Unless your property taxes are paid through an escrow account, I’m guessing that among your various year-end duties is – or was – a note of reminder to pay your town property taxes. Furthermore, depending on your particular frame of mind at the time you wrote it, you may have even inserted an adjective or two before “taxes!”
According to the Newtown Tax Collector’s Frequently Asked Questions web page, you actually have until the 1st of February to pay the second half installment before being listed as officially delinquent.
I was reminded of all of this the other night when a friend of mine called to vent.
It seems a certain real estate agent somehow tipped off the town Assessor’s office that his house actually had more square feet than was listed on the property card.
As a consequence, he was issued a “corrected” tax bill.
My friend was understandably frustrated at the fact that if his house was worth as much as the town says it is, he’d sell it in a New York minute.
I commiserated with him for a while before hanging up. But the whole thing got me to thinking. How much does the town think my house is worth?
I confess I’m not up on these things. My certified-public-accountant wife logically – and fortunately for me — takes care of these matters, though I do seem to hear her muttering about the issue from time to time.
My first stop was to the Assessors online data base at the Vision Appraisal website. There I was able to find the appraised value.
My next stop was to a popular property value website. I typed in my full address and up popped their opinion of what my house was worth. It was over $100,000 less than the appraised value.
But then I recalled hearing from various people that this particular website notoriously undervalued property so I started my own comparable property search.
For that I looked at recent real estate transactions and real estate listings of similar properties in similar neighborhoods.
My conclusions are no surprise because I know that I’m in the same boat as my friend, and in fact, just about everyone else in town who has owned their houses for the past five years.
Our houses are grossly overvalued.
Presumably all of this is going to be fixed this October when according to yet another FAQ page on the town’s website we’re set for a revaluation.
Then everything will be set right, right? WRONG!
Sorry, but in the overall scheme of things it doesn’t really matter what the town thinks your property is worth. When the grand list drops — dramatically — the town will simply adjust the mill rate. They have to. After all we’re not the federal government. Somehow tax revenue has to equal or exceed expenses.
That’s why the whole system of supporting towns through property taxes has to be abandoned, or at the very least, revised.
So what’s the solution? Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The solution is some kind of income tax. It’s the only fair way.
The only alternative is to stay with the property tax system but drastically reduce costs.
Since the school system represents the bulk of our budget and since we are obligated by state and federal law to provide free public school education to every single child, and since the bulk of the education budget is staff and faculty salaries, we could move to a coordinated system of volunteers to do what we’re paying people to do now.
Or we could require parents to put in a set number of hours — for free — to staff our schools.
Well, maybe not. This is certainly a dilemma. What do you think?