(Continuing site policy of promoting diaries by officeholders and office-seekers. – promoted by GMD)
(posted by Amy for Doug)
Today I voted against a provision of this year’s tax bill. The proposal to the Senate was to raise $10 million for the general fund through property taxes. Vermont decided several years ago to insitute a statewide property tax to pay for public education. We made a promise to Vermonters that we would not use the property tax to pay for general fund expenditures.
I intend to keep that promise. The proposal that was before us in the Senate today would shift part of our state’s budget problems to local property taxpayers. That is why I spoke up and voted against it. Five of my colleagues – Republican and Democrat – voted with me because they understand the implications of using property taxes to pay for things that have not been education fund expenses. This proposal would take money away from schools and put it in the general fund.
The result will be local property taxpayers blaming their schools for their rising property taxes. It is very difficult to balance the budget, and this is the easy way out, but it balances the budget on the backs of local communities.
I say we must instead face the situation that we are in and take a balanced approach to balancing the budget. We must balance the budget openly and fairly – with a combination of cutting where we can and using revenues that have already been paid by Vermont taxpayers – the rainy day funds.
-Doug Racine
http://dougracine.com/
why not get rid of property tax altogether? Taxing people on the basis of their real estate holdings is an archaism left over from when most people farmed, people invested in their homes instead of the stock market, and income was hard to track. 150 years ago it acted as a rough income tax. Now that few people farm, people invest in the markets, and income is easy to track, it makes no sense. It’s like taxing people on their body mass index “because rich people can afford to eat more.”
Income sensitive property tax isn’t income sensitive on the upside, meaning that the higher your income, the bigger a break it gives you. A wealthy couple can earn ten times more than a lower income couple but never pay anywhere close to ten times the taxes. It’s regressive, and places an unfair burden on lower income homeowners.
We need a statewide dedicated educational income tax that would be handed over to the towns on a per pupil basis. We’d have to do it on a ten year rolling average to smooth out variable attendance. It could cover a major chunk of the cost of education, with individual towns authorizing small adders as they see fit.
We could still tax out-of-state second home owners on their property, because owning a second home in Vermont is a reasonable indicator of ability to pay.
One benefit of this tax fairness is that we could make decisions about education more according to the needs of our children and less according to financial desperation.