I just got a pamphlet with my property tax bill from the county trying to explain how property taxes can go up when property values are way down. I tried to understand what it said until I realized I was reading a steaming pile of bullshit. The title of the pamphlet is "UNDERSTANDING PROPOSAL A IN A DECLINING MARKET"
See if you can understand this garbage:
How can my Taxable Value go up when my SEV goes down?
Remember that the definition of Taxable Value is the lesser of SEV or last year's Taxable Value (adjusted for physical changes) times the CPI. (4.4% for 2009). Since the beginning of Proposal A in 1994, overall increase in Taxable Value capped at the CPI. The longer a property has been owned and capped, the greater the gap between SEV and Taxable Value. Even with a decrease in SEV for 2009, if there is still a gap between SEV and Taxable Value and the 2009 SEV is greater than the Taxable Value in the previous year, the taxable Value will increase to the limit of the CPI cap.
(Bold as printed on the pamphlet)
Oh, it's all so clear to me now. Even though my home value is in the toilet, you're going to tax me like it's a mansion.
Thanks A$$holes!
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About Me
- dan
- I am the author of 4 books, Android Down, Firewood for Cannibals, Brain Giblets, and The Cubicles of Madness. I live and write in Michigan.
3 comments:
Err.. it's not too complicated.
Without Prop A your property taxes could swing upwards quickly in a booming market, like we saw a few years ago. If we let that happen people could see 10-15-20% increases in their property taxes in a single year. So, we cap the increase in relation to some other market indicator to prevent people from being driven from their homes when real estate prices around them start going up.
Yeah, it sucks that your property taxes can go up year-over-year even though the value of your home is down over the last 12 months, but the alternative is worse.
Just remember, the state assessed value can't go over 50% of what it's actually worth. If your house's value really is in the shitter your taxes should be too.
Thanks for translating that, I thought I was reading another language.
No problem.
What I have to figure out how is how I convince the township that the house I bought in Dec. 2006 isn't worth what I paid for it anymore. They want to tax me this year just the same as they did the last two.
I reckon the odds of my house actually holding its value like that are about the same as George W. Bush winning a Nobel in Physics next year.
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