Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Death and Taxes



The Zombie tax increase that refuses to die returns to Town Meeting this spring courtesy of a citizens petition signed by ten registered voters. 

Amherst first passed the Community Preservation Act, a sort of sneaky way around Prop 2 1/2, in 2001 at  the 1% level, then increased it to 1.5% in 2006, but failed to double that to 3% in 2008.

Now it's back for another go at 3% -- the highest allowed by state law.

CPA money, plus a 28% match with state money, can only be used for affordable housing, open space and historical preservation.  Each of the three categories must be allotted at least 10% annually and the other 70% can then go back to any one of the three categories, or for recreation.

This year about $500,000 will be raised between local taxpayers and the 28% state matching funds.

The tax is unfair to business because homeowners get an exemption of the first $100,000 in valuation but commercial property owners do not.  And Amherst also recently passed a Business Improvement District in the downtown that also increased the property taxes paid by commercial property owners.

Can you imagine if the $15/hour minimum wage bylaw and the extra 1.5% CPA property tax surcharge are both enacted by Town Meeting?  Amherst town center will become a ghost town.

4 comments:

  1. Um, Larry, it is a ghost town except for students. The merchants nearly die every summer -- most of us cannot afford to eat out every day and there's nothing to buy!

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  2. Raising minimum wage and taxes to be paid by the rich elite BMW driving, children in prep school, vacation home on the Cape business owners of Amherst, what a great idea.

    Oh, that's right, they all disappeared decades ago. I guess the starving stragglers just grasping onto their dreams will die next.

    Go anti-business Amherst.

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  3. It also is unfair to low-income tenants, who tend to live in multi-unit properties.

    Even if a rental landlord gets the exemption, it is divided amongst the units and hence the rental unit is taxed more than an O/O property of the same value.

    QED this isn't fair to tenants, who are the folks who wind up paying the property taxes on the units they are renting.

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  4. This karma is overtaking youMarch 6, 2014 at 11:42 AM

    I hear Vlad's troops are annexing Ponziville, next.


    Exploit the enemy's weakness, they're shouting.


    I mean, the whole world knows this festering dump lifted Uncle Barry, mightily.


    Ahhhh yes, again and again and again:

    incubated in Amherst, inviting pain and suffering upon the whole planet.

    Oh vile little village,

    "you lie!".


    Now

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpa7cQo-ras



    Yours, every-step-of-the-way,

    -Squeaky the sewer rat

    ReplyDelete