Our property taxes are not too bad. But everything but the house and one acre is rated as farm or timber land. I don't like that we are paying for the schools, and don't have any kids. There is a saying for the folks who are filling up the Sand Hills to the west end of Calhoun County. They come down here with a white shirt and a twenty dollar bill, and never change either of them. We do have a lot of folks with five or six kids living in a trailer on a quarter acre. They don't pay any property tax at all, but use all the government services.
End rant,
Larro
My bill was about $3.5K this year and according to the county, the money was spent as follows:
"Approximately 22 percent of the property tax revenue collected is retained by the County to provide programs and services to the public. The rest is distributed to the other local entities that share property tax revenue - schools, redevelopment agencies, cities, and special districts."
I don't have kids either, but I figure in the long run it's cheaper to pay for what passes for an education out here in Kalifornia than to have them on the dole the rest of their lives. Even at that, though, a HS diploma doesn't get you very far today; most of the good blue collar jobs having been off shored years ago.
As far as renters not paying property tax, the owners of their hovels do, and it's *supposed* to be proportional to what single dwelling land owners pay. What irks me about the situation is that *everybody* gets to vote for new property taxes, but only the "landed gentry" actually pay them. I'm thinkin' if only landowners voted for the taxes, they would be a LOT lower. That's how taxes started out in this country.
It all comes down to following the money, Larro. People that work hard and make something of their lives are rewarded monetarily, and in spite of what the media would like us to believe, they are the ones most heavily taxed. The politicians earn votes by providing circuses for the electorate, and have devised a government that is very good of taking bread from whoever has it.
