The tax cutters!
“Seniors are our first line of defense against overrides,” said Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation. “Senior citizens are defeating these overrides, and they are trying to give them a reason not to vote.”
I’ve worked on three property-tax overrides in my town. It’s not that I like paying taxes, rather because the services the taxes pay for are important. There is not an override proponent who, if handed a windfall or other solution that would fund these services, would say, Oh no! Now we’ll never get to raise taxes!
Am I surprised that Barbara Anderson is against these tax cuts? No, but her honesty–usually concern for the poor seniors is the first crocodile tear shed when schools need cash–is noteworthy.
Please share widely!
should be renamed the MassExodus bill. It will stop the firewall on spending that is senior voters. It will cause taxes to go up disproportionally on younger workers and homeowners, causing their cost of living to go up and drive more away from this state.
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p>If that’s what you want fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Proposition 2 1/2 overrides will still be voted on by communities and some of us actually like having money spent on what we see as essential services.
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p>As for Barbara Anderson, if she believed in truth in advertising her organization would be called Citizens for No Taxation rather than Citizens for Limited Taxation. She claims to be a big believer in direct democracy, but gets upset when communities do democratically override were “baby” Proposition 2 1/2. She’s still fighting a 30 year old battle to keep a law that overstayed its welcome 20 years ago.
What prompted this Black Sabaath on Beacon Hill is the current debacle in the City ofNewton and their (currently and escalating) TWO HUNDRED MILLION dollar high school.
This school is going to cost every tax payer in the commonwealth $79.00. That’t now. When the cost overruns bgin, it will be much more. Now enter the City of Newton’s soon to be former mayor. The mayor went to his old pals on Beacon Hill begging for more money because this new high school is about to send Newton into bankruptcy. Nice planning guys. Ya gotta love the folks who just get positively orgasmic throwing away other peoples money. Of course the sheeple in Newton didn’t wake up until it was too late and are now screaming while concrete is pouring.The Beacon Hill crowd’s answer is scrapping Prop 2 1/2 or seriously crippling it. The reason 2 1/2 came to be is because special interest groups demanded that their “special interest” be fully funded and the tax burden skyrocketed
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p>Please spare me the indignation re Barbara Anderson. She lives in a hovel on the North Shore and I doubt she is able to be employed post her near fatal accident.
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p>This “get the old folks out of the equation” will be catastrophic. I am unaware of MA current demographics but you can bet your backside it is getting greyer every day. Young people will either leave or not even come here. The tax burden will be onerous. This state will become a ghost town. What many people here don’t seem to realize is there are finite dollars. Once you hit the point of diminishing returns you may have triggered a unstoppable force of collapse. Ever been to Youngstown Ohio? You can get a four bedroom colonial on two acres of land for $87,000.00. When you see abandonned middle schools and high schools it is frightening.
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p>The City of Newton should be allowed to go belly up and perhaps this will be a scintillating example for the remainder of the feel good crowd in New England to splash some cold water in their respective faces.
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p>And to not sound too mean spirited, but many of the most vociferous voices here still get their $$$ from mom and dad, or live with mom and dad—-as in failure to launch.
I wish folks would post their missives with the caveat: (In the interest of full disclosure I have never worked a 60 hour a week job(s), am still in undergraduate, graduate
or post doctoral, am in my late twenties and still live with mum and dad)
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p>I have never heard any young person saying, “hey, I have a great job, and I found this great house, I can afford the mortgage, but boy, the taxes are so high, screw it, I’m going to leave the state!”.
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p>For young people, property taxes are a small part of overall mortgage costs. If you have a $300,000 mortgage on a $350,000 house, a likely breakdown is $350/month in taxes while your mortgage will be $1,800. $350/month is 16% of total housing cost.
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p>The big problem is, in order to comfortably afford that $2,150 mortgage/tax payment, you need to be making $7,166 per month, or $85k per year [housing costs being 30% of your gross income]. Even taking out the $350 in taxes requires $72,000. And how many $350k houses are out there in Eastern MA?
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p>So you say, don’t buy — rent. How many communities are looking to build apartment blocks to rent units to families? Not many — everyone seems to be in the 55+ condo game these days.
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p>Young people are leaving this state because people in this state are obsessed with blocking affordable development because of an over-reliance on the property tax. Wouldn’t it be great if a new technology came along that reduced the cost of building a house to $1,000? No, because no community wants $10,000 units — “wouldn’t pay enough taxes to compensate for the services”. So affordable housing near jobs is not being built.
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p>Our state is anti-growth, and that has caused the cost of housing to rise, pricing many young people right out of this state.
in this state. And now that free-money-Deval-Patrick style loans are no longer readily available coupled with rising property taxes there is a conga line forming towards Greenville SC. Hell Greenfield even has a Fenway Park.
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p>Seriously. We are making this state unaffordable, yes growth policies are part of it but so are taxes.
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p>I agree with a lot of what you say though.
Taxes are the slow killer to growth; land use regulation is a quick death.
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p>NoPol, you’re right. The massive land use regulation in Massachusetts is the key component that causes high land prices and therefore high house prices.
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p>i.e. Design a functioning single family septic in Mass. The cost starts at $15K. Same functioning system in, say, Georgia or SC or NC. Around $5K.
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p>That is, assuming you can even find land zoned for housing.
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p>Brimfield, just as an example, severely limited the number of homes that could be built in any single year. The obvious effect is to increase the value of a permit, and the value of a house.
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p>Good policy? Maybe, if you’re one of the Landed Gentry who seek no change. It’s everywhere. The Landed Gentry seek the pristine meadows, small town main street and cute country farms, even though those meadows are economically useless, main street stores are empty and the farms are run by old men who i) can’t easily sell for development ii) can sell as a farm and iii) don’t want their children to operate a farm at near poverty profits.
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It was only a matter of time before the tax enthusiasts on Beacon Hill would come up with a plan to cut the legs off one of their most hated enemies – Prop 2 1/2.
Barbara Anderson probably has a copy of Atlas Shrugged by her bedside. She a ‘citizen for limited taxation’ first, whether it’s for seniors or sophomores.
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p>But back the Bill: pay less tax depending on your age. Hey, here’s an idea, how about a bill that–instead of the elderly–allows say, black males, to pay less in tax? You know, because their wages are lower, they’re struggling….
Sort of like the income tax? You pay more if your income is higher?
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p>Gary, are you advocating for a per-person tax, regardless of ability to pay?
I have been paying taxes since 1959. I pay taxes because I am the same as a new kid just married two blocks away, the black family a half mile down the road, the jewish family next door. I am an American. I enjoy the fruits of my community and my country and I have an obligation to support that community as much as I can. My children never attended the local schools. I didn’t run to town hall looking for an abatement.
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p>Give me a break. This “give the oldtimers a break” is nothing less than “seperate but equal”. I don’t want to be seperate. I want to pay my way and I am sick to death of seeing my tax dollars pissed away to wit: my community built this ediface AKA a highschool that King Solomon would have been proud of. Of course once the idiots built it they are now crying that it is too costly to heat and aircondition. They need more money.
Let them eat cake!”
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p>That’s nowhere close to what I wrote. You comment is pure non-sequitor contrived to attempt glib.
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p>BTW, a ‘you-pay-more-if-your-income-is higher’ is unconstitutional in this state.
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p>Furthermore, the Bill doesn’t give a lower rate to those who make less, it gives a lower rate to those who are older. Given that distinction, why not give a lower rate to those who are, black, women, [insert favorite demographic here].
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p>Why should someone pay less in property tax, simply because they are old?
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p>Want a meaningful property tax reduction, then means test. Assuming it’s constitutional (I’m not so sure), then give the same break to the elderly making $25K that you’d give to the young homeowner.
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p>That won’t happen because it’s the elderly that the bill is aiming to keep away from the ballot box.
…….because they are on a fixed income in retirement and they couldn’t remain in the town they had lived in most of there life as property taxes sky rocketed so moved to Western MA away from family and friends. At a minimum qualifying seniors SHOULD have property taxes tied to the same rate of increase as Social Security increases are based on beginning with the assessed value at the point of retirement and not per some assessor’s whim or have it rise with a 2 1/2 override (which is what drove my friends out). I support paying for services like schools, police and fire but what happened to my friends is not the kind of choice you should be forced to make in your early 70’s.
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p>Health care is the big problem and in my town we avoided an override by going to all our Unions and non union workers to negotiate a 25/75 split on health care from the previous 15/85
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p>Fixing the out of control Health care industry is what is needed.
but many governmental unions scoff at paying their fair share of health care costs.
…Live in the Community which speaks well for them. They get the “We’re all in this together” Argument.
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p>25/75 is very reasonable. But the main argument is still Health care costs are out of control and still more than 11% of our total budget and that is what is driving 2 1/2 overrides and P tax increases that impact seniors in other towns.
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p>And the large home/senior leave/ Family moves in argument may work in affluent communities. Come on down to Blue Collar land and make the same case.
Do we start seeing education like in Florida? Somebody’s got to pay the bills, and if seniors aren’t, then everybody else has to pay more or cut services. Which should it be?
It’s called the income tax. I’m sympathetic to seniors on fixed incomes who are struggling with high property tax bills, but there are others struggling with them for other reasons – a layoff, illness, disability etc. Does it really make sense to exempt just seniors?
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p>I’d prefer to see the state raise local aid for cities and towns through a higher income tax rate, allow cities and towns a menu of local options taxes (such as the meals tax) to supplement property tax revenue, or aggressively pursue other opportunities to raise revenue, such as the casino plan.
Whether I pay local taxes, sate taxes or federal taxes the money comes out of the same pocket.
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p>How about we abolish the state and federal income taxes and go to a flat tax or a sales tax?
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p>I’m sick of many people in this country enjoying the fruits that we offer and paying nothing in taxes or worse they are on the dole.
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p>I’m not talking about folks who are legitimately disabled. I’m talking about the parasites. Like the recent Globe article re folks in MA who are chronically unemployed (seasonably). This allows them to relocate to warmer climes for the winter.
Property tax is assessed on the value of the property. If you are laid off, sick, disabled or on a fixed income, the bill is the same.
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p>Income tax is assessed on the money you have earned that year. If you are laid off, sick, disabled or otherwise have little or no income that year, you will owe little or no income tax. It’s a fairer way to collect the money we need for services we want and expect.
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p>I’m not a proponent of a flat tax, although I probably would personally benefit financially. Our tax system has been increasingly skewed to the very wealthy over the last 25 years. I’d rather see steep marginal rates for high earners with the proceeds funding a stronger social safety net for those at risk.
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p>And I worry a lot more about the costs of corporate welfare and sweetheart government contracts, and about the debt we are running up to fund an unnecessary war, and about the costs to all of us of failing to fund our educational system and maintain our infrastructure adequately, than I ever will about helping to pay for government programs for unfortunate people who need assistance to get through a rough patch in their lives.
You actually know who supports higher tax rates? Those of us who are in the business of providing tax relief to high income people. You know who which groups are the ones of the most vociferous about repealing the Bush estate tax? Estate attorneys and insurance salesmen; no tax, no billable hours or commissions.
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p>Prediction if Obama gets in and gets the higher SS taxes he’s proposing. There will not be a law firm left in the country (or any small entity) that isn’t reconfigured as a Subchapter S corporation the day after enactment (ala John Edwards). All of that income above his “doughnut hole” gets converted to dividend income, which is exempt from FICA. If they were doing it about the relatively miniscule Medicare 2.9%, they’ll be doing backflips about 15.3% (as well they should).
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p>And to be realistic, steep marginal rates affect those who are actually working for their money, instead of living off of investment earnings. Always thought that TRA ’86 was a brilliant piece of legislation (even if it did blow up the Real Estate industry in the 80s). A lower tax rate with fewer exemptions is a better way to go than high rates with many loopholes (I know, I peddle them).
Limit the loopholes and restore higher rates for the top income brackets.
Ain’t gonna happen, no matter what you want.
The smartest thing Kerry Healey ever said.
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p>As elderly taxpayers pressure lawmakers to provide property tax relief, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey says there may be an alternative way to reach that goal.
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p>My opinion is that to extend tax breaks to seniors in order to keep them overhoused and isolated in the suburbs is not necessarily the right answer,” Healey said in a recent interview. “It’s an answer, but the best answer would be to bring them into our city and town centers, into more
appropriate housing and free up those properties to get back on the tax rolls of the community.
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p>http://www.massnews.com/2005_e…
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p>It was such a rare moment of truth that she actually almost won my vote despite many other disagreements with her. Of course Deval Patrick used it against her in some ads and she backed off the statement later.
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p>The idea that senior citizens expect to live in the same large family house that they lived in when they raised their family and not pay taxes on the fair market value of that house is incredibly repugnant to me. The town provided services to their family as they were growing up, but now they want to stay in the large house and not pay their fair share to provide services to younger families in the town.
is that if the senior moves out and a family moves in, the town gets the same property tax revenue but now sees higher costs in education. So, for many town budget gurus, they like seniors occupying large homes — under the current rules they get the same property tax revenue, but don’t bear the same expenditures in the schools.
The senior leaves, the abatement leaves with the senior.
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p>The constraints of Proposition 2.5 have lead to reduced services (particuarly cuts in school budgets) and increased fees.
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p>For a young family, would you rather pay kindergarten fees, athletic fees, music fees, bus fees, conduct bake sales and buy your kids raffle tickets to fund basic classroom items, et al? Or would you rather pay a couple of hundred dollars per year more in property taxes, deductible from your Federal income tax?
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p>Would you rather pay a little more to have fully funded schools, libraries, and have shorter police and fire response times?
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p>Abating the override for low-income seniors makes tons of sense. Let the community contribute to the community, and let the seniors (who have paid their share over the years) get a small break in the taxes.
So if the senior citizens move out than younger families will move in who pay more taxes but cost more in services. If the senior citizens stay then they’ll pay less taxes and cause younger families to pick up the balance. Younger families lose either way.
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p>But why should the senior citizens who have low yearly gross income from pensions/social security but are sitting on a huge amount of capital in a paid off and empty family house be able to elicit sympathy when they spent the last 20 years getting the most they could out of the town services and now don’t want to pay for services for the younger families? Why should senior citizens who want to live in larger homes be subsidized by younger families who actually need larger homes?
It’s not just more, it’s a freaking-lot more. If a parent sends even one kid through a public system from k-12, even if he or she lives in that property until he or she were 6 feet under, that child may still have cost the town more than the parent paid in property taxes during the parent’s lifetime; it’s not even close if there were 2 or 3 children in the family. Educating children costs thousands upon thousands a year – which means Pablo has a point. Most towns prefer seniors living there than young families – and that’s a fact.
The property tax is a failed approach at paying for services in the state of Massachusetts. There, I’ve said it.
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p>We need to find the right way of paying for services. Maybe property taxes are a party of the equation, but they should only be a smallish part. What we really need – and what we all should be working for – is a progressive income bracket for Massachusetts, where people who could afford to pay more do pay a little bit more.
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p>Along with that, we need to make sure businesses are paying their fair share for being able to open up shop and get our excellent services and access to our smartest-in-the-nation workforce. And we need to make sure there’s a diversity of other means for the state and municipalities to collect revenue, so there’s no one source of taxation that’s so dominant that the state or towns become completely reliant on it, because that’s a recipe for it to become an unfair way of doing business – as property taxes have become today.
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p>This is something that’s not going to go away and it will hit every single town in Massachusetts. Helping seniors is a tiny bandaid that isn’t addressing the problem and may, as others have indicated, allow the problem to get worse for younger families that can barely afford to be here as it is. So let’s start having this conversation and trying to make people aware of what a progressive income tax in Massachusetts would mean for the state: finally, a little fairness and the resources necessary to make our state truly great.
Though the Mass. Constitution bars a progressive income tax, which would make it an uphill fight. There was a ballot initiative that sought to implement progressive taxation in 1994 that failed.
There should be a component of means testing for everyone in regards to the property tax. Young families can run into a dilema when the principal wage earner loses his/her job or becomes disabled. Your income drops your income tax drops but your property tax remains the same. Does not quite seem fair.
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p>There is a trap with relying on State revenue to fund local services. I been around the block a few times to see that everytime the State has a budget crisis Local Aid is the first thing to get cut.
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p>Local option taxes won’t do much for the suburbs west of 495, not many hotel rooms to tax and the restaurant business stinks right now.
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p>The State could help with the biggest problems in local government, health insurance, pensions, and SPED.
in that this is basically an inferior alternative to things like the Municipal Partnership Act.
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p>It would be better for the legislature to give cities and towns more power to control costs (say, by folding underperforming local pension funds into the state system) and also giving them more revenue. And yeah, raise Verizon’s income taxes to do that–and mine too if necessary. It’s fairer.
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p>All of that is genuinely tough for our great and general court, unfortunately. Meanwhile in our town we only have part-time nurses in our elementary schools. And a proposal like this would make property taxes a little more progressive than they are (though with some real flaws).
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p>So in addition to being amused by Barbara Anderson’s contortions on this (essentially, We’re against this tax cust because we’re for tax cuts!), I am also genuinely torn about this trend.
Sure, Barbara Anderson may save a few dollars with the lower taxes she loves…
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p>But the biggest beneficiaries are the criminals who get away with stealing because we had to cut police officers from the force.
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p>Civilization and Safety cost something.
You know Spring is here when the robins and Red Sox return, and the annual override battles begin.
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p>I have been on all sides of this issue. I have fought for overrides (operating and debt exclusion) for schools and school buildings; and led – or worked on – fundraising drives for the schools that have raised a few hundred thousand dollars over the years.
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p>Ditto on “the other side”; I spent years on the senior center building committee, and fought for the overrides to pay for it. I have also worked with the seniors on fundraising drives for the center and for a bus to get them there (and to Foxwoods). It was interesting to watch seniors argue just as passionately for their override as school people did for theirs.
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p>I’ll get to my main point in a sec, but let’s talk about little old Medfield. Since we can’t spit onto a freeway ramp like some of our neighbors (and manufacturing is in serious decline in general)we’ve been slowing losing our commercial and industrial base. The last major factory last year morphed into a private girls high school. That’ll put a whole in your tax base.
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p>So here’s what we’ve got (My numbers may be a little out of date, but not much. You can all of this data on the State Dept of Revenue web site):
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p>- One of the highest single family home property tax bills in the state
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p>- One of the lowest commercial / industrial tax bases in the state
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p>These two things go together. And then we add in this:
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p> – Highest percentage of the population under 18 in the state; and one of the highest east of the Mississippi.
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p>So, yeah a big tax bill and a whole lot of it going to schools and kids. But, at the same time:
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p>- We have one of the lowest per pupil costs in the state.
– One of the highest MCAS scores in the state.
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p>We do this because we also spend a ton of time and energy raising money for those schools the old fashioned way: we beg. I co-chaired one auction last fall that made over $100k. We’ve raised nearly $1 Million through different fundraising drives to rebuild athletic fields and playgrounds. I’ve bought and sold more wrapping paper, candles, magazine subscriptions, pizzas, seafood, and other stuff than I can remember. I publish a town news email every week, most of it about school fundraising drives.
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p>Grandparents buying magazines aside, seniors didn’t contribute much to these fundraising drives.
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p>We rely far too much on the property tax in this state. It is regressive. It is not based on ability to pay.
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p>It isn’t doing the job. Look at the local aid chunk in the state budget. Look at reduced services: cops, firefighters, libraries.
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p>Give cities and towns a broader menu of taxes to choose from, ones that make more sense for their demographic and geographic reality. Give towns ways to raise their own revenue, so we don’t need as much state “aid”.
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p>Go ahead, cap total revenue. Force us to make choices and debate what we spend money on. I’ll sit all night – even two nights – in a town meeting doing that. And I have. That’s real democracy. But, that discussion is better when it’s about what we should spend money on, and not about who’s getting hosed on taxes.
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p>Sure, towns can tighten their belts. Who can’t? But when did cops, firefighters, teachers, and librarians become a luxury? Or the buildings we ask them to work in?
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p>This was supposed to be one of the Governor’s priorities. This should be a Democratic issue: fighting for fair taxes, not just lower taxes. Fighting for economic development that brings in more jobs and tax revenue.
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p>I’ve talked way too long, sorry.
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p>Time to get the property tax reduction issue back at the top of the priority list.
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p>In the meantime, anyone need a magazine subscription?
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p>Who subscribes anymore? Mostly free online.
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p>You should sell this instead.
cities and towns decided the best way to alleviate this was to asses and keep reassesing property values. This natrually begets more staffing for cities and town. More staff, more computers, more software “updates”, real estate valuation seminars, travel to real estate professional assessors conventions, meals, hotels….get the picture.
This keeps coming up. Raising assessments in an of itself does not raise the levy limit or increase municipal revenue. Assessments can redistribute the tax burden from those with lower value property to those with higher values. Increases in revenue above the 2.5% limit come from new growth and overrides.
This is an easy bill to like on the surface. Why not give low-income seniors an exemption? But I think it is a dangerous precedent to set. This will allow for people to vote on raising other people’s taxes. That is fundamentally unfair and is an obvious end around prop 2 1/2. If you don’t agree with prop 2 1/2 then work to change it, don’t circumvent it.
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p>If the purpose is to provide a tax break to low income seniors then I would rather see an expansion of the senior “circuit breaker”. This would allow for the savings to be passed on to renters as well.
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p>The root cause of a fair amount of our fiscal crisis is the rising, out of control costs of health care. Everything else, including casinos and more progressive taxation is just a band-aid. Controlling health care costs should be the focus of reform. I’m interested to see the plan Senate President Murray is releasing on Monday.
As I said in a previous diary, we’re getting hosed by the a gutless legislature which doesn’t want to deal with the state’s structural deficit in a fair, equitable manner. The property tax is a regressive tax that disadvantages less affluent property owners and communities.
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p>Barbara Anderson was the conservative/libertarian response to a real problem, a problem the Democrats were in no position to recognize in 1980: the increasing burden of a regressive tax. Her response reflected the time. Now in ascendancy, Democrats should be able to present a Progressive response to the issue. Deval Patrick’s Municipal Partnership Act was supposed to be a new response to a decades old problem.
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p>It will be interesting to see if he has the vision to stand up to the legislature and veto it.
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p>Mark
That Democrats, when in government, like to have the government divide the polity into favored/disfavored classifications of the sort that would be an outrage if perpretrated i the private sector.
In my neck of the woods, almost FORTY PERCENT of the resident homeowners are over 65. Full disclosure – in about 8 weeks, I can BE one of those people voting to raise taxes because I won’t have to pay it myself.
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p>Income bears no relationship to solvency when you are past your working years. CD’s, stock market accounts, etc. – all these are part of the assets of the elderly. So to make EARNED INCOME the marker – at a generous $60,000 per household to boot! – is nothing but an incitement to get seniors to raise taxes they won’t have to pay.
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p>It’s interesting – the circuit breaker provision for proerty tax remains untouched by this. Auto insurance is discounted by 25% by law as well. All the OTHER relief mearures for seniors remain in place. So this is just one extra goody. And it will destroy communities, as it pits seniors against young families and small businesses (WalMart will be able to afford the higher taxes better than Fred’s Hardware). Or, to put it another way, the productive elements of our communities will be further penalized, while the consumptive elements are further rewarded.
Ruth Balser sponsored the bill.
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p>I also have not found any reference to the bill addressing specifically ‘earned income’ as opposed to income, period. Do you have a cite for this?
.. “Taxpayer’s total income”, the sum of the taxpayer’s Part A adjusted gross income, Part B adjusted gross income and Part C adjusted gross income, as defined in section 2, increased by, to the extent they are excluded or subtracted from adjusted gross income, the following: the total amount of income and receipts from social security, retirement, pension, or annuities, cash, but not in-kind, public assistance, tax-exempt interest and dividends, net capital losses deducted pursuant to paragraph (2) of subsection (c) of section 2, net losses in any class of Part C adjusted gross income as defined in subsection (e) of section 2, capital gains deducted pursuant to subparagraph (K) of paragraph (1) of subsection (d) of section 2, income from a partnership or trust not included therein and gross receipts from any other source other than assistance received by this subsection; and reduced by the total amount of the exemptions allowed by subparagraphs (B) and (C) of paragraph (1), subparagraphs (B) and (C) of paragraph (1A), subparagraphs (B) and (C) of paragraph (2), and paragraph (3), of subsection (b) of section 3.
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Originally filed as House 2840 but check out House 4534 for the latest version of the bill. For those interested, here is a link to the roll call – unfortunately the roll call listed in the bill history page at the mass.gov site is incorrect and therefore incorrect on OpenMass as well.