The tax man cometh

A semi-secret re-evaluation of property by the UK Labor government is going on and will be made public after the next election. The authorities are adding to a home-owner's evaluation such intangible things as scenic view and proximity to a bus stop.

I'm not making this up.

On the scenic view business, there are eleven categories that range from "general scenic view" and "partial sea view" to "partial view of river."

There's even a classification for "available street parking."

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Reply to
HeyBub
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Other than the stealth part, I am not sure what the beef is. All of those (with the obvious exception of bus stops since busses aren't as an important travel consideration on this side of the pond) are considerations for property assessments, at least in Indiana. My assessed value went down for a few years while the gravel pit behind was active. Went up when they were done and pulled down the berms because I was suddenly water view.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

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Apparently you didn't notice that this is common practice in lots of areas including mine. And just ask yourself why the same house sells for more money if it is in a scenic location or has access to a school yard or whatever compared to one that doesn't.

Reply to
George

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Your taxes are based on property value and that, in turn, is based on what people will pay. Your tax is not assessed, directly, based on how many swimming pools you have, whether your gazebo is double-glazed, or whether your second-story balcony overlooks a nudist camp.

True, there's often a connection between property values and property amenities, but not necessarily. Suppose you had a modest shack situated between a hog-fat rendering plant on one side and a sewage treatment plant on the other. Your property value is close to zero. In the UK, if you add a swimming pool or the city puts a bus stop on the street, you get hit with a tax.

But maybe, to be fair, the authorities subtract assessed taxes for a non-scenic view. Or smell.

Just think of the regulations and bureaucrats necessary to implement this plan. You've got to have inspectors without number, computer programs, clerks, referees, administrative judges, printings, rolls, rules, uncountably many notaries public, writs by the wheel-barrow loads, and so on.

Reply to
HeyBub

Where I live, valuation and taxation really strange and involves the use of a Ouija Board.

First off, most of the town is on an Indian Reservation. Therefore, ALL homes and other improvements are technically leased for about 65 more years. The land is Indian-owned and therefore not taxed, just the improvements are.

Then, everything owned by the Nation has sovereign immunity and not taxed. All property owned by Indians is "immune" (not exempt).

Then, the for O/O homes the first 25,000 in value IIRC gets at STAR exemption. If you are over 65, it goes to $50,000. That eliminate most taxes.

Then if you're low income O/O, you get another exemption. Veterans gets exemptions. Volunteer Firemen get exemptions. It goes on and on.

So if you're a 65 year old, low income, veteran; you don't pay much in taxes.

About 40% of our homes are completely exempt (not counting the immune ones).

To calculate the taxes, though, that's where you need the Ouija Board. It seems the world stopped in 1968.

In 1968 they assessed the entire community based on Replacement Value using a Means Average. They take the squarefootage and look up the per s.f. value of that type of construction in the old 1968 book. Then they depreciate it as of 1968. A house built in 1900 would have about a 60% depreciation but a house built in 1968 or later has -0- depreciation. They take a per. s.f. value and multipy it by 104% because in 1968, it was 4% more expensive to build here than it was in Buffalo (the base city). It didn't seem to occur to them that if you multiply EVERYTHING by 4%, it is the same as multiplying NOTHING by

4%.

So with everything stuck in 1968 you get some interesting results. If you build on an addition with a nice porch, the addition (with 0% depreciation) might be valued about the same as the rest of your house (which has 60% depreciation). It's really weird.

Oh, for those who live on the Rez, there's a lease payment as well. It's about 5% of the value of the land and it's not appealable.

Reply to
PatM

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Yeah, they did something similar here, any way they can to get more money out of a person.

Governments are the only organizations that can adjust their income to fit their spending. Just try to do that yourself.

Reply to
EXT

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Coming soon to a town near you.

Here in CT some towns are doing the water thing. There is on the water, water view, partial water view. Some people are being forced from the family shore home that has been in the family for a few generation because of the big tax hit.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

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What if:

  • The homeowner is blind
  • All the windows, etc., that face the water are obstructed or don't exist
  • The pond is scummy
Reply to
HeyBub

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There's a house in Austin, TX that has one hell of a view, added one million to the house value.

Reply to
Rick Samuel

That must be the one near the nudist camp.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

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And here in Illinois, my tax assessment took a 78% jump a couple of years ago. When I asked why, the answer was "Well we looked at what they were getting for river frontage lots in that new subdivision upstream and decided to look at older river front homes and reasses them". Didn't make any difference when I explained that the new subdivision had city streets in front of the homes, city water and sewer along with the city services such as snow plowing that go with that. I'm on my own well and septic and at the end of a private lane that gets no service from the city. Seems to me that if they think the riverview is such an amenity to me, they should be paying the $11,000 I've just had to contract to rip/rap the bank to stop it from getting any closer to the house.

Tom G.

Reply to
Tom G

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