Spot The Differences!
Answers:
A. House 1’s owner has a rake with more teeth and a tricycle that works
B. House 2’s owner has bloodshot eyes and a dog mess to clean up.
C. Oh yeah, one more difference: House 2’s owner has a property-tax bill 3 1/2 times that of House 1’s owner.
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 IMAGE: jackpollock.net |
[October 17th, 2007]
Their two households have much in common. Both are headed by young professionals. Erica Meyers is a business manager at Wilson High School; husband Dan is an architect-in-training. Sol Sallos is a merchandise manager at Nike. Christine, his wife, is a part-time masseuse.
Both families bought a home last year for roughly the same price. The Meyers’ Craftsman bungalow at the heart of the Northeast Alberta Street arts district cost $369,000. The Sallos’ two-story home in the Southwest Hills cost just a bit more, $380,000.
That’s where the similarities end. When their property-tax bills show up in the mail this week, they’ll be treated with Oregon’s version of discriminatory tax tyranny.
The Meyers household will be taxed $1,734. The Sallos family’s bill: $6,356.
Two houses, purchased for roughly the same price last year. Yet one’s property-tax bill is more than 3 1/2 times larger than the other.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” says Sol Sallos. “I don’t have a problem with paying taxes. But if my home is worth $400,000, and someone else’s is worth $400,000, we should be paying something close to the same in taxes.”
Not in Oregon.
For Oregonians, this is a week when opening the mailbox can give bigger scares than Halloween. It’s property-tax time.
For 950,000 homeowners, it’s the biggest check most of us write all year. For many apartment dwellers, next year’s rent hike will be determined in part by the size of their landlord’s tax bill.
You might think a state as progressive as Oregon would see to it that property tax is levied in a fair fashion. After all, it’s a serious chunk of change. Property taxes generate $4.1 billion a year in our state, and it’s the keystone of public finance, paying for a portion of virtually every service we expect from local government, from cops to parks to public health.
Yet we have a perverted property-tax system that hits some neighborhoods far harder than others. Depending where you live, you might be paying four times more than another home across town that’s worth the same amount.
“It’s outrageous, it really is. It’s just blatant unequal taxation,” says state Sen. Ginny Burdick (D-Portland), chair of the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee.
Even conservative Republicans can agree.
“There’s no question in my mind that the system is broken,” says state Rep. Tom Butler (R-Ontario), vice chairman of the House Revenue Committee. “That creates huge inequities.”
It’s enough to make you want to dump your cappuccino in the Willamette in protest. Yet up to now, there’s been no public outcry from Portlanders.
“People don’t see the tax bills of their neighbors,” says Chuck Sheketoff, head of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. “Not to say it won’t happen, but in general, that’s why it’s not.”
But as the gap between the lucky and the suckered continues to grow, more homeowners like the Salloses are waking up to a sobering fact—like rented mules, they’ve been saddled with more than their share of the tax burden. And for the most part, our politicians are doing nothing to stop it.
The exception? Political newcomer Ted Wheeler—the chairman of Multnomah County, who says he’ll change the state’s property-tax system or go down trying.
“I’m ready to put my reputation on the line to pursue this,” Wheeler says.
 THE SALLOS FAMILY moved to the Southwest Hills from Northeast Portland so 3-year-old Leo could attend better schools. Image: cameronbrowne.com |
Whoa, big fella.
First, get in the wayback machine and rewind to 1990. A savvy anti-tax activist and gym owner from east Multnomah County named Don McIntire got voters to agree with him to limit the amount of tax homeowners pay to $15 for every $1,000 their property is worth.
Not unlike capping a sales tax at a certain percentage, the initiative—called Measure 5—sought to restrain government but allow taxes to grow with the economy, measured by the value of property. It was a sensible proposal (to WW at least, which endorsed it), and it had the added benefit of equalizing school funding for rich and poor districts. It passed with 53 percent of the vote.
Six years later, enter Bill Sizemore, a conservative carpet salesman from Clackamas County with a grin like a lighthouse and a handshake as big as a honey-baked ham. He wasn’t satisfied with Measure 5, because a property’s value could still skyrocket. He argued you had to strap down the value of the home for tax purposes—in other words, limit the growth in what’s called the assessed value.
So he got enough signatures to put Measure 47 on the ballot. It didn’t change the tax rate. It just rolled back the assessed value of all property to their 1995 levels, minus 10 percent. And it reached into the future, saying assessed values of property can grow no more than 3 percent a year. WW opposed 47, yet somehow it still passed.
One year later, the Legislature tinkered with Measure 47 just enough to make the law workable, and its new version, Measure 50, passed in 1997.
Now, 10 years later, Oregon enjoys a booming real-estate market—and a property-tax system that’s about as fair as the Patriot Act is patriotic. That’s because, like a Pleistocene insect suspended in amber, Oregon’s base property values are forever frozen in 1995—the year Jerry Garcia died, the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed, and Braveheart won the Oscar for Best Picture.
You don’t need to be a progressive to think our property tax system stinks. You can think government ought to have less dough, or the same amount. It’s still appalling.
Why? Because real estate doesn’t all increase in value at the same rate. Yet our system limits the increase, for tax purposes, to 3 percent a year no matter what.
Consider neighborhoods along Mississippi and Alberta, in Boise-Eliot and elsewhere. Due to rapid gentrification, they’ve seen property values shoot up like the price of a Hannah Montana ticket. Yet our tax system makes no room for changes in real-world values, and taxes in those neighborhoods are a steal because they still reflect 1995 prices.
Meanwhile, folks in Northwest, on Sauvie Island, in outer East Portland and in the West Hills pay the highest property taxes in the city compared with what their homes are really worth.
Depending where you live, your home could be assessed at 25 percent of its real market value, or 70 percent. And that disparity will continue to grow wider as the years pass and real prices drift ever further from their 1995 levels.
Outside experts call it a perfect example of how not to design a tax code, because it’s fundamentally inequitable.
“It undermines taxpayers’ faith in the tax system itself,” says Nick Johnson, an analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. “One of the core principles of tax policy is what economists call ‘horizontal equity,’ which is that similarly situated taxpayers should pay similar taxes. Obviously, this violates that.”
Take the Meyers and Sallos families, two households paying wildly different taxes for homes they bought the same year for about the same price.
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 THE MEYERS FAMILY wanted to raise daughters Sophie and Julia along vibrant Northeast Alberta Street. Image: cameronbrowne.com |
Because assessed values are stuck in 1995, when Alberta was still a low-income neighborhood, the Meyerses’ property today is assessed at just $79,510. The Sallos home in the Southwest Hills, where values were already high in the ’90s, is now assessed at $291,910. Rates rise just 3 percent a year, even though the real value of the Meyers home grew far faster and is now equal to the Salloses’.
Confronted with the glaring inequities Measure 47 has produced, Sizemore told WW he still believes it was the right way to reform property taxes. As Sizemore points out, it stopped the big yearly surges that sometimes occurred when taxes were tied to real values. And it lowered everyone’s taxes from what they would be otherwise.
As for the new inequities between neighborhoods, “those are the trade-offs you have for bringing predictability to the system,” Sizemore says. “I think predictability is of greater value. I wouldn’t trade it, and I don’t think Oregonians would, either.”
Of Sallos and others in the West Hills who feel wronged for paying more, Sizemore notes: “You know what? They may not have voted for my measure, either.”
Not only is Sizemore’s fix unfair and unequal, it may also be illegal.
“Eventually...you may have a basis for a class-action lawsuit among homeowners who are unfairly penalized,” says Tim Nesbitt, Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s deputy chief of staff and former head of Oregon’s AFL-CIO.
Burdick agrees. “What really surprises me is that no one has sued,” she says. “It’s something that’s always grated on me.”
Republicans and Dems can’t agree on much in this state. Not on charter schools, land use, or tough-on-crime issues. But many do smoke the peace pipe when it comes to the unfairness of the property-tax system.
Yet for all the talk, nothing’s been done. “It’s the tar baby that nobody wants to punch,” says Butler, the Republican state rep.
That is, until Wheeler came along.
As head of Multnomah County, Wheeler has some political self-interest involved. County governments depend on property taxes to an even greater extent than cities, which get more money from utility fees, business licenses and hotel taxes than counties do. (State government largely runs on income-tax dollars.)
If you could free property taxes from the constraints of our existing system, county government, whose cost of doing business increases 6 percent a year, wouldn’t be locked into a system where property can only increase in value 3 percent a year.
But even if you wanted to keep our property tax system “revenue neutral” (a fancy way of saying it would not raise any more money overall), Wheeler says the current system is unfair to many homeowners. And he predicts those inequities will continue to grow.
Wheeler’s proposed solution takes a page from California’s playbook. In 1978, voters in the Golden State passed Proposition 13, capping rates even more strictly than Oregon’s at $10 per $1,000 of assessed value, and slowing growth of assessed value to 2 percent a year. (Oregon is at $15 per $1,000, remember, and 3 percent growth a year.)
But Proposition 13 had an important catch that our system lacks. It allowed local governments to reassess property back in line with its real market value, if and when the property changes hands.
That protects old ladies from losing their homes as property values rise—if you don’t sell, your taxes are capped. But it also gives city and county budgets a boost by allowing them to assess real value on homes that sell in a hot market. Tax disparities arise from home to home if one of them didn’t sell, but entire neighborhoods aren’t strapped with higher taxes at random the way they are in Oregon.
 HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY? In Multnomah County, the assessed value (used for determining your property taxes) of your residential property will vary widely as a percentage of your property’s real market value, depending where you live. The lower your percentage, the lower your taxes compared with the value of your home. Source: Multnomah County Assessment&Taxation |
At the time, Prop 13 became a bête noire among progressives, largely for its effect on funding for schools and social programs. But after a long list of failed efforts to undo it in the courts and the legislature, property taxes are now considered the third rail of Sacramento politics. There’s little consensus among California’s 37 million residents on whether Prop 13 is a good deal, but opponents have repeatedly failed to gather enough signatures to put competing tax measures on the ballot.
Now Wheeler wants to bring a Prop 13-style safety valve to Oregon, allowing property to be reassessed at market value if it sells. “I’m not asking for anything unreasonable, other than our tax be based on the reality of the market,” he says.
Making it happen requires changing the state constitution, a process that would take years and require voter approval. Wheeler says he’s starting slowly, meeting with leaders around the state and getting the rest of the Multnomah County commissioners on board.
Jeff Cogen, a new Multnomah County commissioner, likes the plan. “It’s definitely worth exploring,” he says. “The current system’s definitely not working, as far as funding our basic services and with these basic inequities. This would help in both cases.”
Even small-town Republicans are ready to sign on. “I think it’s actually a pretty good idea,” says Klamath County Commissioner Al Switzer.
Wheeler offers no timeline for when an initiative might go before voters. “It’s an ambitious goal to assume that we could actually change the constitution,” Wheeler says. “I am very willing to take a leadership role in this, but it’s going to have to be more than just me.”
Burdick, who took over as chair of the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee last month and will head a comprehensive tax reform committee, says she supports Wheeler’s idea. “It should have been that way [from the beginning],” Burdick says.
Who’s got it best—and worst?
Multnomah County divides its property-tax map into neighborhood districts.
For low residential property taxes, records show the best neighborhood is No. 163 in inner Northeast Portland—a rectangle bordered by Northeast Killingsworth Street, North Williams Street, Northeast Fremont Street and I-5. On average, homes there are assessed at 24 percent of their real market value, the lowest rate in the county.
The highest residential property taxes are in No. 83, an L-shaped neighborhood in Northeast Portland bordering 148th Avenue, Halsey Street, 160th Avenue and the Banfield Expressway. On average, homes there are assessed at 70 percent of their real market value due to their relatively slow appreciation since 1995.
Source: Multnomah County Assessment&Taxation
EXCEPTIONS
Under Measure 47 and Measure 50, assessed values can grow only 3 percent a year. Properties are not reassessed when they’re sold. The only exception is for improvements or new construction. Then the property is reassessed and the new value is added on, using a ratio that shrinks it down to Measure 50 levels rather than what the improvements are actually worth. New homes are assessed as if they’d been built in 1995.
Assessed value: The value of your property as set for taxing purposes—usually less than the real market value. In Oregon, assessed value can grow no more than 3 percent a year under Measure 50.
Real market value: The assumed value of a property if it changed hands from a willing seller to a willing buyer. Your property-tax bill will show this number—even though it has nothing to do with the amount of taxes you pay and in many cases is lower than what a property would actually fetch on the market today.
Property-tax rate: The percentage at which a property’s assessed value is taxed.
Measure 5: Passed in 1990, it capped property-tax rates at 1.5 percent, or $15 per $1,000 of assessed value, though local bond measures don’t count and may cause the rate to exceed 1.5 percent.
Measure 47: Passed in 1996, it took every property’s assessed values back to the levels they were at in 1995, knocked off another 10 percent, and mandated that the growth of assessed values could increase no more than 3 percent a year, thus creating the pickle we are now in.
Measure 50: Measure 47 was badly written and not workable as a law. So without changing its basic provisions, the Legislature rewrote it as Measure 50, which voters approved in 1997.
Ah, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the property tax system! When will it ever end?
Are the Sallos or Meyer families really so stupid to think that Ted Wheeler or any other Democrat has their best financial interests at heart? Wheeler's "solution" will not reduce the Sallos' property taxes one cent. The Meyers will see a sharp property tax increase when they buy a different home as their kids grow.
The bottom line for Ted Wheeler and Ginny Burdick is MORE MONEY FOR GOVERNMENT. They couldn't care less about inequity.
Typical that WW all but endorses a solution --- Wheeler's --- that still doesn't even come close to solving the fairness problem: People who recently bought a house with the same RMV as the one next door would still have the same legal case. Remember those who have simply rode up the appreciation over the years and not sold still enjoy the benefits of the increased value of the house in many ways --- from being able to borrow against it, better servcies that go to higher value neighborhoods etc.
Oregonians, and particularly Democrats who have high incomes, don't really want equity or good government --- they made the electoral difference on M47 by the way. What is saddest is how they play on people like John Fairplay who can't see the forest from the trees and become part of the problem rather than the solution.
California's Prop 13 does indeed allow assessed values to increase to the sales price when a property is sold. The result of that system is that some houses in California are taxed twenty times higher than an identical house sitting right next door, because one just sold and the other owner has lived there for decades.
That is why I rejected that approach when I drafted Measure 47.
Opponents of Measure 47 raised all of these equity arguments back in 1996 and Oregonians rejected them and passed my measure. Property taxes were going up unpredictably, sometimes 90 percent in one year in entire neighborhoods. What is fair about that?
I am surprised that is has taken so long for Portland liberals to resurrect their failed arguments from 1996. As a previous writer noted, their goal is not tax equity. It is to increase tax revenue. If they become too ambitious in their attempts, it will only fuel another property tax revolt and a further reduction in their revenue. I can pretty much promise that. When it comes to this issue, I would prefer not to play defense. If they try to raise property taxes, we will respond with a proposal for another reduction.
Wow, its you Bill Sizemore. I graduated from Benson HS in 1992, back in the ballot measure 5 days. Can't remember if that was your bill....I think it was. Anyway, here you are online! It makes me sick the way you've helped ruin Oregon schools. You can wrap yourself in all the wonky language you want, but nothing changes the fact that your ideas and efforts hurt a lot of people in Oregon. If I could run one person out of this state for being the grinch that screws people, it'd be you. Yah, its personal like that. I've been hating on you a long long time. BTW, nice job paying yourself huge salaries to run your campaigns, remember those days?
Bill - it is high time for another property tax revolt. An over 11% increase in my taxes in just 1 year? And that is on top of double digit increase from previous years! There are too many people like Benno that have been duped by the teachers unions and other public employees at the trough. They need to be stopped from continuing to put ballot measure after ballot measure to increase property taxes. M5 doesn't help anymore. M47/50 doesn't help anymore. Enough was enough 5 years ago! Please Bill, don't wait any longer....it is time for another M5/47/50.
I should think someone buying a house should know in advance what the property taxes are for the house. So, the Sallos should have been aware of their prospective property tax bill before buying the house they chose in relative terms at least.
This isn't the point. Fairness compared to other taxpayers is the point. I checked the taxes on the house I bought and agreed to it. I got an 11% increase this year - over $1000. So I checked to see what my neighbors are paying - for bigger houses they are all paying less. THAT's the problem.
“Eventually...you may have a basis for a class-action lawsuit among homeowners who are unfairly penalized,” says Tim Nesbitt, Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s deputy chief of staff and former head of Oregon’s AFL-CIO.
Burdick agrees. “What really surprises me is that no one has sued,” she says. “It’s something that’s always grated on me.”
Well, I may be the one who does it, particularly after this year's tax bill.
My story is probably not unique, but it shows how broken the system is. I discovered that the previous owners of the house I bought in May 2006 had a very small remodel done (about 12 x 12 ft) in 2002 and the assessment was increased by $100,000 ! that's nearly $700 per square foot! When I checked into it, the county assessor's office told me that it was obviously a mistake, but because the previous owners didn't appeal in the year it occurred, there was no remedy now.
The result is that my 2 bedroom house now costs over $10,000 a year in taxes, when all my neighbors with larger homes are paying a fraction of that. My taxes this year alone went up $1100.
Although I knew when I bought the house that the tax seemed high, I was shocked to discover just how much of the city tax burden I am having to shoulder relative to my neighbors. I also naively believed that taxes would be capped at 3%. With all the exclusions, my taxes went up over 11% this year.
I'll be appealing this year, but have already been told that I can't appeal the fact that the county in effect violated the law with their mistake in 2002, which is now carried forward annually, apparently in perpetuity. Sounds like grounds for legal action to me.
First stop will be the normal appeal process.
Did anyone here vote for all the property tax levies last year? I suspect some of you did. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people in Mult Co/PDX are "happy" their tax bills have gone through the roof. Not to mention that massive registered voters didn't vote yeah or nay on all these measures.
As Portland faces a foreclosure crisis, the WW makes a biased argument in favor of raising taxes on people who bought in the last three years! Good going!
These two families aren't an apples to apples comparison. 1) the upkeep on a 80 to 100 y.o. bungalow is a lot more expensive than a SW 1980s house. There's a lot more expenses in foundation work, asbestos removal, tear-off roofs, new siding, dry rot etc...
2) The city services in NE portland are all but non-existent. It's only this year that some of the streets have started to be swept occasionally.
What numbers are you looking at Rebecca? Compared with, say, Las Vegas there are far fewer houses in Portland in foreclosure. Seems like it's hardly a "crisis" here. But maybe I'm wrong? Please let me know if I am.
Almost 25% of mortgages in Oregon were subprime loans.
Streets being swept? In SW we have streets that aren't paved.
What are these people complaining about? It's the bogus knee jerk measures this state keeps passing that are the problem. Folks, you chose this when you voted for it, deal with it. I personally think it’s crazy and that's why I voted no on 5, 47, and 50. Also, I agree with Bob, who doesn't check the taxes before they buy a property?
This isn't the point. Fairness compared to other taxpayers is the point. I checked the taxes on the house I bought and agreed to it. I got an 11% increase this year - over $1000. So I checked to see what my neighbors are paying - for bigger houses they are all paying less. THAT's the problem.
I probably had more debates with Bill Sizemore opposing Measure 47 than anyone in the state back in 1996 and I still think it's bad tax policy. But the fact is, it is working just the way it was advertised (with some modifications thanks to Measure 50).
The taxpayer's who are complaining wouldn't see their tax bills go down if Measures 47/50 had never been passed or if a Proposition 13-style reform were passed. It just means some of their neighbors would pay more.
Pretty soon, we'll all be living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!!!!
"I want my neighbors to get screwed just as hard as I am!"
Yeah, I guess that's what WW calls "equity".
Wheeler’s fix wouldn't fix a damn thing. It would only allow municipalities to pillage more from all home owners.
We shouldn't be asking why the Meyers are "only" paying $1700. We should be asking why the Sallos are paying $6300.
You have a point Bill, BUT This article irritated me because I had also just heard about the homes on the hill that are worth over a million, getting city services, yet because "technically" they are in "unincorporated" areas, they pay next to nothing at all in property taxes. This DOES anger me as I live in a very small home and have no sidewalks or anything on my street, yet pay $2,000/yr. It is frustrating to know that some million dollar homes on the hill are paying a fraction of this for a beautiful home, street, etc...AND all the city services that I get (actually they have MUCH newer streets and MUCH less flooding than I do!!!)
This is unfair. It makes it MORE difficult for me to pay the tax, to sell my home......it needs to be changed.
This goes to show you why we elect representatives as opposed to having mob rule by referendum decide complex issues. And so it goes, with this nonsense, Measure 11, Measure 37, et cetera.
It's time to scrap the referendum system... before someone loses an eye.
the article doesn't mention the tax adjustments that take place when significant remodels occur. Not up to par with new construction, but they do go up more than 3%.
Hi Ann! I do talk about adjustments for remodels in the section labeled "Exceptions." It's below the main body of the story above, and ran as a sidebar in the print edition.
"EXCEPTIONS: Under Measure 47 and Measure 50, assessed values can grow only 3 percent a year. Properties are not reassessed when they’re sold. The only exception is for improvements or new construction. Then the property is reassessed and the new value is added on, using a ratio that shrinks it down to Measure 50 levels rather than what the improvements are actually worth. New homes are assessed as if they’d been built in 1995."
Well, yes it does.
WW: "Under Measure 47 and Measure 50, assessed values can grow only 3 percent a year. Properties are not reassessed when they�re sold. The only exception is for improvements or new construction. Then the property is reassessed and the new value is added on, . . . "
"THE SALLOS FAMILY moved to the Southwest Hills from Northeast Portland so 3-year-old Leo could attend better schools."
Well kids, that pretty much says it all doesn't it? I live in NE near 14th & Killingsworth, I moved here because this is the only area of the city that I can afford to own a house in. It's no picnic here, if you think that people will pay $6,000 in taxes a year to live in a neighborhood with gun battles between rival gangs and all the other hood crap that Portland is busy pretending doesn't happen any more over here, you're wrong. You are all welcome to come on over and buy up houses and take advantage of the "tax breaks". But word to the wise, buy an alarm and a big dog. Obviously, the city knows that there needs to be incentives here in NE to attract more people (like the ones that are already here) who are interested in having a peaceful community where everyone can prosper and feel safe. This is how neighborhoods turn around and become areas that are better able to financially contribute to the larger community. I would be happy to pay more taxes if my neighborhood had trash free streets, quality public schools, safe parks and bright street lights. If you ask me, people in upscale neighborhoods get better services from the city, so if they are willing to give some of those services to us poor trashy folk over here in NE, I'll share the bill...if not, shut up!
Hey Private, while I'm taking your description of your neighborhood at face value I've got to correct a misperception that seems to exist re "better" city services on the west Side. Based on my experience of being a homeowner in SW PDX for the last 16 years I will tell you that we get "DICK" for city services. No street maintenance at all (we paved our own street out of pocket), no sidewalks, etc, all we get are the tax bills. The city of Portland does a masterful job of collecting Property tax revenue and not using the bulk of it to provide services in return. Paying the salaries and PERS contributions of city employees is not the same thing as providing actual services to the taxpayers. "The City that Works" it's residents over is more like it.
That being said, these buffoons are crazy to think that we'd support anything that messes with our existing property tax limitation measure. One can only imagine that level of taxes we'd be paying for the same blatant lack of services here on the west side. Thank you McIntyre and Sizemore for at least moderating the insanity!
Seriously, there are no services here in NE. Anybody stood at any of the 4 bus stops on Alberta & 15th? Tri-Met won't even come out and put in trash and recycling bins and the city does not clean up the trash off the street at all. It seems that the city wants to put a happy face on NE, but they don't care, so no services deserves no more of my hard earned money.
at two bus stops drunk drivers have taken out benches which aren't going to be replaced, but no one wants to hear about the fact that the OLCC has granted over 20 new liquor licenses on Alberta in the past two and a half years.
The implication that Alberta is an upscale neighborhood now is pretty erroneous as well. It just a place people from SW drive over to drink, sideswipe cars and litter when they're slumming.
Wow. I guess I'm a little bitter?
If we had decent services over here in NE like in other parts of the city, I'd be happy to pay my part of the bill. Fact is, services here are pretty scarce. There is a reason why taxes are lower here, maybe Willie Week could look in to that instead of writing an article that goes nowhere and achieves nothing.
When buying a house smartly it is to take taxes into consideration. However to whine about the neighbor not paying as much is just a comment on personal smarts. To do this just adds some proof to 'Misery loves Company', and possibly could care less about it's neighbors. Self centered it could be called.
Check out www.portlandmaps.com to see the property taxes of your neighbors and anyone in Portland.
A different take...while working for ACT (America Coming Together) a few years back we got a good glimpse of outer SE Portland. In talking with these folks I was shocked to hear about $3K in property taxes for a manufactured home on a dinky flag lot,no sidewalks and potholes everywhere. Talk about inequities. I only paid 2K for a 2100 square foot home in Buckman at triple the value...go figure that one out!
There really are a couple of issues at work here. 1 - If your neighborhood was gentrified after 1995, you're in luck; if it was gentrified before 1995, you're out of luck. 2 - My tax went up just over 10% from last year; my tax ratio is $22 tax per $1,000 AV. That just doesn't jive with the limit that was established at $15 tax per $1,000 AV.
Hi Gregg. Property taxes in Portland went up about 11 percent on average this year, as a result of voter-approved levies, bonds, and new soil and water conservation districts. Remember, Measure 50 capped growth in assessed values, not growth in taxes. As for the $15-per-thousand limit set by Measure 5, that doesn't apply to voter-approved bond measures or special assessments for stuff like drainage districts.
I bought a 580sq ft place for 141,000 and pay 2700/year in taxes. That's almost double what the Meyers pay for their house that cost more than twice what my condo cost. AND my home is in the area of WW's tax map that should pay the least in taxes.
Benno Lyon writes of Bill Sizemore "It makes me sick the way you've helped ruin Oregon schools." What's that again, Benno? Oregon funds its schools about average for our state per-capita income. That makes us normal, not substandard. We do even more for teachers who are among the best compensated in America when salaries, benefits, and retirements are included. Oregon also boasts superior student results on the SAT in recent years. Would you trade our school system for Idaho's? California's? Maybe North Dakota?
They may be compensated well on first glance, but you need to remember that buying a home here is MUCH more expensive than in Idaho, on average. $92,000 here in Oregon is comparable to making $76,000 in Idaho; housing in Idaho costs about 31% LESS than it does here. Groceries on average cost 19% MORE here than in Idaho, and utilities cost 11% MORE here than in Idaho..
Makes a big difference. Our teachers don't look quite as spoiled now - because they aren't, no matter how so many of you like to say they are.......this is not a cheap place to live, so it's not enough just to throw numbers around. We need to remember what the purchasing power is.
The comparison made in this article really isn't the issue, in my opinion. As I discovered when I was house hunting a few years ago, nearly identical houses in similar condition, right next door to each other can be paying significantly different taxes. The further we get from 1995, the crazier it's going to get. This system is clearly broken, but I don't really like Wheeler's proposed method of fixing it, either. It won't quickly address the unfair situation that's developed, especially now that we're PAST the high-turnover, high-appreciation housing market of the last five years.
Property taxes are inherently prone to unfairness, unlike income taxes or sales taxes that bear directly on your ability to pay. The basic problem is the potential runaway expense, especially when it hits someone on a low and/or fixed income. I can't imagine paying the taxes that would have resulted on my own home if it were based on real market values / sales prices instead of being locked down. Even the 3% allowed growth will hurt in time. Does your income grow 3% a year?
I think I'd like to see some sort of hybrid system for figuring property tax that takes income into account. Or just scrap the whole thing, abolish property taxes, and adopt a sales tax? I hope for his sake Wheeler doesn't try for that option, but maybe it would make more sense.
i agree that the property taxes in the ne are reflecting the fact it is still rough around the edges and the schools are not the best. there are restaurants and shops now but also illegal activities right outside our house. we live here b/c we can afford to and the lower taxes were definately part of that equation.
Homeowner upset over tax bill.
Half of homeowner's tongue bitten off.
Homeowner's eyes bloodshot.
Pumpkin frowning instead of smiling.
Dog has piss scared out of it by homeowner's outcry.
Dog's back leg extended behind it attempting flight from city to avoid being taxed.
Button missing from homeowner's sweater.
Tricycle missing wheel.
Rake missing tooth.
Unseen: Portland having no fair tax system.
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Beyond that...it's time that we scrap this antiquated, unfair system of taxation in favor of something more appropriate.
It's a dirty word but a sales tax would make a lot more sense...with controls in the hands of the people, not the legislators. That way, those who consume more, pay more: water, electricity, gas. Set an average household use limit. Those who go over pay a percentage more. Those who are under pay a percentage less. That way those who use more subsidize those who use less. No exemptions for the rich.
Eliminate the income tax, and reduce the property tax to a permanent base level that is an equal percentage for all based on the value of the property.
Make the schools accountable for every penny they spend. Quit hiring these superintendents who come in, do nothing and leave with a ridiculous wad of cash.
Concentrate on the basics first, then if the students grasp those aspects, proceed to other things. There's no excuse for illiteracy in Portland.
Concentrate on spending the city's taxes on basic necessities first before blowing it all on fluff (like renaming streets that already have perfectly good names).
Require contractors to have bonds for big projects to protect taxpayers if and when projects go over budget like our illustrious Water Bureau software debacle.
Why not a bicycle tax? (Ducking head) They use the roads and sidewalks like everyone else and should pay a fair share. Even a dollar a month for every cyclist would go a long way toward maintaining the streets in usable condition.
Fix the timing of the damn stoplights downtown. No wonder traffic is so screwed up. And how much gas are we wasting because of it?
There must be countless ways that our system can be made more equitable. If our "leaders" can't get off their collective butts and do it, we can surely find others who CAN do the job their elected to do.
Only a docile, dumbed-down public would put up with this nonsense. They're getting what they deserve.