Of course I'm being a little facetious here but I can't summon the outrage to get mad about people's lake homes being overtaxed. (If they are, in fact, being overtaxed.)
Property Tax Increase
- Thread starter spierceisu
- Start date
Of course I'm being a little facetious here but I can't summon the outrage to get mad about people's lake homes being overtaxed. (If they are, in fact, being overtaxed.)
Can someone explain the property tax reform bill.?Legislators were saying it did stuff to IPERS or something. I don’t think I’ve gotten a straight answer on it.
Lol. Ottumwa has plenty of old Mansions that sell for $40-60k. If that's your thing. The problem is not many people want or can to afford to maintain them.
Except for the fact that it's not accurate, against the state law, and just plain spiteful.
So the county assessor is acting like the Trump administration then? Fancy that.
It might make them take their decisions a little more seriously and maybe even have to make a real cut once in a while, instead of always expecting and getting MOAR.
Because shack's like that clearly appreciate at any rate.
I've never turned around on an assignment and just left but that would probably qualify.There are some really beautiful old homes that you can buy for not much money. There are a lot more of the homes than people who want to buy them. Every now and again someone comes in thinking they will flip one and make a bunch of money but that never really works.
This is probably the best example right now. Needs some work but the wood work is pretty good.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/645-N-Court-St-Ottumwa-IA-52501/113867068_zpid/?
It's a joke to say that they don't take things seriously. I'm sure there is the random outlier, but every local politician I've worked with strives hard to be a steward of tax payer resources.
If you have IPERS, this is flat bad for you. This bill forces Cities and Counties to pay for IPERS contributions out of their general fund. Currently, the IPERS contributions are paid for out of a separate fund called the Trust & Agency fund. This change means that retirement contributions now have to compete with other general fund obligations to get funded. What this means is that in a few years Cities and Counties will start feeling cash strapped in the general fund, which will then give the GOP run state the ability to claim that we need a change to IPERS,
The GOP made it clear a few years ago that their goal was to get rid of IPERS and this is backhanded, dirty way to get at it. Its doom and gloom stuff for government employees. I've got 13 years in the system and I have no faith that the GOP legislature can do any alternative that will preserve my retirement. Guess I'll work til I die.
We need to change IPERS. The numbers simply don't work. But that's an arguement we've had in other threads.
Wow, fake news much. The IPERS shortfall was a legislation created problem in the early 2000s. A rate change was needed and the legislature voted it down, leading to the shortfall. They finally passed a reform in 2012 that set a course to erase the shortfall, but those things take time.
Sounds bad for non state people but how would that affect those for the state. It would just damage city and counties abilities to pay employee contributions.
NARRATOR: It actually doesn't change a thing in IPERS or the funding of IPERS. Lets check in what IPERS says about the bill......
Good analysis.
The outcome here is 100% predictable. The GOP legislature has been working for years to starve government, at all levels, of revenue. This will only accelerate now that local politicians will have to go on the record approving of property tax increases. Many of them won't be increased at the rates they need to be in order to sustain local government - if they pass at all - and property taxes will be kept artificially low. Then when local services start failing or can't sustain themselves, they'll use that as an excuse to outsource, privatize, and just flat out shut things down because suddenly they're "unsustainable."
If you like two-month waits for your tax returns and elementary school classes with 35 kids in a room, you're going to love Iowa. (Just hope you don't need Medicaid.) And if you like demonizing teachers you're in for a treat, because the GOP campaigns against public employees will only become more explicit once they take the message directly to taxpayers that they can keep their taxes down by encouraging their councils and boards to vote down salary/benefit increases or shed employees.
This was my favorite quote, from a Republican House member defending against charges that this would harm IPERS: “Nothing could be farther from the truth. This bill is not about IPERS. It’s a property tax bill.” It seems to me that one good way to ensure the bill wasn't about IPERS would have been to leave IPERS out of the bill, but then I guess I'm just not bright enough to be a Republican legislator.
It doesn't change the obligation to pay, just where the payment comes from. And yes, this bill doesn't effect things directly, but you're a fool if you can't see what this is setting up. Make IPERS payment from a fund that is capped and requires super-majority vote equals a recipe for IPERS funding to compete against funding for other critical city need. There is no logical reason to set up IPERS payments that way. It superfluous.
Correct, but as @EnhancedFujita pointed out eventually cities and counties complain that they can't afford IPERS any longer and that's the catalyst to change the entire system. That's the end game here.
The stupid thing is that even the property tax side of things just isn't necessary. So now a growing community attracts a large value tax payer (say like Microsoft Data Center) that raises the tax growth of the community higher than 2%. In the current situation, the City can just use those new dollars to provide needed services to their community (or sometimes they even use that to lessen residential taxes, yes it does happen).
Well now, they are capped at 2% unless they can pass a super majority vote. You'd expect that to happen but its not guaranteed. So now the City can't use that new revenue to pay for services. I guess all those Facebook posts I saw this winter about people hating potholes were all facetious, cause this is how you end up with lots of systemic problems and no revenue to fix them.
This is already happening in Cedar Rapids. Not that the rates were artificially low, but years of the city council giving tax money away with TIFs and pet projects, they needed citizens to vote for local option sales tax in order to make up the difference. First it was for flood protection, then it was to fix roads, even though we supposedly already pay taxes for that. They just kept putting it up on the ballot until the 3rd or 4th time it passed.
