Mr. Bert Hulet from Bountiful had only one minute to speak but he made wise use of his minute by stating the following:
Presentation Oct 8, 2007, to Utah Association of Counties
I have been working with tax data on individual residences in Bountiful and 6 other counties. Some of it has been researched back over 30 years. I have discovered interesting facts;
(1) If you plot the increasing value of the residence by using the government cost of living adjustment (COLA) each year you will achieve a value that closely equals the actual current value of the residence.
(2) The calculated value tracks an average of the widely varying assessed value.
(3) The tax required tracks the COLA (no surprise).
(4) The required tax does not seem to be related to the assessed value.
(5) In no case did the initial cost of the residence appear to be used for the initial determination of the fair market value.
The current law seems to make it difficult for the assessors to do their work.
It is proposed that the fair market value be arrived at by using the initial cost adjusted by the COLA.
It is also suggested that the entities that spend the tax be brought to the table and be placed on DIET COLA. Click here to read the rest of the post
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
What's really wrong with taxing the bigs the same as every one else? You can't very well have one property tax rate for small biz owners and another for the bigs. Whoops, I guess we do - don't we!
I'm glad to see people in this property tax debate focus on the real underlying problem - out of control spending by local taxing authorities.
A good example of this is in Farmington. Now I don't have anything against the people in Farmington city government, they are all nice folks who mean well, and they do a pretty good job of running the city. However, in the fifteen years that I have been here the city has grown by about 30 percent and the city government has grown by about 300 percent.
In spite of this incredible growth in the city government, there is no real increase in quality of life here. There has been no value added to the citizens because of this enormous growth at city hall.
Davis County commissioners have also enjoyed about a 300 percent increase in their salary in the 15 years I have been paying them blood money er I mean property taxes!
I'm not sure if it was the "Public Service Commission" or something a lot like it, but just a couple of years ago the commission I am thinking of was led by a very effective advocate for the utility rate payers by the name of Roger Ball. Seems that old Roger was a real wiz on utility rate structure and was a very aggressive and effective advocate for the citizens. In fact he was so good at representing the people that he rubbed the nay bobs in the big utility companies the wrong way. They in turn went crying to the governor, put a lot of pressure on him and he fired good old Roger! To add insult to injury he then replaced Roger with some lobbyist from one of the big utility companies!
Now THAT my friends is exactly the way I remember it! The Pubic Service Commission was neutered by our last Governor and Huntsman has done nothing to correct it. Just needed validation. And as for the growth in government in Farmington...at least you know about it. We here in Weber County do not get any information from the Commissioners or local "government". Hell I can't even get my local Representative to get the information from the State Tax Commission. They are operating in shrouded secrecy and getting by with it! No Truth in Taxation, no agenda posted for meetings when they are supposed to be, no transparency in government. We can not wait to get these people out of office. We among other things, are pressing for recall provisions where people ineffective as administrators and leaders can be removed from office for incompetance. Malfeasance is apparently a legal standard set too high to be in effect unless one of them plays footsie in a public stall or something really strange. We need a return to sanity and common sense here in Weber County and the State could use a good dose of it too it seems more evident with each passing day. Thanks for your comment Tom. Check in with your ideas frequently please. We value your thoughts and opinions here.
Post a Comment