Well, why is it that everyone else does it, but we don't? You telling me that in our one outpost of humanity, our state is actually ahead of the times and far-sighted when it comes to homestead exemption? I'm just curious...Would fair home asessment values do any better for us?
It sure as hell wouldn't make things any better for me or thousands of other homeowners if our property taxes went up tenfold. TE, are you a homeowner or a renter? Do you plan to ever buy a home in Louisiana? Your proposal has succeeded in uniting polar opposites JD and myself against the idea. Just imagine what would happen to any governor who tried to ram that through the legistature.
We don't have to touch the homestead exemption to better our tax code. We can have a mixture of income tax with very limited brackets and small sales taxes. It would also help if local tax assessors actually did their jobs the right way, and made sure that, if a home is valued ONE DOLLAR over the $75K exemption, that the owner will be paying property taxes. We don't have to put all our eggs in one basket here; a mixture of low, restricted bracket income tax (maybe even flat tax); combined with low sales taxes and reasonable corporate and private property taxes would provide a good mixture of income for state and local govts. that could probably even withstand recessions without having to cut back govt. services too much. JD, there would be no need for "special" corporate tax breaks (what you call corporate welfare) such as the ridiculous ten-year industrial tax exemption if the entire business tax code were overhauled and brought into line with other Southern states. The special local tax breaks and the ten year exemption have succeeded in helping us keep what little industry we have in this state. But the price has been very high. The ten year exemption and local tax breaks often liquidate corporate taxes that would go to local public schools, badly hurting our education funding. That's why local officials hate giving tax breaks to businesses and will only do so as a last resort, when they see the moving vans pulling up to the local plant's corporate offices. The sad thing is, the Old Guard Populists in the Legislature use this as an argument for opposing any change in our current business tax code (We shouldn't give "Big Business" (odd term since small, local businesses stand to gain tremendously from this as well) any more tax breaks because it'll hurt education funding) among other arguments. No people, watching more and more businesses leave this state and taking our best and brightest with them is hurting education FAR WORSE! If we restructured the corporate franchise tax to eliminate penalties on corporate debt and put a cap on the amount of tax to be paid, then repealed the sales tax on machinery and equipment, the cost of doing business anywhere in this state would be re-adjusted, so low that state level tax breaks would no longer be necessary to lure business to this state. Of course, parish and municipal govt's. would still have the power to grant tax breaks, but their negotiating positions would be considerably strenghthened by more progressive state taxes. They wouldn't have to give away the whole store just to get in the running for a new business.
Fair home assessment is one thing - we should do that. Actually, it should be fair PROPERTY assessment - include all property, not just owner-occupied homes in the fair assessment category. It's not your run of the mill homeowner paying the politicians for these skewed assessments. Re the homestead exemption, La is right - it's a nice deal for the middle class, which gets screwed by every other tax code around.
But who, doesn't it exempt all values below 75K, or am I wrong about that? i.e. isn't the rate on the first 75K zero, regardless of the value of the home? Further, many nice condos in towns, including BR, can be had for under 75K. Housing in rural areas is easy under 75K.
JD is correct. The way the exemption works, the first $75,000 dollars in property is exempt from taxes. So, if you own a home that's under 75K in value, you pay zero state/local property tax. If you own a piece of property valued at 150K, you pay property tax as if it were worth 75K in another state. This applies only to private landowners, not businesses, who pay full property taxes.
