Well, I can certainly recognize my gains when I get on my bathroom scales. I can also recognize my bride’s gains but dare not mention it. BTW, 5 years after marriage men typical will have gained 25 pounds and women 30.
Property tax is bad bc your taxed on something you already own and can’t sell if it’s your primary residence. They used to tax closet space long ago then homeowners would reduce closet space.
I don’t know what the best solution to the whole tax thing is. There’s so many taxing entities such as state/county, school, MUD, state sales tax, city sales tax, gas tax, and whatever else there is. To fund all is a problem, but it would be great to have one steady taxing authority to cover everything with some kind of fair tax.
BTW, the discussion of who is paying their fair share is puzzling. I don’t see why it’s fair to charge one guy a larger % than another. What would be more fair is to get the deductions under control.
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Yea, get rid of the senior exemption on property taxes for a start.
The property tax should be based on what house was bought for.
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I’d agree bc they tax unrealized gains in worth before you sell while just living there and if poor, you are forced to sell. It’s like taxing stocks on capital gains when you didn’t yet sell.
I hate property taxes. They could just do an income tax but exempt a certain amount to get where they need to be on revenue and adjust for inflation then the poor aren’t hurt etc. They are looking at income tax as all or nothing but exemptions of a certain amount would make it workable.
That’s how CA does it.
I used to own 3 different houses in Texas, over a 22 year period of time.
The whole taxing scheme is sickening.
Endless “appraised values”, which then can be protested. Many, many protests are successful, which proves that the assessor system is wrong,
The permanent value should be the original purchase price. When property is sold the new owner then pays on what they paid.
The existing system taxes Unrealized Capital Gains, regardless of ability to pay.
Only a Graduated Income Tax system uses Accounting’s Matching principle. It matches the Tax to ability to pay.
No idea why Texas residents put up with the mental illness that is the State Property Tax system.
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I think you have to allow for some increases over time, but they should be limited by a set formula and have nothing to do with valuation.
That’s why there are so many antique armoires
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Not tax related per se, but checking Zillow the percent of value my home was losing per month has been cut in half over the past 30 days. It was approaching 1% and now is down to .53% (Harris County).
I hope this is a sign of an upturn in Houston home values.
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Boooooo!!! You want to hit the seniors who are retired, and either can’t or can barely, keep up with cost of living increases? How thoughtful of you, it’s just like taxing social security. You must be a democrat, like Joe Biden who voted to tax social security in 1983 and was the deciding vote to raise the tax on social security benefits to 85% in 1993. That was all the while saying the GOP wants to do away with social security and throw grandma off the cliff.
Do you remember the ad showing a grandma in a wheelchair being thrown off a cliff?
In Attack Ad, Paul Ryan Kills Grandma In Wheelchair (forbes.com)
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It was a comment on your post about getting rid of deductions. Your senior one being one of them. Do you see the irony now?
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I’ve never been a big fan of senior discounts, and I’m approaching the age when I’ll benefit from it. An example why: If you’re a 65-year-old billionaire with a dog, living in Houston, yearly registration is $2. If you’re a single mother of 5, working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet, and your kids want a dog, it’s $20.
As for property appraisals, I’d like to see values stay at what the current owner paid for the property, increasing only for inflation. I bought my first home in 1991 for $60k. The neighborhood got yuppified, and by the time HCAD succeeded in taxing me out of my home in 2016, they had it over-appraised at more than $460k. My thoughts on that: IF I WANTED A GDMF $460K HOME, WHY WOULD I HAVE F-ING BOUGHT A GDMF $60K HOME! But I rant…
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When we paid off the mortgage my wife got all excited saying “no more mortgage payments!”
I explained to her we were still renting from the government. Then she was sad
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Because of no income tax, property taxes and sales taxes gotta be high. We still don’t tax services such as haircuts. At some point that will be irresistible to lawmakers.
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North Carolina
Nope. It was a bipartisan effort endorsed by a commission run by Greenspan, and passed with bipartisan support, and with Reagan’s endorsement. From the SSA site:
Q3. Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A3. The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 following passage of a set of Amendments in 1983, which were signed into law by President Reagan in April 1983. These amendments passed the Congress in 1983 on an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote.
The basic rule put in place was that up to 50% of Social Security benefits could be added to taxable income, if the taxpayer’s total income exceeded certain thresholds.
The taxation of benefits was a proposal which came from the Greenspan Commission appointed by President Reagan and chaired by Alan Greenspan (who went on to later become the Chairman of the Federal Reserve).
The full text of the Greenspan Commission report is available on our website.
President’s Reagan’s signing statement for the 1983 Amendments can also be found on our website.
A detailed explanation of the provisions of the 1983 law is also available on the website.
And part of the Reagan’s signing statement:
Just a few months ago, there was legitimate alarm that social security would soon run out of money. On both sides of the political aisle, there were dark suspicions that opponents from the other party were more interested in playing politics than in solving the problem. But in the eleventh hour, a distinguished bipartisan commission appointed by House Speaker O’Neill, by Senate Majority Leader Baker, and by me began, to find a solution that could be enacted into law.
Political leaders of both parties set aside their passions and joined in that search. The result of these labors in the Commission and the Congress are now before us, ready to be signed into law, a monument to the spirit of compassion and commitment that unites us as a people.
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What is the total tax burden as a percentage of income? In states like Texas with high property and consumption taxes, low-earners spend a larger percentage of their income on state taxes than rich guys like Tilman or CDH, for example.
Ya know, I can remember when Alief was considered the “far West” suburb to move to.
Now people are moving much further West to Fulshear.
SPRAWL!!!
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