Would you pay your hydro bill if it told you how much to pay, with no breakdown on how much electricity you used? So why do we pay our property tax without any idea of what you are paying for? That’s why, I have created this app. You put in your property tax dollars and it will spit out an itemized list of where your money is being spent. Try it.
A tax calculator that tell you where your property tax dollars are being spent
17 Comments
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 11 pts · 61d
And, of course the biggest line item by far is the police.
Think how much lower taxes could be if police got, say, half the funding they do now. Even with only half, they'd still have significantly more funding than any other department, by the way.
m0darn@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 61d
It's a bit strange to see roads split between two line items like that.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 60d
Seems like it's a city and county split.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 60d
City and region but yes.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 60d
Even with the two road maintenance items combined, they're still significantly less than half the police budget.
m0darn@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 60d
Yeah, but it makes them look like they're less than transit
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 61d
Over 20% for police? Good lord. IDK how much the average is, but that seems like a lot. Especially when so many other categories are a much smaller portion.
Also, how is anyone supposed to use this app/site with no link?
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 61d
my city budget is 49% police
fun stuff
Smaile@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 61d
The regional police? Need to get the books checked to see if there waste cuz that seems high. I wonder if this could be thought of as a cost of high crime rates? (or just moderate modern crime rates)
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 60d
Nope. That's actually quite typical. Most municipalities spend the lion's share of their budget on policing. (Because we live in a police state.)
Modern crime rates are quite low, actually. (Despite what the news keeps telling you over and over and over and over and over...)
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 60d
I forgot how high Ontario taxes are compared to BC. What size house would be paying $7k
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 60d
Don't forget that if you live in a single family home, your taxes are almost certainly TOO LOW, and low income families in your city are subsidizing your opulent lifestyle.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 60d
Can you back that up with some links to reputable sources?
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 60d
Absolutely!
https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/
https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9415/1/9780774818957.pdf
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 60d
For the record, I myself live in a single family home and am acutely aware of the fact that my property taxes don't even begin to cover the actual municipal cost of servicing my lot. It's a fucked up system that needs to change; but in the interim, one of the few direct actions I can take is vocally opposing any tax reduction, or NIMBY rhetoric in my community.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 60d
I read through most of those links, only one of them indicated that a single family home was generating less revenue for the city than it cost to maintain, and even that was considered a slight discrepancy.
Where I live, there are no state income taxes, so most of the money for the state's budget comes from homeowners in the form of property taxes, and business and use taxes.
So the less somebody makes, and the more lower class that they live, the less they contribute to the overall property budget for the city county and state that they live in, and the more that they make and the more upper class that they live, the more they contribute to the overall property budget for the city, county, and state that they live in.
My boss lives in an eight million dollar house, right in the most beautiful part of the downtown area, and his property taxes are astronomical. He pays more in property tax alone than I pay on my entire mortgage each year, and he does not get anywhere near the kind of support the money he's paying would cover for that.
So, it's a very highly regional thing. If you own a home and your property taxes are 1% or less of your annual income, then you're probably not contributing enough.
But if your property taxes are 2 percent or more of your annual income, then you're paying more than enough.
And at that level, if cities, counties, and states want more money to cover their budgets, then they should work really hard to bring in new businesses that will pay employees more money so that property values would increase, so that property taxes would increase.
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 60d
How much property tax would the city make from an apartment building on the same footprint as your boss's house vs the "astronomical" taxes he pays?
If I'm being honest, it's such a wild claim for you to say that the provided sources don't support my initial statement, that I can't decide whether you didn't actually review them, or are just arguing in bad faith. There are figurative mountains of data supporting what I said. Can you provide any published analysis that contradicts my claim, or just anecdotes?