Thursday, December 6, 2012

Thank Goodness it's Thursday

I am so happy it's Thursday. My hair is a mess and I have an 8:30 appointment this morning to have it done in Independence. I also need to pay half my property taxes.

I also have beans on cooking and will make cornbread when I get home. We will have cornbread and beans today and I will use up the rest of the ham from Monday.

I finally finished my filing and scanning at work yesterday. I still have to make labels for several folders. By 1:00, when I go in to work, they may have a lot more in my boxes. Keeping busy makes the time fly though.

I have been concerned about my real estate taxes ever since an article about them came out in the paper this week. Of even greater concern then the fiscal cliff we hear so much about in the news nationally is the more local problem here of the major tax shift due Montgomery County residents if the Kansas legislature decides to accommodate Coffeyville Resources and allow their property to be assessed as personal property instead of real estate. Why is this?

The shift of the real estate tax burden to individual citizens will be tremendous. Our taxes in all of Montgomery County alone will increase by almost 40% and those of us living in Coffeyville will get almost a 50% increase in our property taxes. This will overwhelm many of us. Montgomery County is one of the poorest counties in the state with a phenomenal amount of poverty. Those of us already struggling to pay our ever increasing property taxes will be forced to sell our homes at a loss and leave the state.

So what can we do? Not a lot. Legislators usually pay very little attention to individual tax payers. They listen instead to those with the big bucks like the multi billionaire owner of Coffeyville Resources. But we do have the power of the vote. I recommend we just clean house in the Kansas legislature if that worst case scenario should happen. In the meanwhile we should write letters to these Kansas legislators. Perhaps they will see which side of the bread their real butter is on if they are inundated with mail on the subject.

7 comments:

ChuckFu said...

Get'm Mom those bunch of dirty no good stealing government public servant, that last couple of words was mint as a joke

marlu said...

Margie, Google Personal Property Taxes in the United States.

It sounds as though there is some relief for homeowners.

Margie's Musings said...

I did, marlu, but I didn't see any relief for real estate property owners.

marlu said...

Here is the link:

http://www.ksrevenue.org/safesenior.html

Margie's Musings said...

Thank you. I will look it over.

Margie's Musings said...

Marlu, I don't know that the Safe Senior Refund applies anymore. That was 2011. I took the Homestead exemption that year and did not know about a Safe Senior Refund.

The governor here has now eliminated the grocery sales refund for low income seniors. So far, we still have the Homestead Exemption.

marlu said...

It seems there are so many things that I don't know about that are available.

The internet helps. I found out that if we drive less than 35 miles a day, we are entitled to a break on our car insurance. L. checked with our agent and sure enough, $80 less per year.