1. By the way if you sell your home and buy a new $750,000 condo in Tacoma's "redevelopment district" you pay no property taxes for ten years. That's right you FREE LOAD on the rest of the residents. You are paying nothing for the fire, police, garbage collection etc. This is a scandal and a disgrace when my mother who is retired and on a fixed income is paying north of $4,000 yearly in propery taxes to provide services for people who are making far in excess of what she is living on and living in million dollar condos.

Posted by: JDH on May 17, 2007 07:55 AM

2. Other cities give this 'no property tax for ten years' to their political supporters, too.

The program was supposedly for renters, but somehow the legislation was circumvented to include luxury condos.

Posted by: swatter on May 17, 2007 08:20 AM

3. Um, politicians, their family members, long time business asssociates all are invested in these schemes in Tacoma.

By the way councilman Bill Evans attempted to apply this to his development located in the Proctor District, not exactly a "blighted" area, until he was found out.

Posted by: JDH on May 17, 2007 08:47 AM

4. Reagan Dunn's 3rd and 4th sentences are: "If you are like me, you set aside a little each month and your mortgage holder pays these taxes on your behalf. I like paying my property taxes in this way because it is easier and I don't have to worry about not having enough in the bank the next time taxes are due."

So he likes lending money, interest-free, to his bank instead of investing it where it can grow? Just because he can't trust himself to save?

Geez, I hope he manages our tax monies better than his own.

Posted by: Bruce on May 17, 2007 09:21 AM

5. Too bad renters can't get info on what portion of their rent goes to taxes and the breakdown of where it goes.

According to the 2000 census data, slightly over 40% of the housing in King County is renter occupied.

Renters are quick to blame the "greedy" landlord when rents increase, but they need to be able to see how much the property taxes are increasing each year and think about that the next time they visit the ballot box.

I would argue that most renters are seemingly oblivious to property tax increases and will happily vote for any levy being proposed because they never see a property tax bill.

Don't you think it would be a different story if they received a bill from the county each six months like property owners do?

Posted by: Smoley on May 17, 2007 10:01 AM

6. Agree with that comment, Bruce. I think he meant that most people like the escrow/mortgage companies being responsible for the collection.

Back in the 70s when I bought my first house, it was setup like that. The scheme back then was that the mortgage companies would collect more than needed (i.e. interest free) and people had a hard time getting their extra money back.

Since I learned my lesson then, I don't know if they still do it.

But, Bruce, he has a good political point there and I am surprised King County doesn't do it. I think they did in the 70s where I lived before I bolted from Clone City (Bellevue).

Posted by: swatter on May 17, 2007 10:03 AM

7. Renters are quick to blame the "greedy" landlord when rents increase, but they need to be able to see how much the property taxes are increasing each year

Good idea. A landlord is free to send this information (and any other info about costs, for that matter) to a renter anytime.

Posted by: Bruce on May 17, 2007 10:06 AM

8.
Actually, it makes perfect sense.

To the payer, it only matters how much he is paying to the mortgage company or the landlord.

Itemizing it seems like a justification.

The market decides if the final price (rent, or payment) can be met.

Posted by: John Bailo on May 17, 2007 10:31 AM

9. 1,2,5--good points. i've always suspected renters just vote for bene's/levies and let owners worry about the assessments & the long-term fallout. when have you heard of a levy going away?

speaking of hidden/disclosed taxes, i'd also like to see employers of illegal aliens disclose how much YOU are subsidizing THEIR payrolls for medical, edu, work comp, food stamps, housing & other bene's paid for by you, their property-owning county neighbors. that's just as bad as the subsidized folk in #1. and not one thank-you to you for their bailouts either. emergency room sniffles, anyone?

Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on May 17, 2007 12:11 PM

10. When my wife and I rented a house in Spanaway, we made sure we voted no to any tax increases. It is my belief that government has way too much money and that it wastes much of what it takes in. Government by its very nature is extremely inefficient and we tax payers should quit giving them any more that what is need for bare boned governance. The idea that renters see what part of thier rent goes to taxes is a great idea. In fact, taxes should be posted wherever taxes are collected, ie gas, etc. Maybe that will get peoples attention.

Posted by: Allan Rothlisberg on May 17, 2007 12:21 PM

11. Island County just raked in 11.4% more in property taxes this year than last. My taxes alone, on a 935 sq foot cabin I have up there went up $700 this year, and the value went up $170,000. In one year.

Gregoire promised legislative action to contain these massive property tax hikes one of her top priorities this year, and totally ignored this promise. Totally!

In fact the democraps want to change our state constitution to make it easier to pass massive bloated school levys.

I can only hope the Supreme Court upholds I747.

The massive hikes in property taxes in this state are insane!

Posted by: GS on May 17, 2007 03:35 PM

12. I live alone, have no children in the system and yet my property tax rate is the same as my neighbor's who has seven people living on his tax parcel.

I think property taxes should be proportional to the number of service users per address.

Am I nuts?

Posted by: Bart Cannon on May 18, 2007 06:24 AM

13. Bart: I was looking at the breakdown on the property tax bill above. The allocation of our property taxes is also itemized on our bills here in Whatcom County.

By far the biggest chunk goes to schools, but I see we also pay for flood control (even though we live in an area that doesn't flood), the public library (even though we haven't used it in 10 years), a charge for the developmentally disabled, and the Port of Bellingham general fund (we do not live in Bellingham). I actually called the treasurer's office to ask about this last one, since it didn't make sense to me that we should be funding this. I guess we are paying into it since it is our "local" port (?). We also pay into a county general fund. And can anyone explain to me what the "State of WA Refund Fund" is?

I agree with you, it would be great if the service users could pay their own costs, but I think that would be really difficult to administer. For one thing, some service users use more services than others. For example, a child with learning disabilities, or one who is on the school's free lunch program, or one who rides the bus uses more of the school's resources than one who has no additional learning needs, brings his own lunch and walks to school.

Emergency services are part of our city's operating costs. Although we have five people living at our house, we have never had the need to call the fire department. However, on at least three occasions I have seen a fire truck parked at our neighbor's house - her elderly mother lives with her and they've had to make emergency calls. So number of potential users may not directly affect the actual use of services. No matter what, some people end up subsidizing others!

I do wish there were a different way of paying for education, though. How long has this system been in place? I imagine this is how my elementary education was paid for. One more thing to read up on!

Posted by: PeggyU on May 21, 2007 10:38 AM

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