Dear Editor:
I learned at the Wednesday Nov. 12 meeting that there is a state law that forbids reassessing individual properties upon sale. Laws usually come into being at the request of some constituent, and if the request is on behalf of an industry that donates to political candidates it’s likely to be adopted unless there is so much opposition that it becomes politically impossible.
I assume that the state wide prohibition on individually reassessing property values based on current sales price would be supported by both the real estate industry and the companies that that do the reassessment. It is in the interests of the real estate industry for people to sell houses.
There is a clear line between those whose taxes increased and those whose taxes went down. This pits those who bought when prices were high against those who have lived in town for any length of time. The last reval generally transferred the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle and working class. There is also a loss of rental properties as two and three family buildings are converted to single family houses.
This system discourages anyone who is not planning on selling, or who can’t afford to shrug off thousands of dollars in additional taxes, from investing in their property. It is a huge incentive to let things deteriorate. If taxes were assessed upon sale of a building there would be incentive to improve the property.
Another factor to consider is that towns and cities would not have to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on hiring reassessment companies with their contentious and inaccurate formulas. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t resent the intrusion into their homes by these mercenaries. It’s as much a violation as having a thief climb in your window, except thieves are not hitting you up on a quarterly basis. Thieves rob your house, but they don’t force you out of it.
For all the palaver about “community” the current system of determining property taxes is totally destructive of long term communities, and the rolling reassessments that the city is now putting in place means that no one will know what next year’s taxes will be. For many of us this is a destabilizing source of constant anxiety.
Today I came home from work to find a letter from Appraisal Systems saying that I have to log onto their website and turn myself in so they can properly squeeze even more out of us. Really, I’d like to throw you all in the river, but the water’s already polluted enough.
Greg Ribot