Letter writer: Good government or taxation by deception?

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Taxation by deception: when your leaders feel only contempt for you. You know, the average person reads about the Panama Papers and the fraud that goes with it, [and] you can only shake your head. Back-door dealings with banks deceive us all, and leaders line their pockets in the process. You would like to think government at the local level is above that — but is it? Let’s look at the facts.

After the housing crash of  2008, the city stopped its regular reassessing because the values had dropped, and they did not want those losses reflected in the tax bills. Then two years ago, city leaders did a new reassessment as housing values had recovered.

You will notice when that happened, the tax rate may have dropped, but your tax bill went up due to the fact that they did not lower the rate to match the increase in value. Now the housing market is really booming and — surprise! — they want to do another reassessment.

The property values will go up, but the rate of taxation may once again not go down to the appropriate level. If not, they will get a windfall of  more tax money, and they will spend it.

You will pay it. Just like you paid for the bank bailout in 2008. Just like you paid for the savings and loan crash in the ’80s. Just like you pay more tax so all the Panama Papers cheats can take food out of our mouths to put fuel in their yachts. We always end up paying because of the way our leaders think of us.

Our leaders view us with contempt. They deceive us and laugh because they think we are just too stupid to know the difference. How does [our] Council view us?  You can easily find out when the next budget is proposed by the Council.

That reassessment will be done, and they will be licking their chops at the big numbers. All you have to do is look at last year’s budget increase (probably 3-4 percent — I haven’t looked recently) and then compare it to what budget increase is proposed this spring. Good government or taxation by deception?

— Stephen Schulte
Asheville

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6 thoughts on “Letter writer: Good government or taxation by deception?

  1. Yep

    currently it’s the county commissioners calling for reassessment…but yes, we can see contempt locally by city council AND county commission…

    the fact that CITY council just STOLE $4.2 MILLION from the taxpayer to GIVE to the AVL Housing Authority, a FEDERAL money pit,
    shows severe contempt and nastiness toward the taxpayers, when CITY council REFUSES to offer ANY oversight over the housing authority, the biggest bloated blight on the CITY of AVL. This is truly TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION and the CITY should be SUED over this heinous action. SHAME on CITY council and the Maoyor …

    • luther blissett

      Oh, realtor Fisher Caudle, you’re so funny! And off-topic! And frothing!

      At least ‘Unaffiliated Yepper’ is right about one thing: it’s the county, not the city in charge of property tax assessments.

      Of course, it’s *state* law that mandates a county to reassess property values if the sales-to-assessment ratio moves out of a range of 0.85 – 1.5. That means the threshold is tighter when properties increase in value than when they decrease. So perhaps once the letter-writer has also stopped frothing, he might want to take that up with the legislators in Raleigh.

      • Yep

        Im NOT a Realtor nowadays…can you find some new material PLEEZE ??? are you that incompetent ? seems so.

      • Yep

        do you NOT think giving the housing authority $4.2 MILLION with ZERO accountability is a burden for city taxpayers to bear?

  2. Lulz

    LOL, yep. The past decade has seen yearly property tax increases even though Bothy the drunk continues to lie about it. And even worse, pats himself on the back lulz. When the crash happened, the taxes remained the same even though values plummeted. THAT is an increase but of course the local council crony phonies like Summers Eve won’t admit it.

  3. Lulz

    Oh and let me add LOL, the shill local media that refuses to hold these crooks accountable is useless. They raise a stink over toilets but not those that have to eat the crap of the liars in office who locally have held power for years because of the lack of effort to expose these tools for what they really are. Liars and thieves lulz.

    You are part of the the problem MX. Citizen Times isn’t good for anything but to line the bird cages. And WLOS is a glam sham that wouldn’t know real reporting from a hole in the wall.

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