On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 21:55:06 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 20:28:17 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 19:57:23 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 19:22:57 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 06:07:04 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 1/15/2017 10:46 PM, wrote:



That seems to be one area that Vermont actually did better. They had
a "Grand List" of all property in the town. The tax rate was set at
the annual budger divided by the "Grand List". If property values
tank, the rate goes up. The total tax is the same (in theory). Here,
the taxes colllected vary with property taxes. Seems they should vary
by the "needs" of the community.


In theory it works that way. Unfortunately, too many people don't
understand it. When the come around every 10 years (now 5) I hear people
complain that once revalued their tax will go up. The town finance
committee seems willing to make that come true. It is a money grab with
an increased budget.

My point was that it doesn't work like that here. It's the tax rate
that's "fixed", not the budgets.
The "mil rate" is fixed - which means you pay the same per thousand
dollars of "assessed value" as the next guy.

Right. It's that way here. In Vermont the mil rate wasn't fixed and
changed with the budget. IOW, here property values drive the tax
paid, thus the budget (mil rate is fixed). In Vermont, it's the
budget that drives the mil rate, thus the taxes paid. It's a big
difference.

The mil rate changes from year to year, but is fixed for the region
for the year.

Now you have me confused. If the mil rate changes from year to year,
you're more like Vermont. That makes more sense than having budgets
controlled by real estate values (as it is here).

By "region", do you mean across many taxing entities? Cities pay the
same as towns, pay the same as unincorporated areas? Schools aren't
localy controlled? Roads, fire, and police aren't locally controlled?