I got my property tax bill yesterday. It’s up 250% from the previous year. It is a huge bill. Aparently they reassesed properties (I never got notified.) From the new asessment they seem to think my property is worth three times what I paid for it 7 years ago.
I live on 90 acre farm in the boonies. Just a normal farmhouse, and a barn.
This tax is odious. It is unpayably, unconscionably large. It’s one of these “Holy crap! I could buy a car for this,” kind of things.
I called up the tax collector, assuming there was a mistake. No mistake. I told him that he, the county, or anybody else were more than welcome to buy the house for this asessment. Failing that, I’ll be double damned if I’m gonna pay the thing.
He referred me to the County clerk. I’m challenging it, but she seemd to think I didn’t have much chance. While it’s being challenged of course, I’m supposed to pay it.
Yeah right, first off, I’m not about to cash in my 401k plan or sell my daughter into white slavery to pay a ridiculous property tax. This thing is almost five figures.
I am all for paying my fair share, and supporting my community. I pay a lot of taxes. This is too much. This is usurious.
So, my answer is “screw it!” My wife and I have been talking about moving anyway.
Our property and house is over 250 years old. It’s a beautiful and historic farm.
I’ve called three real estate agents and it’s going to the highest bidder. I hope the landfill buys it or a developer turns it into a trailer park.
I’ve sunk seven years of sweat equity (and let me tell you it’s a ton of work) and a lot of my income into maintaining this farm and lands.
I’m sick of the work. I’m sick of the groundhogs. I’m sick of the asshole kids that sneak on and drink and leave their beer cans around in the dead of night. I’m sick of the hunters trespassing blatantly, the reckless shooting, the people sneaking on to fish, or knocking on the door at 6 in the morning to ask for permission. I’m sick of the onerous filing and the rules that makes renting out the farmland actually cost me money.
Now that we have a kid, it’s harder to find the time to do the maintenance and harder to get the enjoyment out of the land. I dream of a modern kitchen and a small lawn. It would be nice to be more convenient.
But these taxes are the last straw. It’s as if they are purposefully trying to wipe out farms and farming.
So screw it. It’ll be sold. Last night I decided to take all the money, cash in my 401k (screw the withholding,) quit my job, take my wife and kid and flee to Antigua. There I’d buy a beach bar, and laze around drinking my inventory for the next 60 years.
The thing that really pisses me off is that our school district (it’s a small one) decided to close the larger of the two middle schools 3 years ago. They cited a smaller student population, and sold the school to a developer for probably about 20 cents on the dollar.
Last year it turns out that they needed the school after all, so they brought some land and took on a multimillion dollar project and reassesed all the properties and raised the taxes to do it.
Funding stupidity would be bad enough, but I have no doubt that somebody’s pockets are getting lined. This is criminal. The schools are terrible and I would never send my daughter there anyway.
So, in the light of a calm new day, I doubt I’ll be moving to Antigua, but we’re getting out of the county. We’ll buy a small little house somewhere, or maybe just rent.
This is so wrong.