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‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’
(www.yahoo.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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At the same time, that absolutely is a life altering change. Even the biggest idiots don't deserve to get their life upended. I don't know what the right solution is, but I can extend significant empathy to "I did a dumb thing and I don't know how to keep my home now without uprooting it".
I've only bought one home and it was recently. It was every bit as aweful as I expected but having seen what they are in for, they might not have the cash around nessicary to sell the home without getting scammed by predatory buyers.
The entirety of real estate is so fucked
They were trying to cheat their taxes and failed. Fuck em.
Won't someone think of the poor multimillionaires?
Even reading the summary - yes they had the Homestead Exemption to do exactlyy that. However they completely rebuilt their home to a much nicer one and thought they’d keep the Homestead Exemption. This worked correctly. In phase no sympathy for trying to cheat taxes
It would help if I’d actually read the article.
A full night’s sleep, and I’m rethinking my comment. I was hasty.
I agree, we should replace property taxes with very large income and wealth taxes. First we can end property taxes and then we can implement guaranteed income so people who become disabled can afford to maintain their homes.
Property tax is a wealth tax
The thing about yearly property taxes is they often go to the city/municipality and that's how they pay for things.
The city doesn't charge income tax, that's a state/province/fed level type thing.
We'd need a new way for cities to collect taxes themselves, or a new system to properly and fairly distribute taxes from the incomes to the cities/municipalities where they live.
Definitely doable, but it's a bit different than just raising income taxes.
My city charges income tax. As does the locality I actually live in. Plus property tax. Plus a School income tax on top of it...
Some municipalities may also have an income tax (completely separate from state or federal income taxes). Other states have much larger sales taxes.
I pay a 1% income tax to my local government.
Interesting, I've never personally seen that.
Where I am we have fairly low property tax and a small municipal income tax. So it splits the burden equally. If you live outside of a municipality, there will be a small income tax to support your public school district. This is also on top of State taxes income taxes and Federal income taxes. Sales taxes are also a thing at the state and city level. Honestly, I don't feel overly taxed with the total amount of money I pay in taxes. I receive the benefits of society. This is even for services I don't consume, but I want the services available to my neighbors that may need them, such as housing assistance, elder care, supplemental nutrition, etc.
Ya, I'm not opposed to taxes, we gotta pay for the services somehow.
How do you actually do the income taxes though? Is it completely separate from your federal/state that get filed each year? Or is it somehow combined with those into 1 filing and the city gets paid yearly from that? It seems like it would be a huge burden to be a separate thing, and it would be easier if it was somehow incorporated into a federal/state tax system where if your municipality has taxes you fill out a few spots and the money gets sent to them?
E.g an added section on your state/federal to add the municipalities tax id and tax rate (as it'd be variable by area)
Edit: And like I get if you are getting payroll deductions its easy for the city to just withdraw off the top before you get it, but you still need the final tax filing to accommodate mistakes, or income not earned through a payroll system.
Many companies can do payroll withholding for local/school taxes just like they do with State or Federal. There are boxes on your W-2 you get when you file your taxes that show this:
Yep, 3 forms to fill each year: Federal, State, Local/School
Its a pain, but so are Federal and State taxes. Municipal/school taxes can also get complicated if you work in one city with tax and live in another. Many will give you partial or full credit so you don't end up paying full municipal income tax to two cities, but this isn't always the case.
Just like each State has their own rules, each city can have theirs so your suggestion can't be just numbers to fill in because which numbers may change between cities. Dividend income is one example I know different cities treat/tax differently. Yes its a pain, but, its adulting.
Wow, well TIL!
Thanks for taking the time to explain that.
This is incorrect. In China nobody owns a home. They get a lease on it from the government. For wealthy urban Chinese this has meant they get lifetime ownership so far, but this is not guaranteed.
Also if you are not born with the correct hukou then you are not allowed to purchase any valuable property at all.
Ok, so, apparently, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I did watch one YouTube video though, and suddenly I felt like an expert on China.
We already have this is many states in the USA. Its called the "Homestead Exemption". Here's an example from Ohio:
"This is a statewide program, administered by County Auditors under rules established by the Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Department of Taxation. This allows senior citizens (65 or older) as well as permanently and totally disabled homeowners to reduce their real estate taxes by the amount equal to the taxes that would otherwise be charged on $25,000 of the market value of an eligible taxpayer’s homestead or residence. The homestead may include up to one acre of land. Under the changes made by the Ohio Legislature and beginning with applications for tax year 2014, new participants in the program will be subject to an income test to be eligible."
So matter how big your house is (as long as its on one acre of land or less and you have an income $$75k/year or below) you only get charged as though the house is worth $25k, which I think would obviously be a very low tax bill.
They qualify under the local homestead law.
But because that limits year over year increases (which I consider reasonable) and is reassessed after mayor upgrades (which they did) they now have a huge jump in taxes.
I've now bought two in my lifetime. I wouldn't call either awful for my experience.
What was bad about yours?
Every home purchase I've ever made was a terrible experience. I'm glad you had a better time.
Lots of back and forth on inspection items. We wanted a lot fixed that should be fixed and they did do it as well as a lot of consolations, but if we had to sell this house right now, as I lost my job yesterday, I wouldn't have the cash to be able to fix stuff that needs it for another inspection
That's fair. That's pretty common, and it usually sounds worse than it is. I think its also about setting expectations. If you have the expectation that you'll be looking at a perfect house and simply agree to the sale price, then you'll be surprised/frustrated. If you're prepared for that back and forth with the horse trading on what you'll fix vs what you won't (similar to buying a used car), then its not too bad.
You aren't required to fix anything as the seller, however your buyer can walk away if it doesn't pass inspection. If you have lots of buyers, this can be the right choice sometimes. However, if you only have one buyer you're going to have to compromise. The middle ground here is that you can lower the cost of the house to cover the costs of the items needed to pass inspection. Buyers will usually go for that. So even if you don't have cash in hand to fix things, you can still sell.