“Illinois’ convoluted and broken property tax system has been driving the high cost of living that’s pushing families and businesses out of our State. Despite the fact that homeowners have been crying desperately for relief, Democrats last year failed to produce any significant action,” said Republican State representative Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst in The Voice March 5.
Well, dear Deanne, and all the rest of Republican legislators in Springfield, The Chas has a solution for you! It requires, however, that you open your minds to extreme possibilities, as Fox Mulder of The X-Files used to say. The fact of the matter is that both Democrats and Republicans must share the blame for our “convoluted and broken property tax system,” because both have refused to acknowledge the true nature of the system. Their minds are bent, and they must be straightened before any real tax relief can be achieved.
I have written twice on this subject: June 26,1997 in that other newspaper in Aurora, and August 23, 2012 in The Voice. Change does not come easily, especially when there are entrenched interests involved.
Property taxes have been around since humans ceased their nomadic ways and settled down in fixed communities. Certain communal activities, such as town council meetings, street repair, irrigation systems, and public safety, required all citizens to contribute to the common good. Originally, taxes were paid in kind; that is, a citizen contributed a portion of his crops and/or animals to the governing body of the community and received that body’s services in exchange. With the invention of coinage, utilizing precious metals, the governing body decided how much of the metal went into the coins and what it was worth in the marketplace.
Through the ages, property taxes have been arbitrarily derived. They have been based upon someone’s opinion of what a given piece of property was worth; this was known as assessed valuation, and has been the basis of what Mazzochi calls our “convoluted and broken property tax system.” In my humble opinion, assessed valuation has been the biggest loophole in anyone’s tax code to come down the pike. It flies in the face of the revolutionary slogan, “No taxation without representation”; actually, it turns that slogan upside down, i.e. “No representation without taxation.”
Politicians who set the tax rates thus have a way to deflect blame from themselves for higher property taxes. They can lower the rate and call it relief even as the amount increases. The assessor simply re-assesses the value of a piece of property upwards, arbitrarily based upon wholly circumstantial evidence. Have you repaired your front porch, dear reader? Or built a swimming pool in your backyard? Well, you improved the value of your property, and so up went your taxes. Your neighbor might have the same amount of property as you do; but, if he didn’t improve his property, he may pay less tax than you do, thanks to the assessor’s capriciousness.
Contrary to what Mazzochi alleges, both Democrats and Republicans have gotten off the hook for this mish-mash and therefore have done nothing to change this archaic and worthless system. And cuts to State workers’ pensions or workers’ compensation or elimination of unfunded mandates in school districts will not solve the problem.
So, what is the solution? I’m glad you asked.
Property taxes ought to be based upon some material concept, as income taxes are, rather than upon someone’s opinion. And the material concept I have in mind has been with us always, square footage. Whoever owns a large amount of property should have to pay a larger amount of taxes than the average homeowner, no matter how much the property has been “improved.” The size of all properties is a matter of public record. The politicians will still set the tax rate per square foot, but they will not be able to escape responsibility for an increase in the amount of taxes collected. Such a progressive system should squelch any objections to paying one’s fair share of dues as a member of society.
Just a thought.