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WTH?

H20fwler

H20fwler

5 year old buck +
So, in our local paper last week the county posted a "Heads Up" on this year’s property tax increase. It will jump on average 25%-30% for property owners.

What a load of overreaching crap! They have bumped it a few times already in the past ten years and none of it makes any sense, no rhyme or reason to it or for it except greed.
I would like to see what kind of kangaroo scale they use to come up with some of the assessed values they post, all over the place identical properties getting charged good sized differences.
A 90% Republican County but just as corrupt and greedy as any politicians anywhere.

It is like we are all just renting the land from the king.
 
25 to 30 is crazy. To bad a bunch of landowners couldn't get together and fight it
 
When I first bought my land I checked the cost of taxes and thought it wasn't bad at all. That changed the second year of ownership. Taxes jumped like you're seeing. Went to the open book meeting and found out that the township wasn't keeping up with the state requirements for land values.

In Wisconsin the state department of revenue sets the value for a township (don't know the process for this) then tells the township to pay the bill. I guess it's up to the township to levy the taxes on the property owners.

I know of a group of land owners who did as Bill suggests. It's a hunting club that somehow managed to put all the land into MFL and the taxes dropped so much that the township was afraid they couldn't collect enough taxes to fund the budget. I'm not sure how it panned out but they proved a point about recreational land being taxed too much.
 
Inflation is a monster that's hitting governments at the state and local level that actually do some things like infrastructure maintenance. 25-30% seems a tad generous though. I would find a dork that can side by side the annual budgets and find out where the problem is.

Where I live, the city is killing us with rate increases on every damn thing they can think of: garbage rates, water rates, special assessments, fee increases, and property taxes. Then throw in higher natural gas consumption and rising interest rates, and we're on the verge of an housing affordability problem spilling over into chaos.

There's got to be some hard choices made in this country about all this crap. We can't let the beast sink the ship, or it all goes down anyway. I wish they'd give me the red pen. I'd have this shit ironed out before my first coffee gets cold.
 
Where I live, a lot of the municipal governments haven't been planning for required infrastructure. Many of the sewer and water authorities aren't nearly big enough or up to modern codes. There are huge new costs to modernize or replace. Some have been privatized, but that's just scapegoating the private companies vs past gov decisions.
 
My property taxed dropped this year, but the only reason it dropped was because I was finally able to claim a gambling tax credit that is only for the property you live on, and you had to live there full time for 3 years, I finally qualified. It dropped my taxes about $650 per year. Not huge, but better then going up.
 
And to top it off...county engineer calls me and says they will need to move my cable gate at the turn in back ten feet, but they will replace it. I ask "why?" He tells me they will be widening the road two feet on each side and want the side ditches pushed back. I say that I own and pay taxes to the center of the road and am pretty sure the county easement is just 20' from center. He says that it was changed a couple years ago to 30'.
That will get into some of my road screen pines I planted eight years ago and some of my willows. I told him I wasn't interested in any of that. He said the project is already approved and they are doing it on all the county roads over next few years.
So, I lost a 10' wide 400-yard-long strip of road front? WTF, was not compensated and they are cutting some of my pines! Just because they can? And I still get to pay the inflated taxes on the ground to center of road!
The farmers are losing tillable ground...forever. What a land grabbing bunch of overreaching corrupt bunch of county commissioners I have here!
 
I am a County Appraiser in Kansas (Assessor in some states). With the exception of Ag ground, we are required to value at market. Our legislature put in place a law that required taxing entities to publish a tax rate that would offset the increase in value (Revenue Neutral Rate) each year and hold a public hearing if they intended to exceed that rate. I think the intent was to keep them honest. It has done no such thing. These crooks have used the increase in the real estate market to raise taxes year over year for as long as I have been doing this, but the last few years have been insane!
 
T-Max said:
I am a County Appraiser in Kansas (Assessor in some states). With the exception of Ag ground, we are required to value at market. Our legislature put in place a law that required taxing entities to publish a tax rate that would offset the increase in value (Revenue Neutral Rate) each year and hold a public hearing if they intended to exceed that rate. I think the intent was to keep them honest. It has done no such thing. These crooks have used the increase in the real estate market to raise taxes year over year for as long as I have been doing this, but the last few years have been insane!
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MN is the same way. The valuations have to be within 2% of market value. That being said, valuations are only for apportioning the tax levy among all the land owners of the county. In the years when my valuation jumped 40%, the taxes went down because the budget was held in line.
 
Not in favor of land grabs with/without compensation but not in favor of dense tree lines within 20 ft of road centerlines or even 30 ft for that matter. Cost me almost $5000 a few yrs ago. Fortunately no human was hurt. The deer not so much. Just no time to react so can understand the safety aspect of "land grabbing bastards".

Not the message you want to hear but ever time I drive by that spot I tense up and wonder how they got away with planting so close compared to all others on that road.

On my country property they spray the crap outta things even way past the ditches but guy must have a soft spot for apple trees and mostly leaves the wild ditch apples alone
 
T-Max said:
I am a County Appraiser in Kansas (Assessor in some states). With the exception of Ag ground, we are required to value at market. Our legislature put in place a law that required taxing entities to publish a tax rate that would offset the increase in value (Revenue Neutral Rate) each year and hold a public hearing if they intended to exceed that rate. I think the intent was to keep them honest. It has done no such thing. These crooks have used the increase in the real estate market to raise taxes year over year for as long as I have been doing this, but the last few years have been insane!
Click to expand...

That is exactly what has happened here. Farm ground prices have gone through the roof almost comically. $30K an acre for a couple of farms recently and they are using that to gouge everyone.

But at least they are using our tax dollars wisely...they tore down the swing sets and put in a big frisbee golf course at our local park, that nobody uses now but the stoners...dumb arses.
 
rocksnstumps said:
Not in favor of land grabs with/without compensation but not in favor of dense tree lines within 20 ft of road centerlines or even 30 ft for that matter. Cost me almost $5000 a few yrs ago. Fortunately no human was hurt. The deer not so much. Just no time to react so can understand the safety aspect of "land grabbing bastards".

Not the message you want to hear but ever time I drive by that spot I tense up and wonder how they got away with planting so close compared to all others on that road.

On my country property they spray the crap outta things even way past the ditches but guy must have a soft spot for apple trees and mostly leaves the wild ditch apples alone
Click to expand...

My few pines are no different than thousands of acres of standing corn six months of the year along every county road here. They did NOT do it for any kind of safety reason.
 
Well, I don't want to make you jealous, but ag land is the only thing we don't value at market. It is on at its "Ag Use Value." It is such a complicated process that there is an entire department at Kansas State University that they use to calculate it. Long story short, the taxes on ag land ends up being in the neighborhood of 1/3 what they would otherwise be.
 
Our taxes on my lake front home in MN have gone up dramatically in the past few years. Hard to swallow the tax bill. I think the proverbial shit is hitting the fan....in so many ways.
 
Government has to make up for the generous donations to other countries for no good reason and all of the illegals are going to suck up a lot of our tax dollars. Less people paying taxes and living off of the system gets paid for by the working mans' tax dollars. Government goes on a spending spree and we get to pay it back. EVERY TIME.
 
It is really maddening being on the inside looking at what is going on. Part of the reason I stay is I feel like if I left, the ENTIRE thing would be corrupt. With us being required to value at market, when I have a conversation with a taxpayer about their value, I can either show them why I am "right" or they can show me why I am "wrong." At the end of the day, I maintain a very good relationship with the tax base. Now the Powers-that-Be will take my product and twist it around every which way to make it do what they want it to. I keep a copy of my tax bill at my desk to show folks that I am getting F@*$ed just like them... ☹️
 
In Wisconsin, ~75% of property taxes goes to fund schools. Property taxes are separate from referendums schools use to screw tax payers out of additional millions of $$. Untill you control spending and reduce the excessive waste at schools, taxes will continue to rise.
 
Tree Spud said:
In Wisconsin, ~75% of property taxes goes to fund schools. Property taxes are separate from referendums schools use to screw tax payers out of additional millions of $$. Untill you control spending and reduce the excessive waste at schools, taxes will continue to rise.
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Oh, come on man, How can a kid learn if the school isn't a mega mansion with an indoor pool, pro gyms and a stadium for football and baseball. At least track shares with football. 😇
 
Tree Spud said:
In Wisconsin, ~75% of property taxes goes to fund schools. Property taxes are separate from referendums schools use to screw tax payers out of additional millions of $$. Untill you control spending and reduce the excessive waste at schools, taxes will continue to rise.
Click to expand...
Teachers and kids, and the public employees go to far better facilities each day than that which most of us work at. No comparison in most cases. If it was providing some better education.....maybe I can see it. But we got worse scores by every measure from what I read. Why is that? Facilities certainly do not make the difference.

To top that off.....many kids are now going to charter schools, private schools, and home based education. Disgusting for those that pay the taxes yet receive no benefit for their kids.....as they pay again for education.
 
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My lake home taxes in Minnesota jumped 25%! It’s just a joke, they won’t reduce taxes if the market drops. If they do it will take years.
 
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