Re: Re: Something for all property owners to be aware of.

[Guest guest]

Yes they do. Its nothing new though. Several years ago Alabama tried to push through a land bill that would have been ruinous. Supposedly the schools were underfunded by a few hundred million dollars over a period of time. So the then Democrat governor tried to..1. Push all land categories up to their highest rating without appeal. That meant if you owned a farm that could potentially be paved over as a shopping center or subdivision, you'd be paying the business or residential tax rate instead of agricultural. 2. Increase property taxes on all houses valued more than $50,000. This was a sop to the Democrat base because most of them did not have houses valued at more than that, save for the wealthy ones of course and they didn't care. It was part of the soak the rich gimmick. 3. A land use limit. You could own all the land you wanted, but you could only farm 1,500 acres I think it was. Naturally you'd have to pay taxes on all of it and naturally it only applied to private farmers and not the big timber companies of the few corporate farms. So this was simply a land grab since that land would like end up being sold to the big companies, but most people wouldn't see that. They'd just see the big land owners getting socked. Now bear in mind that all of this was supposed to raise TWICE the needed amount of money. It met stiff opposition and was defeated. Lo and Behold! once it was they found the more than enough money to fund the schools after all. They just didn't look at the books hard enough. Yeah, sure. Since then though they have been really bad about trying to up property classifications all the same. Every year you have to file appeals and sometimes go to court to get them overturned. They're determined mutants.

As for raising property values, that happens, too. Some of my family in northern Virginia has seen their property values skyrocket even though it is rural farmland. What we think is happening was that county officials wanted to squeeze the rightful owners off their land so they could sell the land to developers and make a lot of money. I'm kind of surprised they haven't pulled Imminent Domain to steal the land for that purpose in the Supreme Court sanctioned cause for theft of increasing tax revenues.

In a message dated 7/14/2011 4:47:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

This was one of the reasons I suggested months ago that people pay down their mortgages and teir debts. Local, state, and federal governments are all going to be looking to pay off their debts, and the best way to do that is to raise taxes.You're going to see more foreclosures as hiked real estate taxes create just enough of a problem that people cannot make the payments.Administrator