I have a property tax question.

[OKdon]

I will remind you that people need not own property to pay property taxes. I assure you that most property owners rent their properties with their tax burden in mind. So if I live in a rented house I am paying the property taxes indirectly.

If I own a $200K home in OK I pay just about as much property taxes as I pay on a $1 M dollar farm in Iowa.  And the farm will produce $20K in income return. S o which one is over taxes or which one is under taxed?

[OKdon]

You need to deal with averages. Not every one lives 25 years after retiring. I barely 10 year into my retirement and will be fortunate to survive another 5. My family history has few male members existing much more than age 80. My dad died at age 79 and two of my brothers passed at slightly iover 80. So ami I apt to live to ninety. The odds are against it. I doubt that the average teacher beats those odds very far.

[Shaggy98]

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OKdon wrote:

I will remind you that people need not own property to pay property taxes. I assure you that most property owners rent their properties with their tax burden in mind. So if I live in a rented house I am paying the property taxes indirectly.

I'm not sure I completely agree with your comment Don.  Shortly after the wife and I graduated college we moved to a medium sized SW Kansas town that was slowly being repopulated with minorities.  Bear with me, I'm not trying to make this sound like a racist statement.  This community had been trying to pass a community improvement bill for years by increasing the property tax to fund the project only to be voted down 2 or maybe even 3 times (I can't remember for sure).  On the fourth attempt the changed from property tax funding to an increase in local sales tax and the bill pass with flying colors.  See those minorities owned very little with maybe the exception of a automobile or two and the property owners didn't want to get stuck with paying the entire improvement bill.  Although the minorities didn't own much property, they still did most of their shopping locally hence the additional sales tax helped fund the entire project that was being constructed to be enjoyed by all, not just the property owners.

[sw363535]

Shaggy lets try not to make the subject a comment on intellegence,  🙂 -- not an attack on anyone just a joke

but

Don makes the assumption that renters understand that their rent pays the property taxes.....

Well, they never seem to vote that way

And school administrators and boards never seem to understand that..... They will always stack a new school against property taxes and avoid sales taxes to get it passed.

But then again it is an "education" problem making that connection Don just made.

And there is that idea that a large number of property tax payers are out of county, out of state, etc  

So a large number of property tax payers cannot vote on the issue. --- one would think a good liberal could get behind that cause.....

I have lived in a ks county where 60% of the tax base was gas & oil companies..... even their employees would vote to raise property taxes because "THey are paying the bill".  Truth was everyone from here to Chicago was paying the increased property taxes by the time you apply Don's "trickle down" theory.  How fair is that...

Property taxes are hard to defend....

There is a county in Ks just west of you that hasn't got a town with much for shopping...... They do most of their shopping out of county...  So a sales tax is a little tough there...  And then there is the idea that the rich shop out of county...... and we do..... a lot of us.....sudo rich...  the ones with cars...

It is a tough question that gets tougher,,,,,, when we are spending more than we can afford..,,, and can't remember that education is mental development and not sports trophies.  Seems like the more we spend on education the lower the level of education is........  Our local Juco would like to prepare students for their next step in higher education instead of spending half or more of their class hours on remedial high school cirriculum.