A very simple property tax

Well, well, well the citizens of the State of Indiana can on-mass to the capitol and demanded a reform of the property tax mess. People were seeing tax increases in the 100's of percent, the government was forcing people out of their homes and people were being force to sell their homes because of a reckless government.

So the government sort of listened and sort of reformed the property tax setting a limit of 1 percent of the home value that can be taxed. But if your a farmer they made it 2% and if you own a business 3%. If you rent a place to live the landlord is also going to be charged 2%. Now what they didn't do was stop the process of assessment that provides the value of the property, in ten years we will be right back where we started, storming the statehouse, complaining about high property taxes, about people being forced from their homes.

So the farmers are going to be charged more for their property, so do you think the farmers are not going to charge more for the food they produce. Lets look at the landlord, of course the landlord is not going to raise rent to pay for the increase in taxes, in fact watch them round off the increase to a higher level. And last the business is now going to have a higher cost factor and no they are going to very good hearted about this and not increase their selling prices.

What were they thinking, maybe I know, hide the real factors from the public. Then they added a small little clause that Cities and Towns can enact an income tax, of course they need the approval from the County Commissioners, but after this years election and they get re-elected for four years, why not approve a tax increase, who will remember four years from now.

My last question is to reduce the taxes to the above in simple terms took almost 1000 pages. So my other question is what else are they hiding in the property tax law?

What I did find out was that our elected officials don't seem to know how to think out side of the box. The word inovation is missing from the language they speak. So here is what I would have proposed.

What if when a house sold the state charged a 1% sales tax and the selling price becomes the assessed value for as long as that owner lives in that house. That's it. How come a bank can offer a 30 year loan and the cost of your rent to the bank never goes up, well I would expect the government to be able to do the same. So when you buy your house you know up front what your taxes are going to be until the day you sell the house. When you sell the buyer pays a 1% sales tax and the new selling price becomes the assessed value.

What happens right away the entire cost of assessment is gone, all the government employees gone, all the appeals gone, all the paperwork gone. The cost of government goes down, when a property is transferred the county recorder, sets the property tax. Plain and simple. I like plain and simple.

While I am at it I would reduce the percent cap on farmers and renters to 1%. If I could I would reduce farmers to zero. On business I recognize that they cost government to operate but would lower their cap to 2% and hope I can get more businesses to move into Indiana. The more business we get the more revenue we get from people working, its a great cycle. Business is not here to rescue government, but to provide jobs for people and to provide products and services to people.

If you were in business you know your income and adjust your spending, well government leaders its about time you took a lesson from business and do the same. You can't just keep growing government and not consider the public. If your income were set, you would have to limit the growth of government. Again outside of our governments way of thinking. We need to make government think. I know its beyond most of them to do, they just expect the public to bail them out with more tax dollars.

Well, my name is Joe Weingarten and I am running for State Representative for the 29th District of the State of Indiana and I approve this message.