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Roanoke Times, 8-7-11, Pg 1-2: Godsey take on taxes, careless
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An RT writer questions the statement by one of the candidates for State Senator that property taxes are “fundamentally wrong”; and indicates there will be follow-up articles about this subject.
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The challenge by the RT is easy to understand since their collective editorial view would be that land owners are the rich and land taxes are an ideal method of legally stripping them of some of that awful wealth they have wrongfully accumulated.
Hopefully this ongoing quest will address some of the following points:
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Most landowners are not rich. They are the small-businessmen, farmers, loggers and homeowners who represent the middle class and who are family people and retired people.
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The premise that land taxes are justified because they support the services they demand is false. Land doesn’t need schools. Land doesn’t need government or social services. It is people, not land that demands government services supported by taxes.
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In most places there is not a cap on the amount of taxes that may be levied upon a persons land, either in the total amount or the rate of increase. This has resulted in massive amounts of government confiscation of property and or forced sale of property. Many of those displaced people were and are retirees. I know many examples of them personally.
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Property taxes are usually based on governments assessed (guestimated) value of the property and not what the current owner paid for the property. A working family or retired family has not realized any gain upon their home that they haven’t sold; so why are they taxed on something they don’t have yet? Also most of the gain is government-driven inflation. Several years ago I sold a house for the value of 12 Oldsmobile’s. I had bought that home 18 years prior for 12 Oldsmobile’s. So where is the “profit” upon which I paid both yearly taxes and then sales taxes? There was no profit – it was all inflation!
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Hopefully the RT writer will explore and explain the fairness of each of these items, not just as a convenient tax target-of-opportunity to “get the rich”, but from the point of view of supporting the small-businesses, working families and retired people who are the primary owners of private taxed property and are getting hosed by their government.
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This blog item is now referenced in:
Tripp Godsey for Senate; Virginia Senate District 21
http://www.trippgodseyforsenate.com/wordpress/?p=340
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Based on the literary horsepower being applied, it appears that putting down and marginalizing Mr Godsey is really important at the Roanoke Times!
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Dan Casey’s Roanoke Times article
http://www.roanoke.com/columnists/casey/wb/295369
and
Dan Casey’s Roanoke Times blog
http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2011/08/sundays-column-some-taxing-questions-for-candidate-tripp-godsey/
and
Blue Ridge Caucus blog
by Adams and Sluss (also writers for the Roanoke Times)
http://blogs.roanoke.com/politics/2011/08/07/more-from-godsey-on-property-taxes/
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Why does this look like yet another Roanoke Times free contribution to some yet to be identified political campaign?
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