Comments on: The Apple Is Smaller, Bite The Same

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:39:52 +0000

JIMV, you are on to an excellent point, thank you for taking the time to make it. The MLS is the private system the real estate sales folks use and it not only list property but also keeps track of what homes sell for and how much the square foots sell for in any giving area. The county does not use the MLS so they say, when prices were high. Now that prices are low and going lower they run from the MLS.
Here’s a fact, any sale is a sale of fair market value. What the country is trying to do is, turn a blind eye to the thousands of home that are on the market and don’t sell. So that they can go back and cheery pick the ones that have, no matter the amount of time the amount of time thats gone by and go with those prices. If what you say is true and they are not counting the short sells, that is cherry picking values to cheat citizens out of their money. That would be criminal and if what you say is in fact true, we need to find out who or whom is behind this and make sure we get them with criminal fraud charges even RICO charges.
Any time there is a quid pro quo in an open market we are looking at fair market value. End of story.

By: dog

dog — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:54:53 +0000

How come the whiners here never mention spending trillions on pointless wars? A peace dividend might be better for the economy than 2-4% dividend on your CD. Think about it.

By: JIMV

JIMV — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:06:57 +0000

Mr Watcher, in my case I was speaking of the Boise habit of valuing property for tax purposes above the actual sell prices of homes in the area…My story. I tried to refinance at a lower interest rate in March. The appraisal was way low (but still above what I owed) because 3 identical homes were sold at a cut rate to a speculator. OK…I then get my city valuation and it is $30K over the appraised value. I call them and they say that ‘distressed’ sales are removed from the tax valuation…so the city taxes me on $30K of imaginary value…I was not amused. It has the effect of a double hit..the real property value drops a lot and the city taxes the folk who have lost the most value at an inflated rate.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:32:19 +0000

United Water with a monopoly on domestic water supply in the area asking users to pay the French company $5.6 MILLION more than they currently take from the community.
Sorry these folks need their wings clipped. The’ve done nothing but raise rate time and time again. Isn’t it time to put a stop to this robbery we have allowed. Some one stop them, any one. Oh ya the PUC is suppose to do this. So where are they?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:36:54 +0000

It takes no talent to spend other peoples money. Every elected official forgets how much of a hit working people have taken in the last year in Idaho.

I am on Social Security and will get no COLA this year. Why then do elected officals think they should get more of our money? There is a serious lack of “testicular fortitude” with the current crop of elected officials.

I would eat more cake if I only had it to eat. Does it take a revolution for these jokers to figure out we are all beating the wolves away from the door.

Are they slowing down their spending or expectations? Does not appear so from where I have the view.

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:45:33 +0000

As long as the city extracts tax revenue for an imaginary value, whatever they charge is simply extortion…

JIMV, you have that spot on. The Idaho Constitution is the source for how property taxes are done. This was pass by Idaho lawmakers a very long time ago. At that time we were on the gold standard so home prices stayed pretty much the same value. Once off the gold standard we have had huge amounts of inflation so much of our taxes are paid on inflation and not the real value of the home/property. Had we not been on the gold standard at the time the this part of the Idaho Constitution was written. I strongly believe that the law makers would never have written property tax part of the Constitution as they did. Which has me wondering if the property tax part of our state constitution isn’t void at this stage of time.

By: JIMV

JIMV — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:02:47 +0000

As long as the city extracts tax revenue for an imaginary value, whatever they charge is simply extortion…

By: Easter

Easter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:02:54 +0000

most disgusting is Bisterfelt’s comment about the budget:

“I voted for what we were allowed to take. If you don’t vote for it, you’ll never get it back. If you don’t need it, the next time, you can save the money.”

http://www.idahostatesman.com/boise/story/940080.html

By: AllSeeing

AllSeeing — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:56:36 +0000

Erico49; the levy rate whent up about 14% to make up for the lower property values and to fund the 3% budget increase. I posted the Ada Assessors web site and instructions to view your property information earlier.

By: Sisyphus

Sisyphus — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:35:14 +0000

Gotta agree that Risch’s tax shift didn’t help much in the recession, and hits the poor excessively. All of this was entirely predictable. Gotta disagree with the seeming premise that the answer to our woes is to stop spending. Herbert Hoover tried it and, as I recall, he got his hat handed to him in 1932 after spiraling the country into depression.

Not sure where you come up with this though–“the oft stated and unchallenged rule, ‘The cost of health care has gone up.'” Its been challenged many times as well as firmly documented. In 1987 it was 11% of the GDP, now its 16%. By 2017 it will be 20%. Speaking of challenges, I challenge you to find anyone who thinks they haven’t increased…substantially.

And speaking of stimulus hypocrisy check out this report by the Mountain Goat.

http://mountaingoatreport.typepad.com/the_mountaingoat_report/2009/10/give-it-back.html

EDITOR NOTE– Poor wording on the part of the GUARDIAN. We should have said “THE REASONS” for the increase are unchallenged…we just accept it as a given.