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Death and taxes.

46 Comments

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Neither can be avoided, though I’ve done a good job dodging the first so far. Unfortunately the latter keeps clawing its way into my checkbook like the greedy bastard it is.

Last year our property taxes went up $1,200. This year? Another $1,400. WTH!

I live in a small rural town that has no police force, or ambulance, a completely volunteer fire department and a consolidated school system that shares costs with 3 other towns.

WTH are we paying for?

Our home is a comfortable 2,000 square feet with a little over 3 acres. But we don’t have a pool, a guest house or a professional chef’s kitchen.. so what gives?

I know everything goes up, but $2,600 in two years seems a bit extreme. And the worst part? The assessor hasn’t reached our area yet and doesn’t know the barn is now a fully insulated and heated man cave.

And if I have my way?

He never will.

🥴

46 thoughts on “Death and taxes.”

  2. That’s a huge increase for a town that’s not offering a lot in the way of services.

    Our assessment more than doubled, but they won’t set the tax rate until March. They say taxes won’t be going up that much. They say.

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    1. Maine property taxes have always been high because our base is small, but the past few years have seen crazy increases. I complain, but thankfully we have the means to absorb it. Many people don’t and being taxed off your land happens far too often now.
      😰

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  4. Wow, that is a lot in just two years. My property taxes went up the year before last about $875 to make mine about $3200 but I protested it with the appraisal district and I got my taxes to stay the same. This year it only went up $327, and I’m still going to protest it because although they say my house is worth so much, if I had to sell it I know I wouldn’t get what they say it’s worth. Appraisal districts and tax assessors are scammers!

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  5. Holy cow, I live in Los Angeles and that is a crazy jump in taxes. We go up maybe $6-$100 per year. On the other hand, I know in New Hampshire that the property taxes there can jump anywhere from $400-$700 (although sometimes they drop a whole $8.00). It varies a lot from town to town. Our local town doesn’t pay anything for schools, either–all that money comes from the state. We pay a bloody fortune for our local police department’s bloody pensions, though; one dollar out of every four in the budget. Insane, especially given that our cops have made national news for being racist and antisemitic.

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  8. We are lucky here in Florida. Under the Homestead Act, property taxes are capped at a 3% annual increase, As to your question, what are you paying for? I would guess the services in Portland and Bangor, as their tax base has decreased over the years. Money has to come from somewhere, I recon.

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  9. That does seem like a huge jump especially 2 years in a row. I have no idea what my property taxes are because I have a mortgage and the bank pays them – over $4000, less than $5000 – for an apartment. In Philadelphia we were paying $130 a year for a house because there had been no assessment in like 30 years – or something like that.

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  10. Do they plow your roads? Are your roads paved? Does the county get a share of those taxes and provide emergency services? Does the volunteer fire department have a building and equipment that someone has to pay for?

    No requirements for building permits in your area? Where I worked as a plumber, if they found out you’d done what you did without permits, you’d be required to hire licensed contractors to remove all of your work and then have it inspected to prove you’d complied. If you had gotten a permit, they’d know about it and would have re-assessed you as soon as it was done.

    Sorry if this seems harsh, but everyone likes to complain about taxes but, on the local level, they provide a lot of what keeps us alive and well.

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    1. Our road is a rural route and therefore serviced by the state. And I have no problem paying our fair share, but these increases are absurd.
      As for a permit to build the barn, yes we had one. But it was a basic storage unit at first and unfinished the last time they assessed.

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  13. Jeebus, that’s a jump!!
    I know we voted in more property taxes, but it shouldn’t be anything that horrible! I’m still stumped by learning my parent’s home, 3x as large and in a far better area (not far from here), has prop taxes ⅓ low than mine.

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  14. In California they have a 1% annual tax that is not supposed to increase until the home is sold. The new owner pays the 1% of the sales price. However, they worked around that by adding fees and fees and fees. Our property tax doubled with fees. Now in Arizona, our property tax went down! We were in shock.

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  16. Don’t even get me started. Boomers here in Canada are petrified of remaining in their paid-off homes and dying in their homes because if that happens, the government take 50% of the value of the home during the inheritance process. 50%! Seniors are saying why did we work so hard to pay off the house so the children can inherit it when the gov’t takes most of it?

    It’s insanity.

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      1. Yeah. In my case, having mom’s house be my secondary property will send me to live under a bridge in poverty due to the inheritance tax ‘penalties’. Only way to avoid it is to sell prior to her death. It sucks all the way around.

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  18. I hint on assessments (at least in Canada): new work cannot be assessed until it is “completed!” If you leave so much as a baseboard off hiding behind a couch, or a doorway with no door (hang beads or a curtain) the work is considered incomplete and cannot be assessed. So no taxes on it.
    But as far as your taxes going up that much? I would be asking questions! Whose house are you paying for? Obviously not yours!

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