Making the Seniors Work To Pay Off Property Taxes - Your Bloodsucking Government in Action
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This makes my blood boil. New York overall has such ridiculous property taxes to pay for the bloat of civil service and government payrolls and services. Now that they have squeezed all of the blood out of the stone that the senior population in these cities can afford, they are looking to have them work for low wages to pay off the debts.
Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn’t want to leave Greenburgh.
Greenburgh doesn’t want her to leave, either.
The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.
“People shouldn’t have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends,” said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.… The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation’s third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.
Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes - perhaps $2,000 to the town - and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills. via My Way News
Think about it, you have a senior paying 12,000 dollars on her home. Now if it is a mansion that is one thing but I sincerely doubt it. It is easier to turn them into indentured servants to pay off the debt created by an out of control bureaucracy.
My mother in law is in the same boat. She lives in a nice condo in upstate New York. She could sell it today for about $150,000 dollars. Her taxes are $9,000 dollars in a region of the country that is not doing so great. The pressure to pay these taxes every year are a sore point in her life.
The problem that these governments are going to have to face is that people will vote with their feet to stop paying these taxes. Where I live a $150,000 dollar home will pay about $2,000 in taxes and that is before the senior exemptions. Think of that, the regional governments in New York have to collect $7,000 more to supply the services in New York than Georgia.
Tell me we could not get rid of a lot of waste very quickly if people really cared to up there. Instead, making seniors work to pay off the debt is a better solution to these blood suckers.
Last one out turn off the lights.
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Comment by Corey Matelli on 26 December 2007:
Wow, this is tragic. Stories and scenarios like this are precisely why I am in the reverse mortgage industry. Seniors should not have to live their remaining years on other people’s terms, if they don’t have to.
Thank you for your passion. I hope more with a similar passion will rise up and right this horrible wrong.
Comment by Thomas Johnson on 26 December 2007:
The job growth is in the sunbelt, away from unions and oppressive taxes. Not just property taxes, but income taxes, sales taxes, permission to breathe taxes , etc. The population that is left are the elderly and those who feed off the taxpayer. Like any voracious beast, the local governments will feed on what is easily attainable, until only a hollow dry husk is left. They only hope that they can get to retirement, and those juicy government pensions, before the taxpayers are bled out.
Comment by Kirk on 26 December 2007:
I couldn’t agree more. The federal and state governments believe it is up to the populace to sacrifice for the government. The reality is the government is there to serve us by protecting our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Comment by glennont on 27 December 2007:
In California I believe once when you retire at a traditional age you may defer your property taxes and have it taken from your estate when you die.
Comment by LC on 27 December 2007:
In our home base community for our development company, the solution has been to extract egregious development fees to fund the infrastructure. In 2005, this city was the fastest growing city in the nation.
Elk Grove, CA is once again making the news; I have the article on my site where the fees were so high they made the WSJ. The result was absolutely NO major employers over the past 5 years, and as such to date a 15% - 25% decrease in home values, one out of five homes on the market in foreclosure or bank owned, and now a city budget deficit.
These local governments must learn that sustainable cash flow must be paramount and take precedence over a short term fix of fee income and tax hikes. No governmental entity ever taxed its way to prosperity, as has been said many times. Good post, thanks.
Comment by LC on 27 December 2007:
Apparently I misspoke. It’s not 20%, it is 35% of the homes in that community that are REO. The good news is that some are approaching the price point that you can 100% finance, rent, and still cash flow. That’s hard to beat if you’re a SFH investor-I no longer am.
Comment by david in norcal on 29 December 2007:
And Westchester County has some of the best public schools in the nation.
That’s most of what property taxes pay for.
I believe there should be ways to keep seniors from facing massive increases in property taxes, but I notice the quality of the public schools does relate to how well we fund them. Better funding = better pay to be able to hire and keep better teaches, better facilities, etc. etc.
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