Taxes

Orlando Politicians Panic’ed Over Lost Revenue and Start Making Dire Warnings

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The one truism in life is if there is tax money available, politicians will spend every penny and then a couple more. And if they have to cut back, the first cut backs will be the ones that hurt […]

6Jun2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

New Hampshire Real Estate Transfer Tax Down 21 percent

Governments that decided to finance their bloated budgets on the back of real estate taxes are starting to feel the pain. Todays installment, New Hampshire, saw a drop of 32 million dollars in transfer tax revenue as housing slowed.
Now when homeowners in the Granite State start appealing their assessments on their property tax the state […]

12May2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Michigan Tax Revenue Is Flatlining Just Like The Real Estate Market

Michigan has been seeing a tough time of it lately. The slowdown in the automotive industry and the free fall of housing prices in metropolitan Detroit is now taking it’s toll on state tax revenue. Of course you can trust the government officials to take the low road and automatically tell the populace that they […]

27Apr2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Florida Sweating Under Heavy Property Tax Load As Legislature Debates

The state of Florida experienced a huge run up of property values and property taxes over the past few years. Of course, most of this new tax money has been squandered by governmental agencies who looked to buy votes with the new found largess.
Now as the market has softened and the convoluted property tax […]

26Apr2007 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Tax Liens, The United Nations, Diplomatic Immunity, and the City of New York

This story is a bit esoteric but at the same time interesting from a real estate and policy wonk point of view. According to how New York City is interpreting the tax law, United Nations missions in the city do not have to pay property taxes on the parts of their mission buildings that are […]

26Apr2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

States Facing Revenue Shortages As Housing Slows

Not to say we did not tell you, but (and there always is a but) we did this time. The rampant spending by state legislatures on the back of the housing boom is now causing shortfalls in the legislatures budgets across the country.
Easy money from real estate transfer taxes and home appreciation allowed states […]

9Apr2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Government Overspends Property Taxes and Now Suffer With Tax Abatement Questions

Prince Williams County is facing the problem that most counties in boom areas are facing. They have spent themselves into a corner and as property values have stabilized or lowered, their reckless spending on projects to get themselves re-elected is coming back to bite themselves in the proverbial behind.

The problem is that the once-booming […]

11Jan2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Greedy Local Governments Starting To Pay Price

The greed of local governments as the tax money was rolling in knew no bounds. While professing to keep taxes down, the rising property values filled the coffers of local governments and their spending increased proportionally. Now as property values are not increasing and sales slow further reducing the transfer tax revenue, these same city […]

26Dec2006 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Local Governments and Real Estate Taxes

After the huge run up in real estate values, governments got greedy and spent the new found tax money rolling into their coffers as fast as they could. They can not help it, they are politicians and spending money is how you get re-elected. But now that housing prices are stabilizing or coming back off […]

13Dec2006 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

Ground Rents in Baltimore: Dangerous Territory for Homeowners

The use of ground rents is one that comes to us from colonial America. They are land leases for the land that homes are built on, originating from grants given to aristocrats from the English Royalty. Now some individuals are using them to take homes from others in Baltimore. And these ground rents have more […]

11Dec2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued