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EMIL
FRANZI |
Dancing around raising property taxesNovember 28 2007 |
The recent debate in Oro
Valley involving the addition of a secondary property
tax to develop the 213-acre property at the Naranja site
near town hall is but one more step in the evolution of
bigger local government.
The OV council just began the first step with a modest beginning, 28 cents per $100 of assessed value, for bonds requested for the first batch of parks amenities. Others want up to $150 million, which would push the tax rate closer to a buck. OV, Marana and other new towns have danced around the property tax issue for some time. They’ve been able to dodge it by raising impact fees and inventing other taxes to cover the rising costs of the growth the impact fees have brought them. It’s past time to dispel the myth that population growth pays for itself, particularly at the local level. Most taxes paid by new residents — income, sales, auto registrations, and others — go to the state. That leaves towns and school and other local districts relying mainly on property taxes. Which is why so many creative new taxes have been invented and why the sales tax keeps climbing — check your bill next time you stop for coffee in Eloy. Time to concede that growth costs and decide how to pay for it. I was once an advocate of impact fees. Mea culpa — all they do is drive local governments into searching for more of them. They don’t restrain growth, they encourage it. As the bureaucracy grows, the pressure on those we elect to fill more needs, real or imagined, continues partly from the town employees they see daily. Ever hear of a government official advocating LESS? Also time to concede that bureaucracies have their own growth agendas. I appreciate the efforts of those valiant souls who keep track of government waste and boondoggles from the National Taxpayer’s Union at the federal level to the Pima Association of Taxpayer’s locally. They help keep ’em honest. But the fundamental problem isn’t high taxes or government waste or even corrupt public officials. It’s how much control over us those taxes are used for. Building a useless bridge from point A to point B just costs me money. Forcing me to wait three extra days in the construction of a storage shed to have it inspected even though it has no utilities and is being built by a reputable company wastes my time and a government inspector’s, and the delay costs me much more than my share of that bridge. As local governments grow they acquire more power over our everyday life. If the good people of Oro Valley are so enamored with such basic necessities as more sports fields and basketball courts or even greater ones like a public swimming facility and a community center, if they have grown so dependent on government parks that they and their children are incapable of recreating on their own, if their HOA’s have so restricted their activities that public facilities are their only option to computer games and lives as couch potatoes then they may vote to tax their neighbors and themselves to provide for these needs. They can make that clear by choosing council members who support the project and by voting for the bond proposal to pay for it and initiate a property tax in the process. That’s the American way. There is nothing inherently wrong with property taxes. But here’s what someone once said: “There is no such thing as a fair tax” — Lazarus Long AKA Robert A. Heinlein.
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BUT WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! |
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