This is the first time since 1994 that the Taxable Value of property has been so near the State Equalized Value of Property. While there are laws prohibiting the increase of taxes without a vote of the people there is no law prohibiting the reductions of taxes. It is time to restore justice and uniformity. In 1994 Proposal A passed. It was concerned with the taxable value of individual property and the way we finance schools. It capped annual increases in your taxable value at the CPI (inflation) or 5% whichever is less. Millages are applied against the taxable value.
The red line in the graph is the State Equalized Value (SEV) and the Blue is the Taxable Value. For years, they have been talking about tweaking Proposal A. The problem is that suggestions were not always in the interest of the taxpayer. The suggestion that I have found to have the most value is the elimination of the "pop up". Under Proposal A, whenever property changes hands the new owner's taxes "pop up" because he now must pay on the SEV. If you notice in the graph there was quite a difference between the SEV and Taxable Value when property was increasing in value. As a result, two identical houses in the same subdivision could be paying dramatically different taxes because one person had been living in the house since 1994 when Proposal A Passed and another bought a house at the height of housing values. What that means is that there could have been almost a 50% difference in the amount of taxes paid for the same services.
The legislature should act now to eliminate the "pop up". and bring everyone down to 50% of their true cash value which is what the SEV should be and which is also in most cases the present Taxable Value. We need to bring some sanity back to the system. The Constitutional limitation that prohibits increases in taxable value to inflation or 5% which ever is less would remain in effect. Revenue for government units woulds be regulated by the Constitution (Headlee Amendment) and voted millages by the people.
We have been finding it difficult to find a location near Detroit. Leon's Family Dining, where we have our membership meetings, has agreed to lend us his banquet room. I had indicated that I would ask everyone to purchase something. You can have dinner, desert or just a cup of coffee. The meeting is at 7:00 pm on February 22 at 23830 Michigan Ave. We have reduced our $2.00 donation to $1.00 on this occasion.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call 313-278-8383. If you are unable to attend look on our website for our other scheduled seminars. http://www.wctaxpayers.org/.
The time is now to learn how to appeal your assessment. The Comsumer price Index has increased 1.7% (inflation) but your home value has continued to decline. Many people can not afford to hire someone to appeal for them and that is why we have designed a seminar that teaches how to do it yourself.
If nothing else, it will give you the tools to find out if it is worth your while to hire someone else to do it.
You will have to be on the defensive for several years to come, when it comes to your financial security. Take the time to secure what is the biggest investment for most people - your home.
Go to ourwebsite for a location nearest you. We will be adding additional locations through the end of the month.
While your at it, stock up on some food and paper products. Inflation is expected to increase. Anything you can buy and keep now will save you money in the future.
Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association are about to start scheduling our state tour on How to Appeal Your Property Assessment. The housing market across the state is tanking. Foreclosuresare up for nonpayment of mortgages.They are also up for non payment of taxes. Since the State
has changed the rules to allow foreclosure after two years of nonpayment of taxes, many people have lost
their lifetime investment due to job loss or wage cuts. This is a buyer’s market if you can find someone to finance you. Home prices are dropping so they can be sold and be affordable. Tax increases are expected to
be requested at all levels of government.
Many people chose to ignore their right to appeal their SEV (State Equalized Value), which should be half of the true cash value,because they are being taxed at the Taxable Value which was capped with the passage of Proposal A in 1994. This limited the taxable value increases to the rate of inflation or 5% which ever is less. Property Values have dropped so much that it is almost advantageous for everyone to appeal their assessment.
Remember, the assessment cap is removed when the property changes ownership. New owners are
stuck paying taxes based on the State Equalized Value.
Don’t forget, if you live in the City of Detroit, you must first appeal to theBoard of Assessors before mid February to appeal to the Board of Review in March. Everyone else should call their city or township and inquire when their Board of Review will be meeting. Make sure you do the work necessary to make a successful appeal. You should be able to get sales that have occurred in your area from a local real estate office or the city assessor. You should also be able to see the SEV of other houses in your area and the worksheet they keep on your home to insure accuracy of information.
Please check our website in January for a list of the locations at which we will be presenting the seminars. For more information call 313-278-8383. If you wish to sponsor a seminar please contact us.
The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association have been busy scheduling seminars on " How to Appeal Your Property Assessment". We only have a few more to schedule around the state.
If you are interested in seeing the schedule go to our website and click on the picture of the little pink house.
We have a PowerPoint presentation, a handout, and question and answer sessions at all of them. If you are going to appeal you might as well learn what will help make it successful.
We will explain the difference between the HeadleeAmendment and Proposal A, Truth in Taxation and how they determine the value of your property. You might also make suggestions on how we can improve the program. We had our first one in Detroit in the middle of January. I am looking forward to seeing you.
Well we finally found a place for our first seminar in Detroit. We don't have much time to advertize, so if you will help us spread the news we would appreciate it. Send it to those who live in the area.
Make sure to check our website for updates on other locations as we set them up.
How to Appeal Your Assessment Seminar
Type: Education - Workshop
Where: Redford Library in Detroit 21200 Grand River / 6 Mile When: Saturday, January 16, from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
This is the first in a series of seminars on How to Appeal Your Property Assessment sponsored by the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association. This was scheduled in early January because the people of Detroit must appeal to the assessors review in February to appeal to the Board of Review in March. We had great success with our presentations last year and expect this year will meet or exceed last year’s expectations.
A powerpoint presentation and hand out will facilitate out program. A question and answer session will be held at the end.
We are asking for a $1.00 donation for the cost of the material.
Check for future seminars as they are scheduled on our website. http://www.wctaxpayers.org For more information call 313-278-8383
Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association are about to start scheduling our state tour on How to Appeal Your Property Assessment. Here is the Problem. We have to schedule a seminar in Detroit in January because they are the only city that requires an appeal at the Assessors Review in early February before an appeal can be made before the Board of Review in March. We need a place to hold it.
Last year,we reserved a room at Wayne County Community College and they cancelled on us the day we were going to hold the seminar. We need a place in Detroit to hold our seminar. I need your help to find one. It can be a church hall. It can be an auditorium. It needs to be in a location where the people of Detroit will be interested in coming.
If other are interested in having one in their community please contact us and we will try to hold one or let you know where the closest one to you is located when we finalize our schedule.
Contact us at wctaxpayers@comcast.net or 313-278-8383.
On December 10, Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association held a successful awards banquet. The award winners gave inspiring speeches and appeared to delight the crowd. Approximately two hundred attended and listened as Wendy Day our, "Activist of the Year" explained how necessary and fun their participation can be. Frank Beckmann our, "Voice of the Taxpayer" entertained us with witty stories and comments. Robert Bobb received the "Taxpayer Hero of the year award" and mesmerized us with the feats he has achieved in the Detroit Public School system.
Everyone appeared to have a good time and indicated they would like to do it again next year. It will be difficult to beat this years edition but we should give it a try. ************************* Another success for us was the recent decision by The U.S. District Court, for the Western District of Michigan, which struck down a Michigan law requiring recall petition circulators to be residents and registered voters of the recall district in which they reside.
When I became the plaintiff in this case so long ago, during the Dillon Recall attempt, I knew this would be an important decision for that effort and for future efforts. Grass root organizations need to rely on each other and; the chance that better funded organization just so happens to agree with them. This allows for like minded individuals to help with the cause and also levels the playing field to some degree that special interests will almost certainly have the greatest power.
Without the support of the Sam Adams Alliance, The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the individual contributors who came foreward this victory could not have been achieved. From the "little guys" I offer my sincerest thanks.
When the effort for passing Proposal A was in full force in 1993,I worked my heart out trying to defeat it. Some people thought I was crazy. There was no question that assessments were out of control as well as the property taxes they generated. My argument then is the same as it is now. It was the method they chose that I was opposed to. A tax reduction could have been acheived by something as simple as reducing taxes from 50% of true cash value to say 40% of the true cash value of the property.
They on the other hand had to make it complicated and bate one segment of the population against the other. While Proposal A did slow the taxation rate by reduceing millage rates and slowing taxable values for some, other were picking up the burden as property changed hands through sales or inheritance. Right now, two families living in identical houses in the same subdivision may be paying drastically different amounts of taxes for the same services because one person has lived in their house longer. The crash in our property values has helped to aleviate that problem for some but it has not eliminated it. When we go to sell our homes there are fewer buyers because the tax will then be applied to the State Equalized Value of our property making the payments to expensive.
Proposal A had all kinds of enabling legislation that went into effect. We got an increase in the sales tax and gas tax. Inflation helps to increase those taxes. Given the way the federal government is spending money, we will soon see a huge increase in inflation and taxes. We got a different rate of tax on our non homstead property. Another thing that came to fruition was an increase in requests for bonds and sinking funds for schools, which are still allowed.
Due to the decline in proprty values,you will now begin to see more Truth in Taxation Hearings. Local governing bodies can increase millage rates up to the maximum allowable truth in assessment / equalization millage by simple ordanance or resolution instead of a vote of the people. This can be done because the revenue generated under Proposal A will not equal last years revenue plus inflation without increasing the millage. This is also true of all the other government millages in Michigan.
Another interesting restriction that was created under Proposal A was a requirement that no increase over the then authorized operating millage could be passed unless it was done on an intermediate school district level. Each County wide region is allowed a 3 mil enhancement if approved by the voters. Multi-district tax a tough sell, but that could change
By DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
With state aid in peril and federal stimulus funding that came to the rescue this year set to expire, is it time for Michigan’s local school districts to turn again to local taxpayers?
Some have exercised a rarely used option under 1994’s Proposal A to seek multi-district millage hikes.
Very few have succeeded.
The schools of Washtenaw County — including Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Saline — asked voters to approve enhancement mills on Nov. 3. Property taxpayers in the Washtenaw Intermediate School District would have paid an extra 2 mills for 5 years had the request been approved.
It passed in Ann Arbor, but got hammered elsewhere. The final tally was 57.4% no to 42.6% yes.
“We knew that this was a bad time” to be asking taxpayers for more money, said Ann Arbor Public Schools communications director Liz Margolis. “But we just had no choice.” With state help in decline as state revenues shrink and the likelihood of more bad news to come, a countywide discussion had been under way for a year, Margolis said. Ann Arbor voters had a history of support for school millages, and district officials led the campaign.
But while Ann Arbor voters kept their reputation intact, the measure lost by margins of up to 3-1 in some out-county communities such as Milan and Lodi Township. Margolis said schools won’t try again soon and would give it another shot only if every school district in the intermediate school district, or ISD, would “buy in and really try to sell it.”
So far, talk about enhancement- millage requests — regions can ask for as much as 3 mills and use the money for any purpose — has been muted around the state.
David Martell, executive director of the Michigan School Business Officials, said that for years after Proposal A took effect, school funding was secure and obstacles to winning regional approval for tax hikes were so high, that few enhancement elections were held.
“It’s a very, very hard sell,” Martell said, chiefly because the cost and benefits are usually unbalanced across an ISD because the tax is assessed on property wealth and distributed on a per-pupil basis.
But financial conditions are rapidly worsening in so many districts that Martell said the bar for passing a millage could drop.
“I don’t know why” enhancement- millage requests “haven’t taken hold more recently,” he said. “I think once parents start to feel the real impact of the cuts that are coming … they might turn to something like that.”
Voters in Kalamazoo County approved a 1.5-mill regional tax in 2005 and renewed it by a wider margin in 2008. But Kalamazoo Regional Superintendent Ron Fuller said that unless economic anxiety in Michigan lightens by then, “it will be a tougher sell a year and a half from now” when it is scheduled to expire again.
Doug Drake, a financial analyst with Public Policy Associates in Lansing and former state budget official, said that if state lawmakers decline to approve higher taxes to restore school funding, more districts may have to consider joining for enhancement efforts.
“When the checkbook in the sky is empty, you just may have to think about going door-todoor. There aren’t very many other options,” Drake said.
Governor Granholm and the legislature understood this when they refused to reduce the budget in other ways, while alowing cuts to education. If you can not get the legislature to raise taxes, put the pressure on parents to do the job.
I for one am tired of excuses and the blame shifting. The Governor and the legislators are paid to do a job but they keep shiftng the hard stuff on to the taxpayer and disclaim any personal reponsibility. Enough is enough! We need to make them do their job or remove them and keep them from any future office.
The Wayne County Taxpayers Association and the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance has just finished their statewide tour. They have been conducting workshops on "How to Appeal Your Property Assessment". We estimate that we have instructed close to 2,000 people on the procedures involved to successfully appeal your assessment.
It is now time for them to do the work. While the presentation does not give you the benefit of the discussion, questions and answers of the workshop, it does give you the step by step procedure. Good luck to all in this difficult time. You may also get a hardship exemption if you qualify. Talk with your assessor about the requirements in your city or township.
The WCTA was organized in March of 1982 because of a deep concern over rapidly escalating and unjust property tax assessments. We are a non-profit, non-partisan volunteer taxpayer organization dedicated to obtaining fiscal integrity and responsibility from all levels of government.
In July of 1982, we incorporated with the State of Michigan and proceeded to build our membership. We have resolved that our elected officials should be more accountable to their constituents for their actions.
We believe that individuals can be effective but that together we can be even more effective. We hold regular membership meetings and also sponsor special and educational meetings on topics of interest to our members and the general community.
Only through a vigilant watch of the government can taxpayers ensure that our government is operating responsibly and efficiently.
Information is a very important ingredient of the WCTA. Our newsletter is sent to all members and we try to keep them apprised of existing and pending legislation that will directly affect their lives.
Contact us at: http://www.wctaxpayers.org
You missed (again)!!!
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I go off-grid for a little while… Last night, a California democrat,
former educator, and apparently a “No Kings” aficionado was apprehended
trying to as...
