As we approach the election in June, I have many concerns, but the one that seems to evade public and political comment is real estate/property taxes.
Where are the voices about the increase in either assessment or property tax year after year after year? I for one, who has responsibly paid taxes for over 35 years, find myself in the situation where I have paid down my mortgage in order to continue to live in my beloved Old Town, only to find that the property taxes will prevent me from staying long term in my home. My home, where I have built my life.
It seems unfortunate that you contribute for a lifetime and when in the twilight of your life you are forced to move because of unforeseen and unsustainable increases in either assessments or tax rates. To be clear when I moved to this house in 2012 taxes were $11,744.50 now, only 5 year later, they are $16,098.38, an increase of 37 percent in 5 years. This is during a period of time when there has been essentially no inflation and wage stagnation.
What is even stranger is that no one is complaining? Can I be the only one that will be forced out of there home because they cannot afford 16K+ and rising dollars a year in property taxes?
Someone needs to support the property owners and help preserve a community that you can live in, by choice, for your life. To be pushed out after doing your civic duty without comment for generations ... to have saved and conserved in order to pay down your mortgage, only to be unable to afford the annual taxes seems punitive and unjust. Where is the uproar? Is there no voice to those of us who have played by the rules? Most often silent, I can no longer stay so.
Notably, Trump's tax "cuts " not only cost me more , but every human being who has a mortgage with interest above 10K plus property taxes finds themselves paying triple taxes. Am I the only one aware and feeling this pain?
Enough I say. Those who set the policies, who manage, control or mismanage the budget must start to acknowledge that you cannot continue to spend and assign that burden on the backs of your residents.
Enough!
It is time that local government respond and hear what is real in the lives of their constituents.
I appreciate your ear, but, more so, I would appreciate your actions to control spending and prevent increased taxes by assessment or increase. I have a budget to live within. Why can you not be required to do the same?
Brenda Doherty
Alexandria