Property tax relief boosted by assembly members
Published Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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Stumble It!Municipal leaders took a side door into the state lawmaking process Tuesday to try to increase tax breaks for homeowners.
Fairbanks North Star Borough officials submitted a petition application co-sponsored by Mayor Jim Whitaker, Borough Assembly presiding officer Nadine Winters and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich to the state lieutenant governor’s office. The measure, if approved at the ballot in 2010, would hike the amount communities can allow their homeowners to deduct from property tax bills each year.
State law already lets municipalities allow homeowners to deduct up to $20,000 from each home’s value for tax purposes, or 20 percent of the value if that’s less. The initiative would raise the cap of $100,000.
The Alaska Legislature adjourned this month without passing a bill similar to the proposed ballot measure.
Winters said the initiative will help make it more affordable to own a home. She said rising energy costs have left many homeowners struggling to pay their bills.
The Borough Assembly in December set aside $150,000 to help fund the initiative process.
“Of course we don’t want to have to spend the time and money to do this, but we’re ultimately responsible for the destiny of our own community,” Winters said. “If the Legislature doesn’t agree with giving us that option, then we’re committed to take this to the people.”
Whitaker said borough officials will now decide whether the initiative process should be managed by a contractor — an option they know is available — or local officials. He said supporters waited to make that decision in case state lawmakers decided to change the law themselves this spring.
“We fully expected the Legislature to have taken action,” Whitaker said. “They didn’t. Now we’re forced to. So be it.”
If the lieutenant governor’s office approves Tuesday’s application, organizers and volunteers would need signatures from three-quarters of the state House of Representative districts on petitions to place the measure on the 2010 ballot.
Borough officials said money not used to collect signatures would return to borough coffers.
Whitaker has acknowledged higher tax breaks for homeowners would likely shift the community’s tax burden toward businesses.
Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce president Jewelz Nutter said the chamber’s board and its government-relations committee are aware of the measure’s implications. She said the board and the committee have yet to take a position on the initiative, which borough officials announced in October they’d pursue. Chamber chairman Rick Solie did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
The petition application included signatures from business, education and labor leaders and state and local elected officials from Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau.
Begich said in an interview earlier this month that he might ask others in Southcentral Alaska to support the initiative financially or through volunteer efforts. He echoed a point made frequently by Fairbanks officials — the change, if approved, would not force communities to shift their respective tax structures but would instead offer their voters a chance to help homeowners.
“If I have to sign it and distribute it around the Anchorage area, I will,” Begich said in a phone interview earlier this month. “I think the public will speak very strongly about giving homeowners property tax relief.”
Begich made the comments prior to announcing this week that he’ll run for U.S. Senate.
Sen. Joe Thomas, who pushed for the changes at hearings in Juneau, said he had looked for compromise with opponents in the legislative session’s closing weeks. He said efforts hit opposition from lawmakers concerned the changes would increase taxes on municipalities’ business communities including major commercial-property managers. Thomas said that while he hopes to make headway next session, he also feels it’s time to start an initiative.
“Some people did not want that exemption (increase) to even be available” to voters, said Thomas, one of 11 state representatives or senators who co-signed Tuesday’s application.
The initiative would also let municipally set tax breaks increase each year by the rate of inflation, which supporters have said would eliminate the need to keep revisiting the issue every few years.
Community Discussion
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Just another example of how the legislature has failed Alaska.
Or we could just do away with the property tax altogether. The idea that the government always has an interest in land that you've bought and paid for is very troubling. So, an older couple who've managed to pay off their mortgage over 30 years and is now retired, living on a fixed income could have their land sold out from under them by the borough so the borough can collect their tax. It's not an equitable manner of collecting government revenue. It's a serfdom system.
Imagine serfs being charged a fee by a feudal lord in order to be allowed to remain on the lord's land. What's the difference if the feudal lord happens to the be FNSB and the land is your own? It's not right. Land does not belong to the borough, it belongs to the landowner. Where does the government get off setting up a system whereby if the landowner can't pay the tax, they can lose their PRIVATE land? If the FNSB is in need of revenue, scrap the property tax altogether and institute a sales tax.
I like your thinking gopking.
Unfortunately, land is an utterly finite resource. It cannot be treated exactly the same as other forms of property.
I'd love it if somebody somewhere figured out a way to manufacture new land (without filling in the ocean to do it), but that's not going to happen on this planet.
Fairbanksgas is correct- yet another example of how the legislature has failed us. Now with oil at $117.00 per barrel, a quadrupling of property taxes over the last 20 years, (more if you live in the city) and electricity rates expected to hit well over 22 cents per kwh, the cost of living in the Fairbanks North Star Borough is no longer reasonable.
The real, immediate, danger we face: An exodus of residents in 2008 along with a crashing real estate market. As greater numbers of people leave- the more real estate prices will fall.
The sad part is all of this could have been avoided. If- we had started work on the All Alaska Gasline. If Murkowski and Knowles and their corrupt pals within the legislature had not fought the voters mandate to build the All Alaska Gasline we would have low cost gas available now.
If the legislature does not get behind an Alaska owned gas pipeline this summer, then our local economy will be doomed.
(As will the re- election prospects of those same legislators).
Goping you are correct.. I have always said and will continue repeating it.. RESEINDENTIAL property should be exempt from taxes, duplexes and other residential property are profit making and should pay taxes.Businesses do not pay taxes, their customers do, you and me, the same as a sales tax. There fore we are already paying a sales tax... we dont need to pay twice. Shame on the legislators for not doing their job ,, again...
Property taxes on homes means that the fabled American Dream doesn't exist.
One never really owns "their piece of the rock."
Or, as Elder Lebert would have put it: "a piece of this old ball of mud"!
The legislature makes me sick on many levels.
I am blown away that the mayor and assembly are going to do the right thing for a change.
wow.. I know I hate taxes.. I hate the gestapo like tactics the government tax agencies can use to collect. and mainly I hate the way government spends the money they collect. But in truth, I know there has to be some property taxes. I know it has to be based on the location of the property. The fire, police and road maintenance are locally maintained and must be locally funded.
We shouldn't gripe about paying some taxes.. but we can gripe about how much we have to pay. Especially income tax. I at least see what I get for paying property tax.. but what a scam the income tax is.
oh and PS, the elderly couple on fixed income referred to by gopking, If they are 65ish, they're property tax exempt! WEEEE!!! it's one of the few things I look forward to in old age. I want to live till I'm 140 so I can reap back all the money I paid into the system :)
Property taxes have been going on since the Roman days . . . Same ole carry overs century after century. Another form of Slave labor really, you labor, they’ll reap your harvest. Nothing will change. History proves me right. A bigger exemption here, and another mandated assessment that will be slightly higher than the exemption you just got. Slight of hand, smoke screens, illusion to lull one into thinking all is good. Try not paying your mandated garbage service. Most everyone I know, would rather haul their own trash to a transfer site because they own a pickup to do so. You don't pay, a lien is imposed on your property for a service that you would rather not have. There are so many entities trying to find a way into your wallet today that it’s nearly impossible to have a dollar that you can truly call your own. Conserving water, to save money, forget it, the increases that are granted to the utility company will exceed any cutbacks that you have made in a given year. The same thing goes for your electric bill, your sitting in your house today with dimly lit fluorescent lighting thinking your doing your part to help out, who are you helping NOT YOURSELF, your bill is just as high or higher than the year before. There isn't anyone at the helm people, they have jumped the ship long ago, or have found a way into your wallet themselves. Record profits for the oil companies year after year, but there is nooooooooo sign of price gouging none what so ever isn't that amazing, you and I can see it, but big brothers eye sight isn't as good as ours. Why because they’re all in bed together. Control of the masses, keep them broke, throw them a bone once in a while to gnaw on to quiet them down. And while they’re (masses) distracted with the mirage sneak up behind them and whap them behind their heads with a ball bat. The snowball is huge and its rolling down the hill getting bigger and bigger, and picking up speed, with nothing in its path to stop it. Take off your rose pedal glasses and see the light for what it is. In the paper today it states there is a haze over Alaska, coming from Russia, that haze is nothing compared to the haze and smoke blowing in from WASHINGTON.
MatthewE-
That's true about the 'old folks,' but that doesn't make it right.
Statistically, for a number of years now, the elderly have had the most rapidly rising rate of disposible income. Even those in the highest income brackets get the exemption, which gets put on others' backs.
Further, many are on the pension system, now pretty much a thing of the past. These days, it's invest and be vulnerable to the whims of the markets--not so good lately for a lot of people I know watching their savings shrink.
Also, those elderly are allowed to vote in service district elections. So, even though they (in my 'hood) aren't paying property taxes, they are free to vote to raise my taxes above and beyond the mill rate, for a service above and beyond the basic under the mill rate.
That is wrong. Those who do not pay the standard rate should at least have to pay the service area rates. Or not get a vote.
I had two properties in my neighborhood. I am single; I get one vote in service area elections.
The elderly in my 'hood--all pretty well off--have one property and get two votes because they are married. If it were to be evened out, I would get four votes!
And this for a service that they vote in, vote to raise, and yet pay nothing for!!!
I don't mind paying some property tax. But this whole situation is ridiculous. And the borough spends way too much IMO.
One thing I don't miss about fairbanks, property taxes.
People who put down roots and contribute the most are punished the most. Outsiders come up and work and don't give a dime.
People in California complain about all the taxes they have, but did you know that property tax in CA is capped at 1%? At least they take money equally across the board, (except from the illegals, they get a free ride especially in San Fran).
Home owners in Ak are getting screwed to pay the whole bill for everyone else. I busted my back to build a nice home in AK but in the end I was glad to sell and get away from paying 6 grand a year to live in my own house.
You think for that much they would at least plow the road, oh but thats extra.
Do away w/the property tax. Institute a sales tax that taxes everyone equally and fairly. Why should i as a property owner pay for somebody who rents there whole life. Even if it were only a sales tax tha would be seasonal-May 1st through Sept.
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