Auditor Lisa Blosser on Tuesday provided the 2007 tax rates to The Journal Gazette. Property owners will receive less property tax relief from the state this year, which was the chief culprit behind the higher tax bills for most residents, she said.
Wrong it is not the state that is the chief culprit. It is the slate of hands of the auditor office and the political leaders..local greed.
The state told the locals to do their own assessment. And what did the local do? They overassessed the voters home. The local stated that the voters were too dumb to figure it out. But the state was outraged and intervened and placed a circuit breaker on how much local could collect. And what did local do? They cried and blamed the state and then increased the tax rate beyond what was needed. So what did the state do? The state capped the circuit breaker at 5% so that the local could not extract a certain amount from high end taxpayer. And what did local do? Locals implemented trending to once again overassess homes in the central city? And what did the state do?
The state said enough and passed House Bill 1478 turning over the collection of funds for their budget to the locals. And what has happened? The locals are getting nervous about voters going to the ballot box and voting them out. But they want to try one more time to collect a windfall. Locals will gouge the newly annexed residents as well as the local residents pretending that the new option of income tax is too complex and at the same time blame the state for the mess which is really just local greed. That's right local greed.
Sure you played games with the auditor's office as they smiled and reduced your overassessed values down as you requested. It saved you a few hundred dollars. The auditor and the assesors knew you didn't get it. The point was to lock in your overassessment at any amount along with the countless others. Together it would still add up to a lot of money, because the trick is in the tax rate. The tax rate would create the windfall that was needed. Taking a few thousand dollars off your home value did not stop the long term impact. You were happy and believed that if your neighbor had to bite the bullet, it was your neighbors' fault for sleeping on his right and not doing the same thing.
The auditor, the assessors played you, and when you get your new bill, they not only got your neighbor but they got you again.
The aditor and the assessors team twitched the numbers to see how much they can collect as tax collectors. Next, they negotation with departments to make sure the amount needed is within the estimated total. At that point they begin to distribute the amounts to various townships. At all the twitching, every homeowners will have to bite the bullet, except for those who have deep pocket and enter the tax court with the overassessment of homes in the area.
Because the taxpayer are so easily bamboozled by their elected official. If taypayers are having problem with the finance reporting by Matt Kelty, than voters should be outraged by what the auditor's and assessors are doing to homeowners.
And the auditors and assessors in Marion understand what they are doing is wrong with this headline.
Auditor Lisa Blosser gets it as she suggest to Ben Lanka to give credit in his article to Chief Deputy Auditor Tera Klutz outside the city council meeting. In other words, Blosser does not want her name associated with this debacle. So much so that it was Commissioner Nelson Peters who agrued before city council to not implement the income tax option offered by the state. Because they have this one chance to raided the pockets of the newly annexed residents. Some serious money from the annexed residente is why they were annexed in the first place.
And Council Member at Large John Crawford, appears to believe this is a good thing, as he asked Chief Deputy Auditor Klutz which would she suggested between the new income tax compared to the old way of collecting property tax. Crawford, is not a dumb man, he understands that his doctor salary will be taxed more under the income tax, rather which they will not be able to hid due to the federal government.
Which explains the delay. Because there are more workers than homeowners, renters do not have to pay property taxes. But if the local was to go to income tax, everybody that has a job will have to pay into the budget.
So what's the hold up. Crawford and friends have to twitch the numbers to make should that they do not have to pay their fair share. Crawford is hiding again, remember the Harrison Square Project?
And isn't there a term limit on how long a person can serve as auditor?
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