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Jay Evensen: Cold facts tend to cool off the ire over taxe

I never trust news stories that spout statistics when discussing taxes. You are never sure how those numbers are used (i.e. manipulated) to support whatever argument the writer is trying to convey. Are the numbers inflation adjusted? Are they percentages or real dollars? Are they basing them on the average price of homes or the median? Are they concentrating on only one tax (in this case: property taxes) while ignoring the overall tax picture? Are they only quoting years where there was some kind of anomaly?

The truth is, I think government is way too big and takes too much in taxes. It should let the individual earners decide the best way to spend their money. There are certainly critical services that only government can provide but I think those are a fraction of the current role government is playing.

Evensen is clueless again. It doesn't matter how much property tax we pay, it's still a bad tax. Utah's property tax undercuts home ownership. Property tax make us all renters from the government.

Evensen has it right, and a great analogy. The only good tax is one that we don't have to pay, but benefit from. The next best thing are those that are hidden and we don't have to sit down and write a check. If we had to sit down and pay our income tax each month instead of having it withheld there would be insurrection. The only time we notice sales tax is when we buy a car or other big ticket items, and we never notice the $.43 tax on each gallon of gasoline, or do we pay attention to the nickel/dime taxes on our utility bill. Why even the homeowners that pay the property tax with the mortgage payment don't notice it. The renters don't think about it either because they pay it through the landlord. You would think that the only ones affected are those who have no mortgage payment, but they benefit from the same local services as everyone else, and would complain if these services were cut back.

Evensen is clueless on some things, but not this issue.

I agree with Stewart's concern about being nickel'd and dime'd, but what does that have to do with our concerns with the property tax. Of course Stewart toppled his argument when he admits that most Utahns don't notice the complete property tax bill since they are paying monthly either as part of their rent or mortgage (so we are getting nickel'd and dime'd regardless of the tax).

I'm tired of never truly owning my home and always being at risk of losing it just because of the property tax burden our bloated government (especially the schools) places on it. I thought we believed in property ownership in American. Looks like that's just another fairy tale.

Our property tax (not over ONE or TWO years) has risen at the astounding rate of DOUBLING every four years. This was happening over a span of 13 YEARS! Guess how long it takes your salary to double? Would you believe about 28 years using the Federal COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) as the base?!

Property Valuation in Salt Lake City in 2007 exploded by 20%. Few noticed this. Most thought this was a tax reduction because your tax bill mailed to you used the lowest EFFECTIVE TAX RATE ever .... .65% By doing so, your tax bill for 2007, in most cases, appeared to go DOWN! The .65% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE slyly hid the real impact of a whopping 20% valuation increase on your home!

When this EFFECTIVE TAX RATE returns to normal .... back to the .77 to .87 rates, you'll be whacked with a tax bill you won't believe. You will believe it, though, when you lose your home. You'll discover that in just ten short years your property tax will EXCEED income.

How about including these COLD facts?!