An initiative that started locally has been recently approved by the state and will appear on the ballot during the next primary election. The proposition would allow cities or boroughs to give homeowners a bigger tax break.
Laws in Fairbanks allow taxpayers who own a home and live there for at least half the year to deduct $20,000 from its assessed value when paying taxes. If voters approve the new measure, the Fairbanks North Star Borough could raise the exemption to $50,000.
The measure would not force municipalities to increase exemptions but would instead let communities determine their levels. It also would let local governments adjust the exemption for cost of living.
The initiative was sponsored by Borough Assemblywoman Nadine Winters. It grew from an earlier attempt to raise exemptions and an older effort to lower property taxes for homeowners.
In 2007, Winters and then-Mayor Jim Whitaker sponsored an initiative to raise the maximum exemption from $20,000 to $100,000. The Borough Assembly appropriated $150,000 in 2007 to pay for signature gathering to get the question on the ballot. They later withdrew that initiative application. But in summer 2009 they began gathering signatures to raise the exemption to $50,000.
The initiative failed in June when sponsors fell short of the 32,734 statewide qualified signatures that were required.
This year, supporters of the initiative gained 34,421 signatures from 40 different house districts.
I don't like the notion of paying 'rent' to the Borough on a place I own, but also realize that infrastructure needs to be paid for somehow; don't think folks would cotton too well to pitching their garbage into the Tanana like they did in the old days.
As soon as you utter the words 'sales tax' around these parts, everybody screams bloody murder.
My questions are also reflected in abowman's response.
I whole-heartedly agree! Because we are all just renters to the City of Fairbanks until then. If we don't pay our taxes they can take our home.
This is just another shell game move. The only real fix is to remove private residence property taxes. People should not owe indefinitely on a home they own.
Private residence are fairly easy to establish the fair market value while rental and business properties have lots of room for interpretations of what the value might be. Home owners therefore pay what is a tax based on accurate values why other owners get by with a less than equatable valuation in many cases.
But tax increases are not?