Property Tax For Dummies: Part 2

Part two is hard to get started. Have you heard the news? The Governor of Kansas and candidate for Director of Health and Human Services is a tax cheat. (just go to any major news website and learn more about Governor Sebelius the tax cheat) We will get back to that later. The problem with property is there are far fewer home owners than renters. It is a simple process for the government to raise money via property tax. They simply raise the mill levy and or raise the value of your property on a annual basis; 112% in 10 years! Think about it, we are ready to lynch bankers for these types of profits. The tragic part, now many people who use to be able to afford purchasing a house cannot. The government for the most part doesn't have to go to the tax payer to ask for permission to raise property tax. Like all government they never give back what they take. As they raise property taxes they increase government spending. When the legislature or politician proposes cutting property taxes those in government who advocate spending your property tax, scream that your are cutting spending for the most needy. So here we are today in this bad economy where house prices are falling back to the levels than in many cases are more in line with their actual value. But the government is still sending out their appraisers with instructions to keep those values artificially inflated to keep those property taxes rolling in. They have increased government spending to the point that they know if values fall and taxes follow they will have to make extremely difficult decisions about cutting spending for those they have already made promises. They are not going to increase sales taxes. After all that hurts the poor and needy. So really to take care of the poor and needy, the schools, the fire departments, the police, the water treatment plants and on and on, it is the home owners paying the bill. Remember there are far more renters. Those who own property are footing this government spending. Yet it is the renters and those who don't own property who use most of these services. In closing, I have a friend who lives in a neighboring county here in Kansas. The taxes on his home doubled this past year. They went from $2,500.00 to nearly $5,000.00 in one year for goodness sake. That wasn't the mean old bank or a bad mortgage. That increase was simply due to an artificial increase in the mill levy and an annual appraisal of his property. That is a $208.00 monthly increase in his house payment. So much for the new car, braces for the kid or an increase to his 403B. Don't be a property tax dummy, go to propositionk.org and learn about a better property tax system for Kansas.

Where Property Tax Dollars are Typically Spent
2009 Budget

Property Taxes For Dummies!

I am amazed by the number of people who don't know what property taxes are. We hear about them all the time but even for some homeowners they don't have a clue. I have owned three houses in my life. It really wasn't until the 3rd that I paid really close attention. With the economy going bust and businesses closing it has become a real lesson in economics. But the most eye opening part of all is how the government manipulates the value of property to suite their needs. We need to pay very close attention to this issue. It cannot be more clear than during this economic crisis where you will witness what happens to state, county and city governments that artificially inflate property values when the bubble goes bust.

WHAT IS A PROPERTY TAX?

The property tax rate is often given as a percentage. It may also be expressed as a permille (amount of tax per thousand currency units of property value), which is also known as a millage rate or mill levy. (A mill is also one-thousandth of a currency unit.) To calculate the property tax, the authority will multiply the assessed value of the property by the mill rate and then divide by 1,000. For example, a property with an assessed value of US$ 500,000 located in a municipality with a mill rate of 20 mills would have a property tax bill of US$ 10,000.00 per year.

The government can manipulate this by two ways. They can keep the mill levy at a particular level and raise the property value of your home, based on an ANNUAL county appraisal. This is where government manipulation of the process became greedy. They can leave the mill levy constant and raise your appraised property value to increase revenue. Government can also increase the mill levy and increase the value and raise property tax a whole lot more.

Today city and county governments are strapped due to the bad economy and reduced taxes being collected. Yet they are still behaving as though the economic problems that affect you and I don't really affect them. After all, in the past when every government needed extra money they simply increased property values in Kansas. Not by a little but by a heck of a lot, 112% in the past ten years. Clearly, looking back at this pattern of raising values at such an unsistainable rate the stage was set for a collapse of the housing market. PLEASE COME BACK FOR PART 2. THE EFFECTS OF PROPERTY TAX GREED BY CITY AND COUNTY GOVERNMENTS.

Snow on Easter!

Weather in Kansas is always a conversation. Report have it that a storm is brewing and we are in for one of those early spring time snow storms. We hear so much about bad weather global warming and other natural disasters. Everybody has an story. A few of my childhood memories go back to that Kansas spring time weather. I recall once when I was seven or so, snow on Easter. I recall going to my grandmothers house. It was after church in my home town of of Iola, Kansas. Interestingly I only lived there until I was 11 but to this day Iola brings back good memories of a town that didn't seem so small at age seven. Anyway we hunted Easter eggs in my grandmother yard, tiptoeing through a couple inches of snow. I don't recall there ever being snow on Easter again. I think Kansans need to be careful and not be easily swayed to believe that each time there is a particular weather event in Kansas it is caused by global warming and mans impact to planet earth. I have been in Kansas a good many years now. I have fished the ponds, walked in the fields played in the parks and breathed the air. With all of the pressure from population and economic demands the impact to the Kansas environment is a tribute to Kansans having the wisdom to manage our past, current and future needs and maintain our conservationist heritage.

Kansas City Speaks

The new administration is moving fast to get their priorities through congress. Some like myself have grave concerns about the Obama/Democrats spending. Yes I realize President Bush is just as guilty but he is gone and we need to have a discussion about where this nation is headed. Congress has already spend money to stimulate the economy. It is a figure that many just can't even grasp so they simply tune out any discussion about how this is going to effect the middle class in the United States. Please take the time to see what some of your neighbors are saying about government spending. They also are clear in the fact that this spending is coming from the taxes you and I, our kids and our grand kids will pay. For the most part is seems clear that we can never pay the debt that our government is saddling us with. You have been told that this spending will not effect you because you don't make $250,000.00 year. So my question to you is this; do you really believe it? Do you really believe that going into debt will get you out of debt? Please take a moment to see what others in the Kansas City area have to say about this. Simply click on this link and listen to people just like you and me finding the courage to speak up. Hear Kansas City speak! (If the link fails to open simply copy and past it into your browser) http://www.pjtv.com/video/PJTV_Daily/Braving_the_Elements%3A_Kansas_City_Tea_Party/1503/

Mexico meltdown

When do we defend our borders? Should we build a fence between Mexico and the United States? Seems as though we have talked about this for the past 10 years. My argument has always been that we fence our boarder with Mexico and militarize it if necessary to keep Mexicans from entering our country without going through the legal immigration process. The cost to the taxpayer is staggering. Seems nobody is listening to these common since suggestions. But how things are changing. The United Stated Military considers Mexico one of two nations most likely to collapse. The other being Pakistan. The drug war that is being waged in Mexico might be a real blessing to those who advocate sealing our southern border. With Mexicans dying literally just across the Rio Grande River by the thousands in the drug violence and the nation on the verge of collapse, finally the United States is going to be forced to act. But in the mean time the Mexican and American Governments are suggesting that the problem with the violence is due to Americans smuggling guns to Mexico. Such a sorry excuse considering the Mexican police and military are so corrupt that the criminals in Mexico don't need to look any further than their own police and military for all the weapons they need. Lets just pretend for a moment that those guns are coming from the United States. Seems clear that a secure border would help prevent that from happening. But in the mean time our border is still open with four or five thousand Mexicans crossing over each day. I am sure none of those are criminals but just your average every day Mexican wanting a better life in America. If you believe that you also believe that borrowing money to pay our national debt is a good idea!

I have two good friends. One from India and one from Iran who came to the United States legally. They are very proud of the hard work it took to get here. I am very proud to call them my friends and my fellow Americans. Kansans wake up and get on the phone and call your congressman and senator. Simply Google Kansas Senator or Kansas Congressman get the number and call about this topic. They are banking that you won't. You are competing with businesses who want all that cheap labor and a senator and congressman who is suppose to be representing you. Stay tuned and I will be posting all the phone numbers for the Kansas delegation in Washington.

Kansas Energy, wheres the common sense

I have heard so much about our need for energy in the United States. Our goal to get off of foreign oil. This seems like a excellent idea and I am sure that most with common sense would agree. However that is where the common since ends for many involved in this discussion. Common sense says that if we stop using foreign oil we need to have a good idea what our expectations are for affordable energy. Where we are going to get our alternative energy? We really don't have time to wait to develop alternative energy and at the same time dramatically reduce our need for electricity. Common sense says we should immediately begin extracting our own energy sources that we have available now. It must be able to, ounce for ounce, replace the energy needs lost for our reduction of foreign oil. We have the ability to be nearly self-sufficient in the area of electricity.

I want to say right up front I am in favor of wind energy. Lets get to our 20% goal. But lets have some common since and some intellectual honesty that wind is not going to provide any more than 20% of our electrical power. You cannot have it both ways when it come to our electrical needs. We can either give up expectation of power on demand for our toys such as the I pods, the video games, the computers, the flat panel TV, the microwave ovens, and on and on and live the way I did in the 1960's and 1970's. Common since says this isn't going to happen. But to move forward with our toys, games, TVs, computers and I pods we need to stop the games being played by the so called environmentalists and scientists driven by a religion with it's leader being mother earth. They are telling us the world is coming to and end in 10 years if we burn another pound of coal. Kansans are conservationists. We are the real environmentalists. We have been stewards of of our land and Kansans are proud of the conservation practices in agriculture. We see the beauty of our landscape and the air we breath and it clearly demonstrates that our heritage is based on conservation. We don't need the environmental movement who knows nothing of our heritage to pretend to instruct Kansans on how to be conservationists. When younger we learned by fishing it waters, and hunting the land. We witness the farmer plowing the fields, and providing the world with food and other products in ways that other nations can only dream of.

If we want to be free of oil we need to develop our own energy now. This means we continue to use coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and wind for the next 40 or 50 years while we develop other possibly cleaner energy resources. Common since clearly tells Kansans that we have all the coal and natural gas and wind right here in Kansas and in our neighboring states to provide us with all our electrical energy without firing one shot to claim it. Yes it will mean burning more coal and gas but our technology is reducing pollution dramatically as well. We are already burning 3 times as much coal in Kansas than in the mid 1970's but we have reduced the pollution caused by coal some 70% since the 1970's. Because we are not building new gas and coal electrical production plants we not going to be able to reduce the pollution further. Many of the coal and gas burning plants currently in use are a real problem with pollution. A perfect example of this is the coal power plant just outside of Lawrence. This is one of the dirtiest coal plants in the state or the nation but we will never be able to replace it without building new. But common since is lacking as Lawrence is original spokes city for not supporting coal development in Kansas yet they would never agree to closing the plant just outside of their own city limits.

There is a movement in this nation to convince Americans that if we don't stop producing energy we will be doomed by the melting glaciers, the rising tides and every other possible natural disaster. I completely agree that humans play a part in contaminating our environment. But common since also tells me that not having adequate electrical power over the next 30 years will be far more harmful to Kansas than the pollution generated by new power plants we need to build now. I am also certain that with some common sense and free market mentality, we will develop new cleaner energy that will help supplement our need for coal and gas. But if it isn't affordable for Kansans to use we again will be far from energy independent.