I truly love my community and have zero issues paying my property taxes. Each statement breaks down the total expenditure both as a list and pie chart. Schools get the bulk. Safety services. Water. Roads. Libraries. Parks. Public Health and mental health services. Mosquito spraying. I choose to live here and enjoy the community amenities. I can pay my share.
I am so exhausted hearing my neighbors here in IL bitch and moan about our "high" property taxes and how they're getting ready to move to neighboring Missouri (they never do). First, taxes on a comparable home and area are not that much less expensive in MO. Plus, as compared with our area in IL, housing prices in the St. Louis area in MO are higher, so it's a wash. IL provides so many more services than MO and our various taxes help that, but no one seems to notice. I've always hated tying school funding to property taxes because, once again, the rich win out. However, I want (and we need) an educated populace, so I absolutely support taxes unless another system of equitable funding would come into place.
My problem isn't with paying property taxes. My problem is how much and why. Some moron built a ~$350,000 house in our neighborhood of sub-$100,000 houses (it's right next door to me) and ever since, the county has been using it as an excuse for ridiculous increases in tax. I'm talking about wanting to raise it another 50% this year after raising it 25% last year.
It's nice to know my daughter will be getting more money when I die and leave her the place, but the increased value doesn't do anything for me because I don't want to sell. I just want to live in the little vine-covered cottage where my late wife and I lived until I join her. That's looking increasingly unlikely thanks to the tax situation.
I have always considered the property tax the fairest of the taxes. I don't know about other states, but here in California we have a say in, where the money should go. On most election days we have several local bond issues proposing to solve a local problem. In 1979, I think, a guy named Howard Jarvis put a proposition on the ballot, freezing the tax rate at 1% in answer to rising taxes forcing retired people out of their homes. The inflexibility of the law has created some consternation, but its main purpose has worked, giving people a relatively stable yearly budget item!
Property taxes rarely return the value we supposedly pay for them. Most property taxes pay for schools which are failing our kids. Most playgrounds I know of are paid for with private donations because city governments are broke. And EMT, fire and police are now charging extra if they show up. Taxes don't cover them either.
But isnt it the case that if you fall into arrears on your property tax that the local authority can take your house off you and make you homeless. I've heard what to me are horror stories about that. In Britain we have Council Tax and if you fall into arrears or don't pay it because you are being defiantly bolshy you get taken to court,fined and you may serve a prison sentence at worst but through it all you retain ownership of your house. Our new administration is interested in the "property tax" model which I think is sinister and they are pitching it as "fairer". Of course people in big houses should pay more but just wait until that widow living alone in her 3 bedroom house now her adult children have left home -but still come back to visit,and the grandchildren,when she discovers the government thinks she lives in a "too big" house and want to price her out. I'm fact the government spokesman on the radio gave that as one of the great reasons for adopting this system it would force old people living alone in a 3 bedroom house,not social housing,a house they worked to buy,to sell and downsize thus freeing up these houses for young families to buy. I find that logic diabolical. Yes,our local tax is supposed to pay for our "infrastructure" but in UK at least it's not. All our infrastructure is getting neglected and broken down and theres not enough nurses,or teachers,or bus drivers or whatever and maybe thats not because people are too lazy to do these jobs,but because you they keep laying people off then expecting the remaining staff to do 2 then 3 peoples work for the same money. My local council spent millions under our last administration building a tall tower block it's still going up. I dont know if anyone lives there yet,it's called Marvin's Folly. Our new admin wants to spend 60 million or something like that setting up a green power supply company that will siphon off a lot of money then go bankrupt and oddly enough all the records will have dissapeared off the computer. I don't know about USA but here tax is now a joke. Where it goes nobody knows. We do actually,in their back pockets.
I can’t speak to British law. I can tell you that if you fall behind, you have years to address it before your house is sold. There’s also a program that freezes your taxes after a certain age.
In the US, the value of your house depends on the quality and availability of local amenities, so it makes sense that property taxes go to pay for things like schools, police, road maintenance, etc. There’s no national property tax here-it’s all local.
I’m also going to gently push back on the idea that older people living alone in family sized houses is a good idea. Most of those houses, at least here in the US, are car dependent—you have to drive to church or shops or to run other errands. It is also a fair amount of work and expense to keep the house clean, maintain the yard, and do the kind of maintenance that a house requires—washing windows, trimming hedges, etc. If a person can’t physically do those things they either have to let them go or hire somebody to do them—and that gets expensive. If the only reason granny is keeping the house is because the grandkids visit a few times a year, it would be a LOT less expensive to move to a cottage or apartment and pay for a hotel for the few times a year you need an extra bedroom. We live on a small street and of the seven houses here, only one is a young family. Two are retired couples. FOUR are older women living alone! Making it easier for older people to move (it is quite expensive here to sell/buy because real estate commissions and excise taxes are high) would free up houses for the next generation—I don’t think it’s monstrous at all.
But the older people I'm thinking of,they dutifully worked 40+ years and often in time consuming onerous jobs in order to PAY for those houses. No one handed anything to them on a plate. And in Britain areas are much more "mixed up" than in USA as even I have noted from films (don't watch many) or tv series. As an example,and this is something I found extraordinary when I first started going to London. A nice prosperous looking street of well kept houses with flowery well tended gardens can be adjacent to a litter strewn street of scruffy social housing units where the garden space is thick with weeds. Big mansions where rich,famous people live,or at least are one of their addresses can have 1950s style red brick council housing blocks in the street behind with laundry bestrewn balconies,all hung out to dry and shouty kids running up and down the walkways. Rich and Poor are much more mixed and hugger-mugger physically in UK,because we are a smaller land mass I guess. The real distance is social and very effectively policed in an invisible fashion.
In nearly every scenario, your property taxes are a tiny sliver of what your house payment was or what rent/mortgage in another neighborhood would be. I have never seen this argument augmented with a concrete example. I’m willing to be set straight if anyone has examples.
I truly love my community and have zero issues paying my property taxes. Each statement breaks down the total expenditure both as a list and pie chart. Schools get the bulk. Safety services. Water. Roads. Libraries. Parks. Public Health and mental health services. Mosquito spraying. I choose to live here and enjoy the community amenities. I can pay my share.
I am so exhausted hearing my neighbors here in IL bitch and moan about our "high" property taxes and how they're getting ready to move to neighboring Missouri (they never do). First, taxes on a comparable home and area are not that much less expensive in MO. Plus, as compared with our area in IL, housing prices in the St. Louis area in MO are higher, so it's a wash. IL provides so many more services than MO and our various taxes help that, but no one seems to notice. I've always hated tying school funding to property taxes because, once again, the rich win out. However, I want (and we need) an educated populace, so I absolutely support taxes unless another system of equitable funding would come into place.
My problem isn't with paying property taxes. My problem is how much and why. Some moron built a ~$350,000 house in our neighborhood of sub-$100,000 houses (it's right next door to me) and ever since, the county has been using it as an excuse for ridiculous increases in tax. I'm talking about wanting to raise it another 50% this year after raising it 25% last year.
It's nice to know my daughter will be getting more money when I die and leave her the place, but the increased value doesn't do anything for me because I don't want to sell. I just want to live in the little vine-covered cottage where my late wife and I lived until I join her. That's looking increasingly unlikely thanks to the tax situation.
I went to school in Galesburg and taught for two years in rural IL, so I am extra moved to read this today.
Ooh, where did you teach?!?
ROWVA (Oneida, IL)!
We have the same sort of setup in Canada- and just as many idiots who don't get how it works. Fortunately, I'm not related to any of them...
I have always considered the property tax the fairest of the taxes. I don't know about other states, but here in California we have a say in, where the money should go. On most election days we have several local bond issues proposing to solve a local problem. In 1979, I think, a guy named Howard Jarvis put a proposition on the ballot, freezing the tax rate at 1% in answer to rising taxes forcing retired people out of their homes. The inflexibility of the law has created some consternation, but its main purpose has worked, giving people a relatively stable yearly budget item!
My property taxes are nearly $7000 a year now. They include a fire tax and sewer tax in addition to the usual things (schools, etc).
I paid $302K for it in 2021.
A bargain compared to mine!
Property taxes rarely return the value we supposedly pay for them. Most property taxes pay for schools which are failing our kids. Most playgrounds I know of are paid for with private donations because city governments are broke. And EMT, fire and police are now charging extra if they show up. Taxes don't cover them either.
Most schools are not failing our kids.
Schools are failing our kids for a lot of reasons, one of which is underpaying our teachers.
Hard no on that.
But isnt it the case that if you fall into arrears on your property tax that the local authority can take your house off you and make you homeless. I've heard what to me are horror stories about that. In Britain we have Council Tax and if you fall into arrears or don't pay it because you are being defiantly bolshy you get taken to court,fined and you may serve a prison sentence at worst but through it all you retain ownership of your house. Our new administration is interested in the "property tax" model which I think is sinister and they are pitching it as "fairer". Of course people in big houses should pay more but just wait until that widow living alone in her 3 bedroom house now her adult children have left home -but still come back to visit,and the grandchildren,when she discovers the government thinks she lives in a "too big" house and want to price her out. I'm fact the government spokesman on the radio gave that as one of the great reasons for adopting this system it would force old people living alone in a 3 bedroom house,not social housing,a house they worked to buy,to sell and downsize thus freeing up these houses for young families to buy. I find that logic diabolical. Yes,our local tax is supposed to pay for our "infrastructure" but in UK at least it's not. All our infrastructure is getting neglected and broken down and theres not enough nurses,or teachers,or bus drivers or whatever and maybe thats not because people are too lazy to do these jobs,but because you they keep laying people off then expecting the remaining staff to do 2 then 3 peoples work for the same money. My local council spent millions under our last administration building a tall tower block it's still going up. I dont know if anyone lives there yet,it's called Marvin's Folly. Our new admin wants to spend 60 million or something like that setting up a green power supply company that will siphon off a lot of money then go bankrupt and oddly enough all the records will have dissapeared off the computer. I don't know about USA but here tax is now a joke. Where it goes nobody knows. We do actually,in their back pockets.
I can’t speak to British law. I can tell you that if you fall behind, you have years to address it before your house is sold. There’s also a program that freezes your taxes after a certain age.
Not the picture I get reflected but then maybe the malcontents have louder voices and more incentive to put their voices out there.
The malcontents are always loud!
In the US, the value of your house depends on the quality and availability of local amenities, so it makes sense that property taxes go to pay for things like schools, police, road maintenance, etc. There’s no national property tax here-it’s all local.
I’m also going to gently push back on the idea that older people living alone in family sized houses is a good idea. Most of those houses, at least here in the US, are car dependent—you have to drive to church or shops or to run other errands. It is also a fair amount of work and expense to keep the house clean, maintain the yard, and do the kind of maintenance that a house requires—washing windows, trimming hedges, etc. If a person can’t physically do those things they either have to let them go or hire somebody to do them—and that gets expensive. If the only reason granny is keeping the house is because the grandkids visit a few times a year, it would be a LOT less expensive to move to a cottage or apartment and pay for a hotel for the few times a year you need an extra bedroom. We live on a small street and of the seven houses here, only one is a young family. Two are retired couples. FOUR are older women living alone! Making it easier for older people to move (it is quite expensive here to sell/buy because real estate commissions and excise taxes are high) would free up houses for the next generation—I don’t think it’s monstrous at all.
But the older people I'm thinking of,they dutifully worked 40+ years and often in time consuming onerous jobs in order to PAY for those houses. No one handed anything to them on a plate. And in Britain areas are much more "mixed up" than in USA as even I have noted from films (don't watch many) or tv series. As an example,and this is something I found extraordinary when I first started going to London. A nice prosperous looking street of well kept houses with flowery well tended gardens can be adjacent to a litter strewn street of scruffy social housing units where the garden space is thick with weeds. Big mansions where rich,famous people live,or at least are one of their addresses can have 1950s style red brick council housing blocks in the street behind with laundry bestrewn balconies,all hung out to dry and shouty kids running up and down the walkways. Rich and Poor are much more mixed and hugger-mugger physically in UK,because we are a smaller land mass I guess. The real distance is social and very effectively policed in an invisible fashion.
In nearly every scenario, your property taxes are a tiny sliver of what your house payment was or what rent/mortgage in another neighborhood would be. I have never seen this argument augmented with a concrete example. I’m willing to be set straight if anyone has examples.