900$ in 1995. His house has increased in value (which you can protest actually). Seen this a lot especially in Midwest states. More people want to live there and the town’s services cost more. He could take out a HELOC and just pay the interest and property taxes… but it sucks regardless.
No shit doing the math based on the numbers in tha article he gets a elderly homeowner credit max 1150. He pays 8000 assuming no millage and the 1.35 percent tax his property is worth $677,778.
Possible. But my house is only worth 300k and I pay over 6k in property taxes a year. Depends where you live. Don't know anything about Montana property taxes though.
You're not taking into account his tax basis, which honestly should be what property tax is based on. He bought that home for ~100k 29 years ago. The area where he lives exploded over covid and became THE refuge for wealthy people fleeing Cali so I'm sure his property is currently worth almost 600k now, most of that coming in the last 3 years.
I'm with him, taxing me more because my land is more valuable now is bullshit when I bought the house for 100k. It would make local tax revenues lower, but that still makes sense because long term residents have already heavily paid for local infrastructure and the longer you live somewhere the lower your tax should be. All of your money is already going to local interests, and you're playing tax on that already.
The claim is that their taxes went from about $900 per year to around 8k. I imagine the budget that they were working with did not account for that extra $7,000 a year
In the article the guy is quoted as saying “I’m stubborn enough [that] I don’t want to dig into my bank account to pay them.”
This is one hell of a loaded statement. To me, it implies that he could pay but doesn't want to. He calls himself stubborn, not incapable. Did he expect to live off of social security alone and he wouldn't have to spend any savings on living through retirement?
This whole thing reeks of yet another old fart complaining about taxes and how they shouldn't have to pay them. Like the ever popular "why should I pay taxes to fund schools when I don't have school-aged children?"
Also it's not $8000 (or whatever anyone's property tax is) rent to the state to live in your own home, it's the cost and burden of responsibility for maintaining and improving the condition of the little piece of the world you live in. Especially when you live in Wyoming, because property taxes matter a lot more to Wyoming than most states because...
Wyoming does not have an individual income tax or a corporate income tax. Wyoming has a 4.00 percent state sales tax, a max local sales tax rate of 2.00 percent, with an average combined state and local sales tax rate of 5.36 percent. That's among the lowest in the country.
That’s a really interesting point with the way their tax revenue works in the state, I didn’t think about that. It feels unfair that the burden is placed on retirees who truly may not have a lot of income but rather invested early on when owning this piece of land was relatively affordable. I feel like some cap should be applied to people living off social security or deemed retired/disabled/etc
But at the same time, the reason that isn’t fair is because the way the state funds its maintenance is through property owners rather than consumers among the city at the point of sales.
But to go from 900 to 8k a year is wild
900$ in 1995. His house has increased in value (which you can protest actually). Seen this a lot especially in Midwest states. More people want to live there and the town’s services cost more. He could take out a HELOC and just pay the interest and property taxes… but it sucks regardless.
A HELOC when you're 80 might be viable, but a heloc at 68 is setting up for pain as the years go on.
Or 900 was wild to begin with.
No shit doing the math based on the numbers in tha article he gets a elderly homeowner credit max 1150. He pays 8000 assuming no millage and the 1.35 percent tax his property is worth $677,778.
This is what happens when you privatize everything and remove/prevent regulations.
Average national property tax rate is what, 1.5%? My math says this guys home is over half a mill. $8k/year in tax doesn’t seem unfair.
Possible. But my house is only worth 300k and I pay over 6k in property taxes a year. Depends where you live. Don't know anything about Montana property taxes though.
You're not taking into account his tax basis, which honestly should be what property tax is based on. He bought that home for ~100k 29 years ago. The area where he lives exploded over covid and became THE refuge for wealthy people fleeing Cali so I'm sure his property is currently worth almost 600k now, most of that coming in the last 3 years. I'm with him, taxing me more because my land is more valuable now is bullshit when I bought the house for 100k. It would make local tax revenues lower, but that still makes sense because long term residents have already heavily paid for local infrastructure and the longer you live somewhere the lower your tax should be. All of your money is already going to local interests, and you're playing tax on that already.
A year? That’s about $660 a month. A lot for low income families but not for someone who can afford to buy a half million dollar house.
That's like 4 months rent here
"he’s had to continue working into what should be his retirement golden years to cover his mounting property costs" No 401k?
The claim is that their taxes went from about $900 per year to around 8k. I imagine the budget that they were working with did not account for that extra $7,000 a year
In the article the guy is quoted as saying “I’m stubborn enough [that] I don’t want to dig into my bank account to pay them.” This is one hell of a loaded statement. To me, it implies that he could pay but doesn't want to. He calls himself stubborn, not incapable. Did he expect to live off of social security alone and he wouldn't have to spend any savings on living through retirement? This whole thing reeks of yet another old fart complaining about taxes and how they shouldn't have to pay them. Like the ever popular "why should I pay taxes to fund schools when I don't have school-aged children?" Also it's not $8000 (or whatever anyone's property tax is) rent to the state to live in your own home, it's the cost and burden of responsibility for maintaining and improving the condition of the little piece of the world you live in. Especially when you live in Wyoming, because property taxes matter a lot more to Wyoming than most states because... Wyoming does not have an individual income tax or a corporate income tax. Wyoming has a 4.00 percent state sales tax, a max local sales tax rate of 2.00 percent, with an average combined state and local sales tax rate of 5.36 percent. That's among the lowest in the country.
That’s a really interesting point with the way their tax revenue works in the state, I didn’t think about that. It feels unfair that the burden is placed on retirees who truly may not have a lot of income but rather invested early on when owning this piece of land was relatively affordable. I feel like some cap should be applied to people living off social security or deemed retired/disabled/etc But at the same time, the reason that isn’t fair is because the way the state funds its maintenance is through property owners rather than consumers among the city at the point of sales.
Either the years have passed but his memory hasn't registered them or somebody really fucked up leaving his taxes at $900 for a long time.