this article. (See Link)
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-lehigh-county-reassessment-impact-20120220,0,4125394.story
The article “The Chips Fall in Lehigh County” by Samantha Marcus of the Morning Call February 21, 2012 had to do with how the Lehigh County is going to be affected by the property reassessment in the county.
I’ll be quoting a couple of lines from the article and attempting to make my points at the end;
“Municipalities facing the most tax increase include Coplay, Heidelberg Township, Lynn Township, Alburtis, Catasauqua, Coopersburg, Emmaus and Macungie.”
“Property owners in the northwestern townships face among the highest likelihood of tax increases.”
“There’s a lot of people of fixed income and they’re going to be the hardest hit.” Steven Hill, Alburtis Council president was quoted in the article.
“In a lot of cases, in areas that can least afford it, the smaller, older, working-class communities with lower-priced housing stock are going to bear the burden of the tax shift in the county, Cunningham said.”
Mr. Don Cunningham is Lehigh County Executive Director
“The high-end homes will be the winners of the equation, which is something I haven’t been able to get my head around in terms of why the net results of this is a kind of reverse Robin Hood, Cunningham said,”
My points:
1/ Don Cunningham doesn’t know Robin Hood was a thief and robbed of the rich and supposedly giving to the poor. The fact that he robbed from the rich, I guess in Cunningham’s eyes makes it alright. Sounds like what they want to do today, only they make it so called reasonable and palette able by saying they (the rich) should be paying more—-meaning paying a lot more, a larger percentage, all the while the progressive thinks that is fair and just.
2/ No wonder he can’t get his head around (this is a kind of reverse Robin Hood) because his thinking regarding the situation is upside down, backward and some what perverted as to what should be happening and what is justice.
3/ Nowhere in the article did Cunningham or the author of the article say anything about a just system and the fact that they would—–with the county wide reassessment put everyone on an even keel with a fair evaluation of their properties. With the reassessment—–all properties are to have a fair market value and all will be paying supposedly their fair share.
4/ Nowhere in the article did it say the lower valued properties were skating by all these years at a lower rate of taxation and letting the ones paying higher tax, having a wrong assessment pay to much in taxes. The injustice of a higher tax forced the person/family to struggle paying those higher taxes with no relief in sight until now.
5/ Nowhere in the article did it say that assessment should have been kept current, having property value fair and the assessment process done every ten years to assure the tax payer/property owner was being treated fairly. Has anyone thought about reimbursing those that have paid to much in taxes for years?—–I doubt it!
Now to my closing remarks:
The property tax system is not fair and I believe it to be Un-Constitutional. How is it that through taxation you never own your home or property? How is it, you can be thrown out of your home, and your property taken, in your later years, being on fixed income, were you cannot afford the taxes that have gone up well past anything that you could have project. You have a 30%—40% increase in total property taxes in the last 4-5 years and see no relief in sight and Cunningham did not say anything about property tax relief—Nothing.
Cunningham and the rest of the Lehigh and Northampton County leadership are in positions to see this problem—-The system can not be sustained, there is not enough value in the property to be able to tax the property at a rate viable to pull enough tax dollars out to sustain the governing bodies. They are fools and are acting foolishly in thinking property value will continue to go up—-when it fact the value has been in decline these last 3-4 years and realistically will remain in decline for at least the near future.
There is a movement under way in attempting to relieve the home owner of this tax burden. The concept is in spreading the tax burdens through “Sales Tax” with more of the citizens paying their fair share. Rep. Jim Cox of Berks County is working on HB 1776, a taxing concept that Cunningham should be researching and getting behind and not looking for some Robin Hood scheme, thinking it will save him and the County politicians.
All we get is Taxes and More Taxes.
We Shall See—Don’t you think?
Randy,
I believe that you are right on both the problem and the solution. The property tax is the most evil tax we have.
I also agree with you in principle on the “Robin Hood” thing. And what I am about to say does not change that, but sheds some light on it for what it’s worth:
My observation in speaking with a lot of people is that the more affluent ones are actually the ones that favor high property taxes. First, their reasoning is (I’m not judging here, I’m just repeating what THEY told me) that they want more and more from the schools and have no problem paying for it. Less frequent but more evil is the attitude that high taxes drive out the “average people” with whom they would rather not have next door. Yes, I’ve actually heard this.
So, no, I don’t go along with “Robin Hood” theft, but in a way many (not all) of them deserve it anyway.
How will the “poor” be better off when the “rich” who pay for the poor, will be taxed into oblivion? The whole purpose of government these days is to steal from the rich and to redistribute other people’s money awhile they themselves live of the tax payers!
Another point: We are to believe we “own” our homes by having a deed to our property, but if we don’t pay our property taxes, the government will sell our property on the courthouse steps. Look at it this way: We are really paying the government rent (property taxes) so we can stay in our homes. At the same time, we have all the liabilities (like insurance, maintenance and taxes) while the government has none. They do the same thing with business! The people in business take all the risks, invest their money and spent countless hours to succeed and the government passes laws to take their money and regulate their business. We are the providers and the politicians are the takers. Robin Hood stole from the rich who stole from the poor and gave it back to the poor. Our politicians steal from the rich and give to the poor and get voted back in office so they can perpetuate their scheme to stay in office and give themselves a fat paycheck and other goodies like free healthcare and a life long retirement account and then they brag about how they are champions for the poor. I call them legal crooks!
As I have said many times, social engineering like welfare and Afirmative Action will destroy us!
You are so right about property taxes…the government has stolen our houses, and rents them back to us. This is an incredibly evil scheme, and it is too bad that our pastors are not leading the charge to abolish this immoral, unbiblical blight.
As to the government stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, I wouldn’t be too fast on that. How do you like the hundreds of millions of dollars that you and I paid in bonuses to the Big Boys on Wall Street? Or the hundreds of millions in “foreign aid” that goes to the Neocons’ and Democrats’ favorite dictators to buy safety for our corporations to offshore their operations, and to manipulate geopolitical activities for the benefit of…you and me? I don’t think so. Yes, socialistic welfare handouts are a big problem too, but I think are mainly to keep the political waters safe for the Big Boys as they steal the capital built up by many generations of Americans.
As an aside…the federal budget is approximately $11,000 PER YEAR for EVERY man, woman, and child…about $44,000 for a family of four. Ron Paul is the only candidate with a real plan to cut it, and they say he’s “radical”. I say ALL THE OTHERS are radical, because they support a system that costs a family of four $44,000 JUST for FEDERAL spending. How many families can pay $1.32 MILLION dollars in JUST FEDERAL taxes in the thirty years that they raise their family?