Bill would 'socialize' property taxes
Posted on March 18, 2010Washington landowners would see their property tax bills go up next year under a bill passed today by majority-party members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Senate Bill 6766 would authorize the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), for fire protection purposes, to impose an annual per-parcel assessment of $4.95 on each taxable parcel of land within the state. A second assessment would be collected to pay for DNR protection of unimproved parcels outside fire protection districts at a rate of 27 cents per acre west of Okanogan, Chelan, Kittitas, Yakima, and Klickitat counties; and 29 cents per acre east of the Cascade Mountains.
Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, says this is a "stealth" property tax increase on 3 million pieces of property in Washington, including tidal lands (the area of beach between high and low tide), urban/suburban areas and irrigated agricultural lands – all to fight forest and grass fires.“While the idea of reducing the amount of human-caused fires is laudable, this is just a new and sneaky way for state government to crawl into people’s pockets,” Carrell said. “And to make matters worse, one of the committee members actually boasted that this ‘socializes’ the risk by putting it out to all people who own land, regardless of whether that land is anywhere near a forest, grassland or is even flammable. What’s next, will everyone in the state see increased property taxes to protect people who live on flood plains from high water? This opens the door for an endless number of new, ‘socialized’ property taxes.
“In the name of protecting no-man’s lands from forest and grass fires, everyone in the Evergreen State will be paying higher property taxes under this bill,” Carrell continued. “If you own an 18th-floor condominium in downtown Seattle, your property taxes will go up to cover the potential of a grass fire in Klickitat County. This is not what Washington residents signed up for when they put the majority party in charge in Olympia.”
|
Would you like to receive a daily digest of all the stories we post to The Suburban Times? If so, just fill in the simple form below and click the Subscribe to List button. Subscriptions are FREE and can be deleted at any time. Enjoy!
(Required fields are bold) |
