Entries Tagged 'Taxes' ↓

Interesting that we were just talking about this the other day on the blog, and our ever increasing property taxes. But this puts a new twist on it;

A lawsuit rising from a disputed property tax assessment involving Minnehaha County could set a troublesome precedent, county officials say.

Hutchinson Technology is suing the county, claiming the sale of a 300,000-square foot building to Sanford Health in 2009 showed the county greatly overvalued the building for tax purposes. The site at 2301 E. 60th St. had been the Hutchinson Technology campus. Sanford acquired it to be its research headquarters.

The most recent assessed valuation before the sale was $18.6 million. But Hutchinson Technology sold the site to Sanford for $12 million. Now Hutchinson Technology is challenging tax assessments from as far back as 2005 and possibly to 2001, according to Kersten Kappmeyer, Minnehaha County state’s attorney chief civil deputy.

Make no mistake, I have often thought state and local governments are greedy when it comes to taxing individuals, nickel and diming us on higher utility rates and fees. Continuing opt-outs for crime prevention and punishment (when changing state laws for non-violent drug offenders would fix the problem) while handing out TIF’s to the big boys and not taxing profits of corporations.

If the County loses this lawsuit, the ripple affect could be devastating, for their coffers anyway.

A friend dropped off a print out of her property tax increases since 2009 to me yesterday.

Since 2009 she has done little to no improvements to her property. In fact this past year, the city had to tear up her boulevard for water issues and remove a tree due to the icestorm.

Her home has not increased in value since 2009. It is valued at $96,000 by the county.

From 2009-2010 her taxes increased $4

From 2010-2011 her taxes increased $3

From 2011-2012 her taxes increased $70

I suppose the sudden bump has to do with the county & school district opt-outs.

The part that is disconcerting is that while the city is handing out property tax cut incentives to wealthy developers, we are sticking it to the little guy to help pay for the needs of the county, city and school district.

If we feel like we need to continue these kind of increases, fine. But let’s eliminate TIF’s and have a triple approval process with the county and school district.

So let me get this straight . . .

We don’t want to take money from FEMA because they are the big bad Feds (who we actually pay taxes to, so we are essentially taking money from OURSELVES to fix a problem WE have).

Then we find out we don’t need to take the money because the city is in ‘fine financial shape’ so we pay for this branch cleanup out of the city coffers (also our money).

Factor in that the city has saved millions this winter due to the lack of snow and snow removal (somewhere around $7 million).

So why hasn’t the city been budgeting for tree trimming all along? We apparently have the money to do the ENTIRE city at one fast blast, why not section it off over a 5 year cycle?

Funny how the city conveniently ‘doesn’t have the money’ in a normal budget cycle, but when a natural disaster occurs we have all kinds of cashola, enough to give the FEDS a middle finger and to cleanup the whole kit and kaboodle.

My suggestion is to implement a program every year to trim the trees in the boulevard, because, you know, like, we have the money. Oh, yeah, and F’CK the Feds who wants their (our) money anyhoo?

I am pretty sure we probably rank pretty high in other regressive categories also;

Advocates,

Yeah, this is from the guy who continues to support tax cuts for the rich, voted for two unneeded wars and asked for the biggest federal loan in the history of our country for a private RR company;

Thune told reporters Wednesday. “To me, the pledge isn’t the problem in Washington; the problem in Washington isn’t that we don’t tax enough, it’s that we spend too much.”

Yeah, and what is ironic Johnny going to do about it? NAFT as usual!

Proponents of M15 hard at work

J-Ellis wrote a great column today about how the healthcare industry in SD is pushing to promote a sales tax increase that will pump up to $85 million into their coffers;

Well, the U.S. House advertising won’t win any awards. But on the horizon comes the long-awaited campaign from the people who hope you’re going to vote to raise your own taxes. According to documents collected by Argus Leader reporters and reporter David Montgomery’s account, the people running Moving South Dakota Forward are preparing to spend more than $250,000 in October on television ads.

We won’t know until the campaign reports donations, but it’s a safe bet that the effort will be bankrolled by the major nonprofit hospital systems in South Dakota. And by major nonprofit hospital systems, you can count those on one hand, even if that hand happened to lose a couple digits in a blender accident.

The two hospital goliaths in Sioux Falls spent a good chunk of change to help win voter approval of a new events center last November. One of them, and this is no place to name names, subsequently has spent more money to secure the partial naming rights for said facility. That same nonprofit hospital system is building a fancy sports complex of its own, thanks in part to a generous tax subsidy.

So let’s assume the hospitals are the major contributors to the IM 15 campaign. It won’t be lost on a lot of voters that the hospitals stand to make a lot of money if IM 15 passes. After all, they see a lot of Medicaid patients, and injecting $85 million a year into Medicaid certainly would mean higher reimbursement rates for the professionals and organizations that provide those services.

Few campaigns are perfect. IM 15 asks the state’s voters to sacrifice more of their money in the name of children, the poor and the elderly. That will be a tough sell.

But the sales job will only be tougher if voters think that by opening their wallets, they are only contributing more to the coffers of the nonprofit hospital systems.

Remember just a few years ago the same organizations pumped thousands of dollars into newspaper advertising to help kill Medical Marijuana Measure 13 which was polling well until the ads came out, crushing M13. Of course the healthcare industry had a lot to lose if M13 passed. They want you to use and buy their expensive narcotic painkillers instead of a natural, less expensive, more effective drug like marijuana. They will use the same tactics this time around to suck more money out of us. And they will probably use the tired old argument that if we don’t increase sales taxes there will be an income tax. Hogwash. As long as Republicans run Pierre (which will probably be for the next 1,000 years) there will be NO income tax in SD. Remember also, if this tax increase is approved by voters, this will just give the state the go ahead to spend the other 4 pennies on whatever they want, like refunds and bailouts to companies and corporations that want to locate here. Tune out there message as much as possible and vote NO on M15, unless of course you like subsidizing Sports Complexes and Entertainment facilities.

South Dakota Voters Show Support for Initiated Measure 15

Last week, Nielson Brothers Polling (NBP) released findings from their 2012 South Dakota Labor Day Survey, showing Republicans widening their lead in major statewide races. In the same poll, NBP asked South Dakota likely voters about their views on Initiated Measure 15 (a proposal to add a penny to the state sales tax), their economic situation, and the direction of South Dakota.

NBP finds that 43.7 percent of South Dakota likely voters plan to vote for Inititated Measure 15, while 31.7 percent plan to vote against it, and 24.6 percent are undecided. Republicans are evenly split on the measure (37.8 percent “for” and 37.9 percent “against”), but Democrats support it by a 2 to 1 ratio (50.3 percent “for” and 25.5 percent “against”). Similarly, Independents support it 49.2 to 28.2 percent. Approximately a quarter of each political party remains undecided. Voters who associate themselves with the Tea Party are most likely to oppose the measure (46.6 percent “against”), and those who consider themselves Liberals are most likely to support it (64.5 percent “for”).

While it is ‘sad’ that people embezzle, what is even more sad is that it took so long to notice. Why is that?

I’m not the judge and jury, and I am sure Baustian will get her day in court. But let’s look at the big picture here. Minnehaha county had a similar incident with the embezzlement of the Sioux Empire Fair, which went unnoticed for a long time.

I don’t want to point fingers at people who neglected to notice these misgivings, but I do want to bring up something that has been bugging me about the embezzlers (both TEA and Fairgrounds): The constant begging of funds.

Why is it that these organizations focus so much on ‘Needing more money’ and asking for the public to fund them, but don’t miss hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Maybe they are overfunded?

If embezzlers can steal large amounts of money for several years without anyone noticing, doesn’t this send a message?

Even in the pimple of a town like Tea, they are milking the taxpayers for something as basic as fire service while their accountant is living high on the hog.

Enough with chasing the embezzlers down, we need to be questioning the politicians that are legislating the funding of these entities.

I found these two items interesting on the Planning Commission Agenda from Wednesday. Good luck watching the video though, I have noticed that it takes a few days for the Planning Commission Meetings to be posted on SIRE. Not sure why? Maybe it has something to do with Personnel matters