Did you know that a large portion of property taxes are for schools?

All home owners, with the exception of senior citizens, pay this tax for schools. Even single people, married people with no kids, and a household of 13. That means that everyone who owns a home, whether they have/want kids or not, pay for schools. I find that unreasonably fair. If i dont want kids, i dont wanna pay such a large amount to pay for schools.

What are yallz' opinions?

L. Zeved

Just another way liberals are raping our wallets, IMO.

Linking property values to supporting schools is a bad system. What is the connection between these two?

Property taxes are a bad idea. The tax someone over and over for having something. Most things you only pay for the tax on it once, when you buy it.

I do think that education is the responsibility of everyone. There should be a way to collect taxes to pay for schooling as equal opportunity for our children benefits everyone.

Senior citizens who are home owners do pay property taxes. Is there a state which has changed this?

In Illinois, the state laws prohibit school districts from raising revenue through any other means than property taxes. I would prefer revenues were collected at the state level but it would be an improvement if other options were available. One big improvement would be the ability to have impact taxes. These would be applied to any new residence built in a school district. New residences mean more kids and more kids mean more classrooms and more classrooms means money needed to build schools. Why not tax the source of this need rather than distribute this tax burden over all people living in the district already? I can tell you developers love it as it is. Good schools sell houses and the develpers get everyone in the area to subsidize their developement by building new schools for their home buyers.

What about the people who have there children in private schools? Should they have to pay?

i never said they didnt. i said,

i may have to be a bit more clear; Senior citizens dont pay the portion of property tax that gives money to schools.



To my knowledge ( remember, i dont pay taxes yet), they do pay. I dont agree with it at all.

L. Zeved

I think it bites too. The taxes on our vehicles and home are horrible and we don't even plan on sending our child/ren to public school. The money taken in taxes would more than support her time in a parochial, private or other type school.

Worse than that is when they hike it on you and you get screwed in escrow and back taxes for the entire next year. Now, that's sweet.

A little off topic, but not quite: I heard somewhere that with all the taxes your average american pays we hand over half of our income to taxes in the end. Sounded funny to me at first, but I can definately see how that's possible.

Anyone here know how I could find out for sure, how to research it?

I agree that they should not use property tax to fund schools. The question then becomes, if not property tax, then how will schools be funded?

It was me that was not exact. Which state excludes senior citizens from paying property taxes towards schools?

In most areas the burden of school taxes fall mainly on the municipalities or counties. In many of these areas there are partial or full exemptions for senior citizens.

If the oublic doesn't pay for public schools they aren't public. What if the hard working people with children in schools said they didn't want to pay for social security, or the army or medicare, or building road or the government at all. Everyone should support the schools whether they use them or not. It may hurt to pay for public schools but it helps the country immeasureably.

Z, I wonder where you get your info. Seniors get free meds? Seniors are exempt from school taxes?

Each year when we receive our property tax it is accompanied by a information sheet with a "pie" showing where the money goes. The largest section of the pie is money marked schools. NO ONE is exempt from paying that tax in this city and state.

Madtown

The problem is not everyone is paying for schools, only those who own houses. So seems kinda unfair doesn't it? Why not find some other more uniform method of paying for public schools instead of putting the burden on those who own homes.

Landlords take property taxes into consideration when setting rents. When property taxes go up, rents go up.

Madtown