Vacant and Vacancy Tax Spreading?

[Molalla1]

Guess people fail to realize hollyweird productions and reality don’t share a whole lot. Taxing me and mine out of existence does nothing to ensure your future. It merel pushes a larger burden onto a smaller populace.
Reality? Do the baby boomers have too much wealth? Do they really have to share what they’ve inherited/earned?

Well in my case . . . Earned .

 

[5030]

Some of the least stressed people I know are on Section 8… it’s like being retired and having all your needs met…

The issue with Section 8 renters is, they could care less about dwelling they are occupying because it's not their rent money, it's the gummit's. Been my experience that S8 renters are the worst and any landlord renting S8 will almost always have rental repairs when they vacate. I won't do that but then none of my rentals are in the inner city or even suburbia. I'm discretionary, legal or not is not my concern. The 'wellbeing' of my rentals are my concern. IOW, don't need or want trashed dwellings.

Having said that, even 'responsible' renters can trash a place and cost a landlord big bucks, I know all too well.

With one of my rural rentals the renters never bothered to be responsible for advising me that there was a plumbing issue in the bathroom that resulted in me having to have the entire bathroom redone to the tune of 15 grand when all they had to do was inform me of the issue and I would have had my contractor take care of it immediately.

That 15 grand came right out of my pocket and is total bs and needless to say, those renters no longer reside in that house.

I really don't like being a landlord, problem is, in the current real estate market, selling a single family home can be very difficult and if I was to sell them, I'd be subject to huge capital gains taxes, not something I want to pay anyway
Consequently, I 'carry on' and I'll leave them to my heirs and let them deal with it.

 

[EddieWalker]

Kind of hard to believe what I'm reading in this thread. Why would anybody remain in California if they had the means to leave?

I know that a lot of people are there because they have family there, and they don't want to leave them behind. When I moved, my brother moved right after I did, and then my parents followed us. My other brother had already moved away, so it wasn't hard for my parents to leave.

 

[MossRoad]

I found a video of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song played backwards... (it wasn't appropriate for this site, so I didn't post it).

Anyhow, you get the idea.

 

[ponytug]

I wonder if this is one of the reasons this is happening...investors buying up houses at inflated prices to use as short term rental properties and basically pricing the locals out of ownership and/or driving up rents. I'm wondering if this is a back door way of dealing with those types of properties when loopholes in the laws prohibit towns from regulating them.

Don't understand why there's a problem with lots with no buildings though.

Was considering buying the house next door to me maybe 20 years ago before I moved to where I live now. Even though it was a foreclosure, the bank wanted way more for it than I thought it was worth so I passed. All in all glad I didn't get it...landlords seem to have so few rights today, and one bad tenant can wipe out any return you might have on a property.

Perhaps it might help to view this from the perspective of the local governments. Many of their ways to have budgets to meet the expanding local needs are bounded by things like California's prop 13, and supermajority requirements on tax increases. "Fees" for subsets of the population are a way to divide and conquer their funding issues.

A vacant parcel fee accomplishes a few things, besides annoying non-local vacant parcel owners, it brings in some additional revenue, and it incentivizes vacant parcel owners to take actions (build, occupy, etc.) that add either add to the tax base by higher property tax values, or by having more local spending that indirectly puts money in to the local economy.

Finally, like the hotel occupancy fees, airport fees, and car rental fees, these fees tend not to impact most voters, either because they don't own a parcel of vacant land, or they aren't local voters, or both. That makes the general political friction low.

I think that there are lots of obscure fees that ding certain subsets of the population. For my sanity, I try to bottom line the whole thing. At some level, government needs some amount of money to maintain a civil society, after that, I think that we are really just discussing what kinds of spending is or isn't appropriate, or needed, from our own perspectives. One advantage to local governments is that the spending can be more closely tied to local needs, and local ways of life and culture. We pay a variety of local fees and bonds that don't benefit us directly, e.g. bonds for schools that our kids would not be allowed to attend, etc., but I know that it helps our community, and I happen to think that is a good thing. Others disagree, and I do understand their reasoning, for the most part.

I think that compromise is never about getting what you want, but it is quite preferable to not having civil society. I once experienced two local groups literally standing on either side of a stream, and hurling rocks and boulders at each other to settle a difference between an individual in each group. Lots of injuries resulted, and I was never clear on whether the outcome was "settled". To me, it seemed on the level of "cutting your nose off to spite your face", but I think that if you look around the world, there are lots of places that have perspectives that old perceived injustices are still important, and worth dying for.

Amusing (interesting?) side story about local responses to local needs. I lived for a time in a place where marijuana was legal. There was a local person who was, well erratic, perhaps crazy in some way. Certainly, I never saw him manage to care for himself, or do any local labor. When they saw him coming towards them muttering and yelling wildly, the local response was to fire up a hash pipe and hand it to him. He hit the pipe, mellowed out, got fed, and wandered on. This was in the same area with the rock throwing incident. No real local government, and the rule of outside law was basically zero. E.g. During a multiday election (local, then state, then national polling days), the poll workers were hassled by locals on the first day, resulting in the deployment of the army with shoot on sight orders. Gave me perspective on "the strong arm of the law"...

Personally, I happily pay taxes because I have lived through some of the alternatives, and I did not like the alternatives.

Your mileage will vary!

All the best,

Peter

 

[plowhog]

Why would anybody remain in California if they had the means to leave?

I have a number of close friends who live in California. Out of all of these, my wife and I one of only two couples who moved away. The rest remain.

Our friends, all of them, wish they could leave. But family ties overcome all for them. One of my close friends said: "watching my granddaughter play basketball is more important than moving away from this abomination of a State." Ironically, their son, his wife, and family moved to Bend, OR about 6 years ago. They had a stunningly beautiful home in Bend, up on a ridge with a view, but due to the local politics they felt it was a poor place to raise their children. They moved to Idaho. The family told me the breaking point was the Bend school district put a litter box in the restroom for a student who "identified as a cat." I can't prove or disprove that, but I don't think my friends would lie about it.

Also to some irony, the other couple who moved are extreme hard-left liberals. So they did not leave due to conflict about politics. They are both proud to be "up and down ballot voters" who vote 100% for a particular party regardless who is running.

This other couple who moved are our closest friends. They have combined government pensions of about $250,000/yr. They realized the 13% CA income tax bite of that was about $30,000+ per year. So he buys sailboats, motorcycles, and toys using that money instead. And travel. And, importantly, they had little family in the area. Ironically, they voted for every tax hike while CA residents, then left due to high taxation. Go figure.

So, the family roots grow deep. So lots of folks will stay in place. And, of course, there are millions who dream of migrating to CA which will help keep the population stable or maybe increase it. Just not very many coming in from other US States.

 

[plowhog]

Finally, like the hotel occupancy fees, airport fees, and car rental fees, these fees tend not to impact most voters, either because they don't own a parcel of vacant land, or they aren't local voters, or both. That makes the general political friction low.

This is a really good point.

It does raise an argument that has raged for centuries-- at what point does "taxing others" become majority tyranny instead?

I remember the debate, long ago now, to put extreme, punitive taxation levels on tobacco and cigarettes. The pro-tax proponents, typically non-smokers, had finally become a solid majority with solid political power. So they were about to really hammer those who embarked on evil things like smoking a cigarette.

A lot of people were alarmed, including me. And I am not a smoker and never have been. But as many others did, I wondered: "if it is tobacco today, what will it be tomorrow?"

I have traveled extensively and the hotel and car rental fees were quite astonishing. And in some areas of the country there are "speed traps" set around airports-- areas with wide open country and a 25mph speed limit or something like that. Huge revenue producer to snare unsuspecting visitors who arrived by aircraft. But the locals know about it, and the police often give "warnings" to locals but "tickets" to those from out of town. A small community money machine.

The other very good point is you can't get wound up about all of it-- have to take the long view and believe in the greater good about tax collection.

 

[Hughman]

I'm assuming this is just a local thing and not some new state wide law. Some of the parcels will n my area are barely worth more than $6k and some parcels are not buildable.

 

[MossRoad]

...The family told me the breaking point was the Bend school district put a litter box in the restroom for a student who "identified as a cat." I can't prove or disprove that, but I don't think my friends would lie about it.

...

OK, let's put this rumor to bed....

I doubt your friends intended to lie about it. More likely they repeated something they heard from a source they thought was reputable...

It's not true. Never been true. No one can find a documented case of it anywhere, ever. I've heard people repeat this as fact multiple times in just the past month and correct them every time. It has caused a ridiculous amount of turmoil in our country. Why do people keep repeating it? I have my theories... they involve gullibility, ignorance and/or malice.

Litter boxes in schools hoax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ultrarunner]

Some might ask how this thread relates to tractors?

Family land is now in Jeopardy is the exact same land I bought my first tractor the CAT D3 to put in the fire trails mandated after the 1991 Firestorm... and the land I spend both seat time and Brush Cutter time reducing fuel load every Spring