Yet another Ebay sap..

[Mike Marlow]

I am disappointed in this response Doug. I'll take up some of the slack for you...

For those of us who have finally gotten out from underneath our mortgages, many are still under the burden of those college educations we contributed to, still have car payments, now (or soon will have) have grand children that we contribute to, pay for weddings, and lots of other costs that the previous poster cannot yet see. In short, the previous poster is not well informed with respect to the costs associated with moving on past the child raising stage of life.

This is the one that you really let me down on Doug. Again - I'll take point on this one...

"has decided to spend society's money"????? Therein lies the problem in the previous poster's perspective. Society has no money of its own. It taxes people to raise money. Translation - it spends the money that belongs to people. It decides how to spend other people's money. It's an attitude like this that is so damned annoying. Folks run around thinking that because they want something, or think they need it, they have the right to impose upon the finances of those around them in the name of society, and then justify that by such empty arguments as were stated above, that other (older, richer, etc.) people don't need their money as much as the greedy ones need to get it from them, for their own desires.

[Mike Marlow]

Define "equitable".

Now distinguish between "equitable" and that which is merely comfortable, or more convenient for you - at this point in your life.

[J. Clarke]

Which doesn't address the problem. The only way that government spending will ever be brought under control is to separate the power to tax and borrow from the power to spend. As long as the same people control both they'll spend taxpayer money to buy votes until they've bled the public dry.

[Tom Veatch]

Now distinguish between "equitable" and that which is merely comfortable, or

See above.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[Tom Veatch]

Mike, in case you missed it, the point was that dealing with the spending side of the equation does not solve any problems associated with the collecting side of the equation. Unless, of course, the spending is reduced to zero.

If government spends X amount of money, cutting the expenditure to 1/2 X, 1/4 X, 1/100000 X doesn't address any problems associated with collecting those funds, however much the total may be.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[Mike Marlow]

The reason that I asked what your definition was Tom, is that the dictionary definition as pointed to by you, does not match your application of that term in my opinion.

[Mike Marlow]

In fairness Tom, there are probably points that I did indeed miss, as I joined this thread late in its life. Sorry if anything I throw out may be already covered.

I agree with your point in the second paragraph above, but that by itself is somewhat disassociated with how either of us use the term "equitable", or like discussions on the merit of the current property tax formula.

[Mark & Juanita]

Thank-you for that very cogent and absolutely spot-on assessment. This attitude and idea that it is "society's" money is quite frightening as it implies a certain entitlement mindset; i.e, there is a certain amount of a country's wealth and prosperity that should be used as some ruling entity determines vs. the idea that a society and country requires a certain level of government activity to allow private endeavors to prosper but that amount should be the absolute minimum required to allow government to perform its most basic functions.

Evidence of this is apparent in such things as one of Hillary's recent speeches were, when speaking about oil companies' profits she made the comment, "When I'm president, I'm going to take those profits and use them to fund health care, .... " That is an entitlement mindset, seeking to reap from the work of others and use it to buy a dependency class votes

[Dave Hall]

However, the thread is about property taxes and, as far as I know, congress does not hit us up with property taxes.

Dave Hall

[Tom Veatch]

To be honest, Mike, I'm not sure that there is any taxation scheme that is "equitable", that is, fair and balanced across the entire population, or by any other objective definition. Certainly not from the perception of the person who has to fork over the money.

As a first thought, and presented simply as a jumping off point for discussion, the concept of "user fee" seems to approach most closely my idea of "fair and equitable" taxation. Those who use the service should be the ones who pay the cost of the service. If I go into a doughnut shop and get a doughnut, I'm the one who pays, not the person who happens to be walking along the sidewalk outside the shop. Why should government services be different?

Of course that leaves open the big question of "Who is the user?". Is the criminal the "user" of the police service, or is the general population that is protected (debatable) from the criminal the "user"? Is the person whose property is ablaze the "user" of the Fire Department, or is the neighbor whose property is endangered by the fire the "user"?

I believe any general fund taxation based solely on the value of a property, whether that property be "real property" or an income stream is "inequitable" since it focuses on an assumed "ability to pay" rather than focusing on what generates the cost and applying the tax burden to those cost generators. An ad valorem property tax might be appropriate for support of Fire Departments since the risk to the owner (assumed use of the system) can be considered to be in direct proportion to the value of the property. Ad valorem taxation for the support of "Parks and Recreation" is inequitable since there is no correlation between the value of a person's property and their use of the service.

In my opinion, the tax on highway fuels is one tax that approaches an "equitable" classification. Ignoring the efficiency of government in applying those funds, this is a case of the user of the service (the highway system) is the one who pays the bill. If you don't drive on the highway, you don't pay the "highway tax" - at least not directly. Commercial transportation firms include the taxes they pay in the tariff they charge their customer who pays the bill as the beneficiary of and "end user" of the highway/transportation system.

No matter how the payment pie is sliced, someone is going to be the one whose ox is gored. But, I guess what annoys me the most, and has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, are those professional politicians who feel my pocketbook is an appropriate source of funds for them to use to buy re-election.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[Dave Hall]

Wow! I don't know how you managed to so thoroughly misinterprete what I was saying. I certainly did not say that retired folks have an ability to pay MORE than others, I was refuting the concept that just because you are old you should automatically pay LESS. Being old does not make one poor and should not be an exemption from taxes. Being poor, at any age, may be such a reason.

I also did not imply that all money belong's to society. However, society does (via its laws and people's votes) decide how they want to spend money. They (really meaning us as a society) then must get that money from us citizens. Instead of us always focusing on how "they" are going to get that money from us, maybe we should focus on why "we" are spending so much of it. To debate how to raise the money is simply an excercise in trying to make the other guy pay for the stuff that we all (via our freely elected government) seem to want government to buy for us. By the way, my house is paid for, my kids are grown and out of college, my grandsons are a joy that I wish we weren't saddling with all of our deficit spending, and I am still working and paying taxes (federal, state, county, municipal and school).

Dave Hall

[Mike Marlow]

No - you said that a large percentage have a greater ability to pay ("but in reality a very large percentage of "senior citizens" have a better ability to pay than middle aged people who have mortgages, car payments, kids to raise and colleges to pay for"). I disagreed with this broad generalization. Being old is not what resulted in a lower property tax payment as was I believe, the point at hand. It is not a matter of paying less because of age.

And societies get out of hand with their desires and expectations too. Simply because society (really, a portion of that society) may have a whim, does not justify that whim.

Society is the citizenry. The problem really stems from the fact that society does not make these decisions. Special interests makes these decisions. School Boards decide upon what you'll pay in school taxes (the fox guarding the hen house), politicians empowered to spend your money decide on how much money you'll pay in taxes (that fox again), etc.

Agreed - but that is different from the initial statement that I responded to.

There is no real association between what "we all want" and an elected government.

You old fart...

[Doug Miller]

You fail to consider the alternative: talking about reducing government spending so that *everybody* pays less in taxes.

[Doug Miller]

Nobody said that.

Nobody said that, either.

The phrase "society's money" does indeed imply just that. Neither "society" nor government has any money of its own. It's my money, your money, his money

-- our money as *individuals*. Whatever the government has, it has only because it took it from us as individuals.

[Dave Hall]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:52:04 -0500, "Mike Marlow" wrote:

In many areas there is indeed a specific exemption in property taxes for those over a certain age, regardless of wealth, income or any other measurement of "ability" to pay. This exemtion was addressed in this thread, I believe, in the message that I was directly responding to when I first posted. My point was and still is that if you own a $100,000 house and are age 65 and earn $75,000 a year (including pensions, investment income, social security and any wages) and I own a $100,000 house and am age 50 with a total income of $75,000 (including all sources as above) and we both live in the same community, I do not see why you should pay a lower property tax than I simply due to the age difference. In most cases the generalization made in support of passing these blanket exemptions is that the "poor retiiree" is living on a "fixed income". In reality it is because a much higher percentage of people over 65 vote than those of a younger age (shame on those youngsters). They are in fact a "special interest" such as those that you take umbrage to later on in your response. My statement was that older folks are often painted as being unable to shoulder the burden (a painting they often brush oin themselves) when in fact many are at least as able to shoulder the burden as those folks of somewhat lesser years with similar total incomes. I stick by that assertion in the context presented. I do not assert that because a younger family person has family cost responsibilities that they should get any tax reduction, just that they should not be penalized.

We all vote for the folks that have the authority to act or choose not to act on that whim.

Who elected them???

politicians empowered to spend your money

Who elected them??? They did not get into power by some birthright, "society" chose these leaders. "Society" chose the structures by which we are governed. I also have problems with what elected officials and governing bodies choose to do, but I cannot divorce myself from them - I am part of the citizenry that selected them whether I like it or not.

Getting older (and fartier) by the day as my wife (who is 3 months younger than I) loves to point out - especially during the 3 months during which I and "a year older" than her ;-)

Dave Hall