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The price of receiving a break on our property taxes might well be that we give up some of our privacy.
    Freeps editorial

    Start small and sound reasonable.  That's the way to get people to accept that which they had once considered unacceptable.  Like the frog in the pot of water that is slowly brought to a boil.  One wonders, whenever this example is used, what sadist first thought to try this.  Did this guy have it in for frogs or something?  But back to us and our taxes and the way the political class keeps slowly turning up the heat:

When the current federal income tax was first made law back in the early part of the 20th century, 2% of citizens paid any tax at all and the top rate was 7%.  There was some talk of formal legal language limiting the top rate to 10% but that was considered unnecessary since there was no way the government would ever put that kind of bite on any of its citizens.  That was, you know, just common sense.  So, of course, by the time JFK got around to proposing some trimming of taxes, the top marginal rate was over 90%. 

As we learn over and over again, common sense and government are not necessarily compatible.

So, now we have a flaw in the wonderfully baroque Vermont education funding system that strips certain taxpayers of a fundamental element of privacy.  If they obey the law, then their economic status is revealed to any party interested enough to do a few basic calculations.

A committee of the elected met in Montpelier yesterday and took testimony in an effort to do something about this.  The Herald’s headline doesn’t do much to reassure citizens who believe that government’s needs should take a back seat to individuals’ rights:

Issue of privacy: hearing makes little progress on prebate debate

“Prebate debate.”  Has a nicely alliterative ring to it, doesn't it?  That event it describes is not quite so pretty.

Anyway, the elected don’t have any good ideas and the appointed are in fundamental opposition.  Secretary of State, Deb Markowitz says one thing and Tom Pelham, Commissioner of Taxes, says another.  So who you going to listen to?  If you are a town clerk, this is not an academic question.   Guess wrong and you could be sent to jail.

The sad thing is … this is Vermont.  Where citizens’ rights were once considered supreme and strong walls made for good neighbors.  Where you could build a little house at the end of a dirt road, live your life and mind your own business in the confident expectation that your neighbors would do the same.  That expectation, it seems, is among the many casualties of Brigham and Act 60/68.

What, one wonders, will be next?

Comments

[Bill Brueckner]

That expectation, it seems, is among the many casualties of Brigham and Act 60/68.
Vt Supreme Court docket 96-627 affirmed Act 60 to be unconstitutional because appraisals are inaccurate causing disproportional taxation in violation of Article 9 of the Vermont Constitution, The tax system is also unconstitutional because it does not tax according to wealth.

There is no power to tax according to income the 16th amendment limits limits its use to Congress and it is not able to be delegated not implemented in states without changes to our state constitution that requires taxation according to wealth

the income tax as well as all other forms of taxation tax the poorer of use to outrageous disproprotional levels while the upper class and corporations pay next to nothing proportionately.

consumption and sales taxes also take exorbitant amounts from the poorer of us. ex. is it fair for someone buying the cheapest model because that is all they can afford paying the same tax on the car as a multimillionaire.
The key word is taxes must be proportional.

Neither the Reps nor the Dems wish to tax corps and the super rich and have been in violation and defiance of the above mentioned supreme court decision for 10 years.

It's easy for them to scam the people

[Jeffrey Pascoe]

Act 60 doubled my property taxes. I adapted. I used an escrow account to pay my huge property tax bill using monthly payments. I used my rebate each August to help pre-buy oil and wood for winter heat.

Now the legislature has changed things again. My rebate went to the town and I have to find other money for heat. I have to call the mortgage company and recalibrate my escrow account. And now my income is a matter of public record. The town clerks are put out as well, the Burlington Free Press reports, and legislative committees are having to meet at taxpayer expense to consider ways to fix what they broke.

Nobody was complaining about the rebates before, so why did the legislature change the system? Now that the change has caused so many problems, why do they remain so dead set against changing it back? According to the Free Press (9/4/07 editorial), "That aim was to make it clearer to homeowners the actual amount in property taxes they pay..." I don't believe that for one minute. What is the real agenda? Whose interest does this serve?

[Greg Decker]

The only (admittedly cynical) reason I can think of is that changing the rules every year or two makes a moving target for those of us who would like to challenge the constitutionality of state wide education taxes (i.e. Brigham).