That's it, I'm expatriating!

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.

Bravo.

It’s too bad that your property will undoubtedly become a strip-mall or some such.

I’m interested in how you do, because I’m considering the ex-pat thing myself. Seriously…ref my thread in MPSIMS about australia. Didn’t think about a bar in Antigua, tho

I hear 10 grand in Mexico can get you a veritable palace, though the locals aren’t exactly partial to Americans.

Yeah, that’s what you get for being an honest, hard-working self-sufficient citizen. Move to the projects and head for the welfare office[sup]1[/sup], and that way you won’t have to worry about paying taxes. You’ll collect them.

[sup]1[/sup]Not intended to imply that all projects-dwellers or welfare recipients are lazy bums. But the system is easy to abuse, and is abused.

Scylla I sympathize. Even more, I empathize. I’ve got a 70 acre parcel right on Lake Michigan, I was born here, it’s been in the family for over 100 years now. We still farm part of it, but mostly we raise mosquitoes. Unfortunately it’s got a primo beach, and a great view of the water, and land along the lake has been skyrocketing in value over the last decade. This is a good thing only if you want to sell, and I don’t. Taxes have nearly tripled in 7 years, and I’m slowly coming to terms with the idea that one day I must break it up, or sell it all. It’s no solace that it could bring 30 times what it was assessed at in 1976. It’s my home, dammit!

Anyway, I’ve been fantasizing about selling it, and buying waterfront property in Belize.

As I said, in the light of a new day, I doubt I’ll go to Anitgua. That’s a little extreme. We are selling, and leaving the County and moving into another better school distric/county. Smaller house, less taxes, more convenience, better schools.

Quadgop:

Yeah, maybe we can go halfs on a beach bar.

This sort of thing can be protested and won - I just wish I could tell you exactly how, maybe some other doper can offer more specific assistance.

My parents had a similar thing happen to them. They bought a house and about 5 years later it was appraised for about 50K more than what it was worth. They had to do a bunch of research and get facts from real estate companies that showed “an average home in this area sells for $x/per square foot”. The argument was basically how can you assess at $y/per square foot when no home in the area has EVER sold for that amount. It took them a while but the assessment returned to about what is should have been. IIRC the city had basically tried to raise a certain amount of revenue from a certain area and just rigged all the assessments to make it happen.

Scylla, are you in PA? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I recall reading that in a thread a while ago.

Anyway, I’d suggest that you come to Pittsburgh, but we recently had property reassesments that were so incredibly fucked up even the Mayor had to challenge the assesment on his house. Still, if you move anywhere in Allegheny County or therabouts, the few PittDopers that there are would be happy to arrange a welcome-to-town Dopefest.

Sorry you have to sell the farm, though. It sounds gorgeous, but it seems like you’re making the right move.

Jester:

Yup, I’m in Cumberland County. I’ll probably move to Franklin County, which is actually where I work.

I’ve been reading your stuff for a long time now, Scylla, and I have the impression that your farm plays a very large part in your life and has brought you a lot of happiness.

Sometimes, when faced with a cast-iron bitch of a problem with something or someone we love dearly, our first reaction is to ditch the whole thing entirely. Well, at least that’s my reaction. I’m one lime-green Volkswagen Rabbit and half a dozen girlfriends short for it.

And poorer for it, too.

You certainly know what you can afford and what you cannot, what you deem acceptable and what you do not, but if you want a bit of unsolicited advice, I say think about it a little bit first.

Are you absolutely certain that there are no other options open to you? If there’s one thing a lot of my pals know about, it’s fractionation of land. They’d probably tell you that if it’s important enough, keeping some of it is better than keeping none of it at all.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find the solution which is right for you.

Scylla, I grew up on a farm in central Illinois. As such, I attended the local public schools, where I had a class of 18.

I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but the schools out in the middle of nowhere are AWFUL. You get the dregs of teachers who couldn’t get a job in a real school district and had to live out in the boondocks.

I don’t mean to denegrate the farm that supported (and continues to support in part) my family. But it’s MY opinion after having the experience that it’s a horrible, isolated, homgeneous, cultureless way to grow up and gives a child a great disadvantage.

So I think you’re doing the right thing.
And since I’m SURE you care deeply about what I think, you should be pleased.
-L

Start your own religeon. Make the place the center of that religeon. Make it tax-free. Start preaching from your front porch, blody early in th morning- that will do double duty, as it will clear away the hunters and other trespassers as well.

My condolences and sympathy. Hope all ends well.

And the religeon thing is only partly tongue in cheek- you’re at least as good a homilist as some I know who do it for a living.

b.

P.S.Ditto for wat Sexy says- you’ll have (hopefully) better schools as well if you do move…

Oh don’t even get me started on the assessments! My grandfather nearly shit a brick over the whole thing.

The problem is, they waited so long to do them, and now they’re all fucked up. Although, if you ask me, Murphy’s an asshole and should pay the city double what his house is worth, so we can pay for his freaking corporate welfare playgrounds, er, stadiums.

I love this city, but it never makes sense.

Oh, and Jester? Next Dopefest MUST be at Klavon’s on Penn Avenue, right on the border of the Strip and Lawrenceville.

SexyWriter, I gotta disagree with you! I grew up in a town that had less than 5,000 people, my graduating class had 56 students in it. I have to say that I had great teachers and all of them were better than 99% of my college professors. I came out of that school better educated than most of my classmates in college. Yeah, I admit I hated that town and everyone in it when I was living there, but looking back on it, I can’t say as I’d want to have grown up anyplace else.

Scylla, if you do move, try and live next door to a property tax assessor. My brother had one move in next door to him, and his property taxes went down immediately thereafter! :smiley: