Car Tax Repeal Proposal

[oldetowne]

I was not surprised to see that the Town Council voted 6-2 to tell our legislators that they don't support Gov. Rell's proposal to repeal the property tax on private automobiles. It was interesting to see the logic, however. Mayor Morin repeated some random talking points from the Malloy for Governor campaign. The town manager said that there wasn't enough detailed information about how the bill would work to support it. Councilor Drake said that if we didn't have enough information, why should we go on record as being against it without waiting for the information? But cooler heads prevailed and the Democratic majority marched lockstep to oppose the Governor's proposal. Keep it in mind when the tax bills come out in July.

[morganika]

I also read that article and for the life of me I cannot understand why our mayor would deny us the opportunity to save some money. He claims we would be losing a "valuable" tax deduction. Is he nuts? That tiny little deduction you can take off your Federal return. Mostly this is a tax cut for the wealthy, as I see it, but since Russ loves to empty my pockets in ridiculous increases for services I get no benefit from, he could of at least cut me this tiny little bit of slack.

BTW, anyone Russ endorses will not be getting my vote.

[standish]

Car Tax "Repeal", like any other form of Property Tax "Reform", is nothing more than a shell game: It shifts tax-and-spend authority away from towns to the State, which purportedly "replaces" the local revenue stream with some form of State revenue. The new funding may be forthcoming in the short term, but, also comes with strings and no local control.

We should be thinking of ways to distribute the tax/spend burden back to towns... not away from them. The governor's proposal sounds like a "Republicrat" idea.

[morganika]

The car tax is ridiculous. None of the other states I lived in had it and they all seemed to be able to get by.

[standish]

All taxes are ridiculous (at least, all unreasonable taxation for bloated government). However, the car tax is one of the few that towns are permitted to levy. Let's not take that away from the local level. Or, let's permit towns to explore other revenue sources. The last thing we want is for more taxes to be collected and disbursed at the State or Federal level. The further away the tax/spend authority, the less likely it will be responsive to local needs and the more inefficient it becomes.

[standish]

NOW THIS, MORGANIKA, IS RIDICULOUS...

Connecticut's tax burden tops the list
Residents of Connecticut shouldered the heaviest tax federal tax burden in the nation during fiscal year 2004, according to a report by the Tax Foundation. The federal government collected $10,570 for every person in Connecticut, the highest per capita rate in the nation. In return, the federal government spent 66 cents for every tax dollar collected on the Nutmeg state, according to the report. In contrast, West Virginia's per capita tax totaled $4,428, while it received $1.83 for every dollar collected in funding back. (Source: Hartford Business Journal e-mail newsletter 3/16/06)

...AND FURTHER PROOF OF THE NEED TO KEEP TAX/SPEND AUTHORITY LOCAL!

[morganika]

Well of course they collected more from Connecticut residents, we earn more, I would imagine, than persons living in West Virginia.

I do not understand what control we would be losing. Please pardon my ignorance, enlighten me. I really don't know, maybe you could change my mind.

[standish]

So you have no problem with this redistributive welfare formula, wherein, they pay in a dollar to get almost two dollars back and we pay in a dollar for every sixty-six cents we get? Sure we pay more. We make more. Shouldn't we get more back? Or, at least, nearly as much?

If we want to make charitable contributions to West Virginia coal miners (or mine owners), let's do it through charities rather than Federal coercion in the form of hidden redistribution.

In regard to local control, when State legislators collect tax dollars that towns formerly collected and distribute some of their general fund back to towns on a formula they determine, we often end up with inequities such as the above. Worse, yet, cash-strapped towns have their local revenues dry up with virtually no recompense.

Then come the unfunded mandates...

[Dr.Ken Sokolowski]

www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ptax.artmar17,0,4068287.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials
Excerpts from HC's top editorial today, 3/17/2006
Shock And Awe From Hizzoner

... Mr. Perez has come out for turning the burdensome property tax into a surrogate local income tax. Under his plan, what you pay in property taxes would depend on your annual income and on whether you live on the property. If you own residential property in Hartford but don't live there, you would pay through the nose. But even if you live in the house, you would still pay considerably higher property taxes than your next-door neighbor would if your income exceeds a threshold established by city hall.

The idea is jolting, all right - and has as much a chance of receiving the General Assembly's required blessing as a hen hatching a codfish from a fried egg. (I just LOVE this quote!)

...The appropriate legislative response is not giving Hartford a sub rosa city income tax but to get serious about reducing the overall property tax burden.

...how about allowing municipalities to enact a half-percent [local] income tax?..."

[RGarrey]

Leigh , I agree with you on this issue. We are going to be taxed one way or another. If they repeal the car tax it will be made up by increasing another tax or creating a new tax, it is a political shell game.

As far as keeping the tax local I agree again. When the state collects a tax it goes into a general fund and then redistributed to all the towns but it is not always equitable or based on each towns priorities. As an example, in Wethersfield in the past few years we have received form the state $250,000 for artificial grass and $70,00 for a show trailer. These might be nice things for us but should they have been a priority, should these type of things be government funded at all? How will we feel when our tax dollars that used to be collected locally and spent %100 locally are put into a general fund and used to pay for another towns fake grass or other non essential program. We will have little or no control on how much money we receive or how it is spent.

This is a bad plan!

[oldetowne]

State, local, federal, whichever level you pay the taxes to doesn't matter at all until you elect people who believe that there are limits to what government should be doing and limits on how much of our money the government should be taking.

The figures may be otherwise, but my impression is that the town property taxes - the one closest to the people - have been the ones to go up the most over the past 10 years and I don't really feel much better served as a result.

[RGarrey]

Oldetowne, you are right that the real problem is unlimited spending at all levels of government. My two examples I think are evidence of that. Should the government be involved in funding fake grass at high school fields, show trailers for concerts and the other thousands of non essential nice things that we fund throughout this country. We should be fighting hard to limit the gvernment spending, just this week the Senate approved raising the spending limits again and they added billions of dollars of spending to the budget, this needs to stop. But I still believe that we need to keep control of as much of the money as we can at the local level. That is where the money most directly affects our daily lives and affords us as citizens to have the most input into how it is spent.

[standish]

To limit government and keep control... both important goals. We complain most about local expenditures when they are the exception to local control, or when locals fail to actually control because political entities bend the process. However, with the exception of unfunded mandates (education in particular) and binding arbitration, local budgets have not grown nearly as much as those under "remote" control; especially the Federal budget ($9 trillion debt).

At least on a local level, when elected officials fail to hear the electorate, it's somewhat easier to remove them (remember Wethersfield in 2002). Campaign finance "reform" (a misnomer), the primary process, incumbency, the cost of campaigns, media accessibility and the entrenchment of two parties make it nearly impossible to do other than rubber-stamp their frick n' frack candidate choices for State/National offices.

Keep it small and keep it local.

[oldetowne]

Rick - As usual, you are correct. The other issues that need to be addressed (aside from examining what government should be spending money on) are the unfunded mandates, failure of the state to examine changes to binding arbitration, and other roadblocks such as the prevailing wage laws that force towns to spend more.

At the town level, it will be interesting to see what comes as a result of Bonnie's attempt to have some of the departments use zero-based budgeting. My guess is not much.....

[standish]

Interesting... the recommendations of the Long Term Planning Committee, largely adopted by Council, included zero-based budgeting by every department on a rotating basis roughly every third year (I'd have to check my committee notes and review Council minutes to see what was finally adopted). Thus, a third of the departments would be doing this budgeting every year.