Gage Froerer is writing a bill, HB418 to help reduce the amount of property taxes that are NOT paid on time. This bill will increase the penalty and Interest for delinquent taxes only, and could add millions into Weber County’s and other Utah County’s cash flow every year. For the tax year of 2008 in Weber County, the amount is over $9 million in delinquent taxes due last November.
The abuse of the tax loophole is a statewide problem as well, to the tune of over $100 million dollars, so any property tax payer that pay their taxes on Nov. 30th each year should get involved in supporting this bill. The higher penalty and interest will discourage those large landowners and business people who exploit this tax loophole every year. They will be forced to reevaluate the penalty and interest costs and most will pay their property taxes on time.
This also means that even with the increased penalties and interest, NO taxpayers will be affected by this higher penalty and interest at all if they pay their property taxes on time.
We suggest you contact family and friends all over Utah and have them contact their State Legislators in support of this bill, HB418.
Our local legislators are Gage Froerer gfroerer@utah.gov and Allan Christensen achristensen@utahsenate.org
Larry and Sharon Zini
Although the bill appears well intentioned and perhaps well written,
ReplyDeletecorrecting a costly error during a fiscal shortfall, and leveling the playing field by demanding punctuality,
we would not support this effort.
We are compelled as an ideologue to continue to call for the abandonment of the collecting of all property taxes, the principle being once you purchase any real property, it is your in perpetuity, and cannot be levied.
Hey, we're jus sayin'.
Svengali, your analysis is a little flawed in this case. Most reform efforts surrounding property taxes involve shifting the burden to some other taxpayers, this does not. These fat cats do not pay the tax to begin with until sometime down the road. So if they just pay the tax that they owe on time, no one suffers. In fact, the cash increase in the County and State coffers will benefit all the other taxpayers. If the rest of us are expected to be punctual paying our taxes, why should the fat cats not be held to the same standard? Have you thought what would happen if everyone did not pay their property taxes on November 30th each year?
ReplyDeleteNo, our analysis does not suffer from flaws.
ReplyDeleteWe simply are of the mind that the grievous injustice of taxing realproperty necessitates that same collection being ceased forthwith.
Tinkering with an injustice to make it somehow fair does not suffice to right a wrong.
It just makes it more palatable; not what we have in mind.
As for as your categorization of "fatcats", we think it ill serves public discourse to delineate You v. Us.
We are all citizens, Fat Cat and Starving Cat.