Just the facts this time. The town assessor’s office has asked me as a rental property owner to provide them with information which will be used to assess the value of my house. The major conflict I have with this is the question
GROSS POTENTIAL INCOME
Yes under the pains and penalties of perjury I am asked a question for which I have absolutely no idea. I am being asked to bend over and then say “Thank you Sir, may I please have another”.
Now does this not leave the door wide open for the IRS to ask What could you have made for income in 2006.
Please share widely!
Are you sure you’re interpreting that question correctly? It’s a pretty standard real estate term, from what I gather. When I Google it, I get:
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So your town is just asking you how much income your property would bring in assuming all payments were made and all units were rented. They want to assign a value to your property, and don’t want people to give numbers based on having the apartment unrented for a couple of months because you didn’t get around to finding a tenant in time, or because your tenant paid the rent a month or two late.
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Why are they doing this? Well, I’d assume that valid sales data on very profitable rental units is hard to come by — if you were making $50k a month profit on an apartment block, would you sell it? Also, from what I’ve heard, a lot of transactions involving rental units are structured in a way to keep assessments down, perhaps with side deals. The town is just trying to figure out how much of the tax levy you should pay based on the true value of your property.
Last time I wrote I was protesting a 40B development in Middleton. This time the town and state of Massachusetts are demanding that I commit perjury. Not being an attorney I take the meaning of perjury to be deliberately lying to the government. The town has sent me a questionnaire asking for financial information on my operation of the apartment house I have owned since 1982. Most of the questions are straightforward; others do not apply to my small operation and some, even with my degree in business administration are totally ambiguous.
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The perjury comes in with this question. Total Potential Gross Income. The people who are going to assign a value to my house want me to state “what I could have made”. By any definition “what I could have made” is an opinion just as the value of a house is just an opinion.
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This is how life degrades, when words no longer carry their true meaning. Don’t lie to the government, well does the government lie to you? It’s kind of like the mouse click you do when the software license agreement screen comes up; you dismiss it casually and go about your normal business. I submit this is why America is no longer America and once again I close with Martin’s words.
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“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the Trade Unionists, but I was not a Trade Unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then, when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.”
Maybe you didn’t read what I posted. The term Potential Gross Income simply means that you report what you would have made if your units were fully rented and all rents were paid. You don’t make anything up. You just report your actual rents, multiplied by 12. Ignore any months unrented or rents unpaid. It’s pretty simple and standard.
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It doesn’t mean “what rents could I have made if I didn’t charge people what I charged them”. It is a way to normalize rents between properties. It is a standard real estate term; you’re the one making up your own definition for it.
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If you’ve owned an apartment building since 1984 then I’m surprised you don’t know this, and I’m also surprised that you don’t know what your rents should be based on the market.
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I suspect that you’re just griping about having to divulge this information, because you know that if your 4-unit building is bringing you $96,000 a year in rents, it’s probably going to be assessed more than $400,000 in value, and probably even more. So it seems to me you’re just griping about potentially having to pay more of your share of the taxes, and that you prefer the burden be paid by people who aren’t making money from their properties so that you can retain more profit.
has never brought me profit. I live in one unit and my daughter lives in another. The laws in Mass for years have been so anti-landlord the business world found respite in the “condo”. Even professionals can’t value my house due to the complete lack of a comp. I have provided for years very low rents and I have an elderly tennant who can either live with me at below town sponsored subsidized housing rates. It’s typical of a crass commercial society which we have gone truely overboard in creating to dictate to me what I should or should not do with “my” property.
96,000 a year? Ya, in my dreams. A 1912 Federalist many of the old “townies” can claim to have lived. Most of these same “townies” have gone on to do the escape from Massachusetts theme. It’s more of a class war as policies formed from the crap which goes on in the cities, which may in that case be needed, does not apply to me. Policy makes for no “exceptions”.
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In addition to my house emerging business and government policies of late have caused me to loathe America, yes that’s right, I long for an end to this “society”.
Because you have estimate the potential rent of your building, you drag out a quote about the Holocaust? Your problems filling out a form do not equate to death camps — sorry to be rude, but get over yourself.
No I do not support the collection of data based on business metrics by government. Sooner or later you have my data and the data of others in a town office. To analyze that data they need computers, IT staff, license software subscriptions and of course the new Windows Vista “upgrade”. Eventually you have a local division of the IRS. I buys me not police. It buys me not firefighters. I does not bring sports or drivers ed classes back to the high school. It buys assholian accountants the right to invade my privacy and the obligation to throw my remaining two elder tennants into far more expensive “subsidized” housing.