Kudos to Elliot Spitzer for getting the tax reform ball rolling, Governor Paterson for keeping the commission active, and Sheldon Silver and Former Senate Leader Joseph Bruno for opposing the tax cap. The commission’s work has been thorough, although their proposals WILL NOT help taxpayers.

A property tax “circuit breaker” will not help either, as it is really nothing more than the institution of a local income tax – it would try to tie your income to your assessed property value (which is nothing more than one person’s OPINION of what they’d pay for your property). This is more of what we do NOT need in New York State.

Under the current UNFAIR property tax system, an assessor, who most likely is some sort of real estate professional, provides a guess, or opinion of what your home is worth, and thus what you will pay in taxes, as if that actually means anything about your ability to pay. A family of 5 living in their home that the assessor guesses is worth $50,000 pays twice as much as the family of 5 that lives in the home that the assessor guesses is worth $25,000. Both families use the same roads, the same schools, the same government services, but pay different tax just because of one person’s opinion. This is an abhorrent system that really must go away for good!

What if we instituted a tax system where you paid taxes based on what you consume in taxable goods? Would that tax the rich (who would consume more and pricier goods) more than the poor? YES! Would you be worried about what the assessor assumes your home to be worth? NO! Would the burden of proving the actual true value of your home fall upon you, the overworked taxpayer? The answer is no, it would be a change for all New Yorkers, but could be easily and fairly administered using existing sales tax collection methods.

In my utopian New York State, the state taxpayers would vote on the tax rate, and the county governments would be paid from sales tax revenues, state fees and fines, etc.., There would be a minimum funding requirement based on population for each county, then the different government entities (schools, police, fire, courts, etc..) would compete against each other, population-wise, politically and via a grading system for remaining funds.

Even better, perhaps we could consolidate the school districts AND the townships AND maybe even some of the smaller cities to the county level, thereby saving billions (trillions?) in shared service costs.

Example. – you have 1 member of a family who makes $300,000 a year. The other member of the household makes $35,000. The individual who makes $35,000 ownes the house. So they will only pay taxes on the $35,000 income

This situation will make our tax problem worse.