They came over and they assessed by walk around and valued house at more then $10,000 dollars more then should have been. I called them back and they reassessed at lower rate.
What are property taxes going towards. Education for sure, infrastructure? cops/fire dept? Salary for bureaucrats for sure.
You are right. We don’t own our homes/property we rent them from the county or city.

Civil disobedience. I love it.

Nice work, Rob.

Rob:

I agree with you that your house should be assessed “from the curb” which means in relation to every other house in yoru neighborhood but if you don’t support property taxes you should probably sit down and think (and tell us) about what taxes you think are good and which ones are bad.

I’m not a fan of property taxes but I think that to support roads, sewers, garbage collecton, local police, etc., they make perfect sense since the quality of local services and infrastructure is reflected in the value of yourproperty.

He told me that the state has actually been cutting spending (we’ve had a 54% increase in general fund spending over the last four years!) and that’s why the city needs to tax more/spend more.

The city government lies to you, probably because they are afraid to admit the truth to you. Big surprise, I guess, given that the truth is that they are very addicted to spending your money and, frankly, will rob you blind if you let them.

We don’t own our homes/property we rent them from the county or city.

At the risk of getting completely flamed here: “yeah, that’s pretty much correct”.

I am sure that if you reflect on the philosophy that founded our country you would learn from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson that we have unalienable rights and that “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Taxes, property and otherwise, are the price we pay to have the government secure our property rights. If you disagree with the way your tax dollars are being spent, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”

So, quit whining about the taxes your have to pay start “petitioning your government for redress of grievences” and start voting!

I thought it was pretty unprofessional for the punk to start lecturing me on taxes like I’m some dumb rube who doesn’t know better.

I agree totally BTW about the lecture and the sidewalk crack. The assessor was/is a dick and you should have suggested to his supervisor that he be fired for being a dick. As a tax payer (customer), you should be treated with the utmost respect. I would have brought out the “you work for me, asshole” and the “get off my lawn” pretty quickly. I might even have offered to show off my firearms collection if he remained interested.

Unfortunately, local officials with a Napoleon complexes are not “get out of taxes free” cards.

wow! I have never heard of a tax assessor wanting to actually come into your house. Reading this made me think of the billboard across from the library about the city of Minot and champagne taste taxes, or something like that..lol I don’t know if it is still there. I was at the library last weekend but didn’t notice if the billboard was still there.

We get our property assessed out here quite a bit it seems, but they never ask to come in the house, they just drive down the driveway, get out and look around. It irritates me, because they are coming onto my property w/o even telling me who they are. One guy freaked me out a bit, so I let our Great Dane out with me and scared him. Told him the truth “I don’t know who you are or why you are looking all around, so he(meaning our Dane) came with me to see what you wanted.

I didn’t see anything Methy when he made me carry in that solid gold bidet.

The tax assessor is probably a seasonal employee. Most people have to be employed 6 months before they get insurance, so he is probably uninsured. Also, he probably doesn’t benefit from taxes as much as you think he does, but people higher in the government would. It’s not the tax assessor that personally takes your money. He simply writes the value of your house so that they can properly record it and determine taxes from it. There are probably people specifically assigned to open checks related to these tax assessments. The people that get to touch the money most are probably the people that determine how much of it they will use, and what use the money will go towards. That is the guilty party, and not the tax assessor. The tax assessor, being seasonal probably does not make a lot of money nor is he out to ‘get all your tax dollars’. If he were, he would just steal your identity or personally hoard your checks, provided that those checks made it to his part of the property tax process.

Rob, I don’t think you are listening to my argument or else you would not think it was “silly”. Take a breath, I’m on your side. I know that you use your voice for change most than most.

I’m just saying that, for the things that make your property valuable (that aren’t free) like roads, sewers, police and fire protection, property taxes are a legitimate way to proportion paying for the expense. There are lots of problems associated with property taxes that you don’t mention like renters not having to directly pay and local government spending property taxes on things that don’t preserve the value of your property (like economic development). Foreclosing on properties that don’t pay taxes is actually a rather polite way for communities to recycle properties that would become derelict otherwise (reducing your property values BTW). Just like you have to invest in maintaining your roof to preserve your property, we have to pay for a local government to repave the roads and run police patrols.

Consumption and excise taxes make a lot of sense for the expense of government that has to do with enabling those transactions but most consumption takes place where there are the most people (like big cities). I don’t think you could pay for too many fire trucks and police cruisers in rural areas on the sales tax generated at the local store.

Income taxes make sense to support those functions of government that enable that income.

I live in Maryland so I’m nearly inured to high taxes but I (hope I) probably pay more property taxes that you do. Right now, my city (Frederick) is in the midst of municipal election campaign and property taxes are a big issue. I’ll do what I can to make sure I get value for my money. If we could all fund our local governments with mineral royalties, that would be great. The overall tax burden and how that tax money is spent is important but I think equating paying property taxes with slavery and women’s suffrage rights is a bit over the top. Don’t you?

I’ll take it that you agree that not all taxes are unjust.

If I sounded like I was saying that you don’t actually “own” your home, then I spoke imperfectly. What I meant was that you pay taxes to the government in order to “secure” your property rights. That way you don’t have to shoot all of the trespassers yourself, you can have the sheriff (your employee) come by and help.

see how long you own your home if you don’t pay your tax

i never let them in my home.

if no building permits have been taken out, there have been no improvements to your house. your value should be computed by sales of similar homes in your area. it should be 100% math based on sales….. of course thats easy and would mean less government workers I suppose.

ive talked to leaders here saying they really should be going off direct links to mls sites and updating home values every day automatically. 99% of the process should be automated.

my home where i grew up is assessed at about half the value it should be at because f them. i would buy it for 150% of its assessed value and sell it for 200% in less than a month i bet.

I’m not even sure why they need to do an assessment. My home was just purchased last year. What I paid is what it’s worth, no?

thats exactly what I am saying. additionally, your neighbors taxes should have gone up or down accordingly. and it should have been automatically done in a computer. trust me, they didnt move one inch other than what some magic actuary said valuations increased by.

I am sure that if you reflect on the philosophy that founded our country you would learn from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson that we have unalienable rights and that “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Taxes, property and otherwise, are the price we pay to have the government secure our property rights. If you disagree with the way your tax dollars are being spent, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”

Quoting Locke (who went to jail for anti-government sentiments) in favor of massive taxation is silly. We pay state, and even sometimes city, income tax. There are sales taxes, fees, usage taxes, etc. To add a yearly personal property tax is ridiculous.

I’ve never heard of assessors needing to take a walk through inside of a house to determine its value. If as was mentioned, they person is a temporary employee that person could have been trying to determine if your house was a worthy target to rob at a later date. I’d have discussed the incident with his supervisor, as you did, but would have also mentioned security concerns. BTW, why does the city send an assessor around? Doesn’t the county assess property In N.D.? If so, redundant assessments seem like a waste of money.

I agree with the statement that we never really own our homes. Even if we have no mortgage we are still obligated to pay property taxes and if we don’t the city/county will take our house by foreclosure for unpaid taxes. Therefore we never have free title to our homes. We always owe the government. Property taxes are unfair. The assessor’s office has no business inspecting our homes. I live one door down from Rob… if the assessor comes here he will not be allowed in. My house is worth what its worth and its not up to an agent of the city to determine that worth.

Did you ask the city assessor which one of his relatives got him the job?

Boy Carol that must have really cut your property values. Rob must have really saved you a lot of money.

Sweet, instead they use those X-Ray sunglasses.

That’s why they need the extra tax dollars. You don’t think subscriptions to those comic books where you can buy x-ray glasses grow on trees do you?

^MEH, considering they’re made of pulp I guess they do…

Sweet, instead they use those X-Ray sunglasses.

I had the local township want to enter my basement to insure that all non sewage water was not being run into the sewer. I told them they will not enter my basement. They said that I would get fined. I said I would send them a picture of the configuration for their viewing pleasure and made sure the pix was just of the sump water routing.

A few years later they said that they needed to “look” at my water meter because they were replacing older versions. I told them the year my house was built did not merit their intentions and said NO, you are not coming into my home. Never heard from them again…

atease

Maybe one way to make property taxes more fair would be to base them on how many people occupy the home, not “how big” it is, so to speak. The more people/children in your home, the more your home will use the services- police, fire, schools,ect., ect. Why should one person in big house pay a lot more taxes than five people in a smaller house? That “smaller house” will use a lot more services.

JL,

I don’t believe there is a way to make a subjective tax more fair. Your idea on a head count tax would put more of a burden on the poorer folks who generally have more kids. You can’t get revenue where where it does not exist.

atease

I was stationed at Minot AFB in the early 80′s and from 1988 to 1999. That sign (champagne gov’t, etc.)was there when I first got to Minot. It’s been there a long time!!

It would be nice if for once Rob knew what he was talking about. There are far more expenses the state and government need to pay for that just police, fire and ambulance services.

If Rob wasn’t such a Rhube, he could be reasoned with. But sadly, hell just end up another fork pitcher out on the street yelling about platitudes they read on some blog somewhere.

I have never heard of a tax assessor wanting to actually come into your house.

That’s because it never happened. It’s a lie like most of the things these reactionaries post here.

From the Minot, ND Assessor’s office:

2. How does the assessor determine the estimated market value?

It is based on an assessment date of February 1st of each year. The City of Minot Assessor’s office uses a mass appraisal process for estimating market values. This system involves the comparison of properties with actual market sales from the same neighborhoods or similar neighborhoods. All sales information collected by the assessor’s office is closely analyzed. The assessor’s office adjusts market values by comparing properties that sold with properties that have not sold. This sales comparison provides the basis for the assessor’s estimated market value.

No mention of house visits, drive-bys, invasions. Just comparables like real estate agents do.

I’m sure you got a rise out of the stems, though. You could have made it more effective if you would have said the assessor flew in on a black helicopter. LOL

It never happened. Never.

Why I don’t answer the door for anyone I don’t know. That goes double if they and/or their vehicle look official.

You could try telling them that nobody’s home.

This is getting way to serious. How about we just back up.

How did you find out about the fancy fixtures and things Rob’s put in?

Well, it’s only fair for them to assume that he’s either hiding fancy new upgrades or a meth lab. He’s just lucky they’re not calling the DEA.

I didn’t see anything Methy when he made me carry in that solid gold bidet.

Grow operation then?

Just because you’re a bureaucrat paid to collect the property tax doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Um – wrong again. The assessor doesn’t collect anything but data. You send your checks to probably the county treasurer. The county auditor is the one who would be putting your house up for auction. The auditor is also the one who puts the mills on based on what the commissioners and school boards approve for budgets. The assessor puts a value on your home and then it’s done. Quit villifying them like they directly affect your taxes. It’s more about school boards and road crews than anything.

By the way, your fuel tax pays for the highways, not city streets.

By the way, your joking attitude about raising people’s taxes just because the assessors don’t like the person is a little troubling.

it has nothing to do with liking the person, it has to do with the fact that this is an ad valorum tax. If the assessor is not allowed to see everything involved in creating the value (this doesn’t count personal property, but things like new carpet, new cabinets, stuff that would increase the value of the home if it were to be sold) then the assessor is forced to assume that you have done significant improvements. I can love a taxpayer to death, but if they’ve put in a new kitchen, I have to raise their value.

By the way, your joking attitude about raising people’s taxes just because the assessors don’t like the person is a little troubling.

That’s the result of you not letting him to his job, he has to make assumptions.

But, hey Rob……pioneer that heroism all the way to poor house if you want to. It’s a free country.

You have the right to be a rhube….but you don’t have a right to avoid the responsibility of your actions.

I never got a letter, but this is also my first year in the home so I’m not saying I didn’t get one.

Oh, so you are NOT saying you never got a letter, just that you NEVER GOT A LETTER. Got it. *rolls eyes*

You are doing a great job of patting yourself on the back, but you aren’t impressing any of us Rob. You are just showing us what happens when you take your broken blog mentality to the streets.

Keep it up…..when we have no more food stamps you can go to church to feed your family.

If they value it above my purchase price there’s going to be a problem.

That will be every bit your responsibility.

If I don’t bend over and let the assessor do what they want to do they’ll slap me with higher taxes.

Your argument was that if the assessor doesn’t like you. What does liking you have to do with you cooperating? I have had people in my district be uncooperative, but I still like them. Doesn’t mean I’m going to do them favors because I like them.

On the other hand, I’ve had people who were more than willing to let me have a look at their property who I couldn’t stand, but I can’t raise them just because they give me the creeps.

You’re likening cooperating with liking you, then trying to say that if you’re not liked, your house goes up. You need to take a few deep breaths cuz you’re starting to get fuzzy.

Rob: You have just run into another leftie who believes that real Americans have no right to protest the actions of govt., when that govt is run by the Dems.

Um, I’m so not even close to a leftie, but I do think he’s acting like a weiner. He would have every right to protest, as long as that govt would have the same right to accurate information. To make himself seem like some kind of folk hero (even the title “The Day I kicked the property tax assessor off my property” when woopdedo, he told his wifey over the phone that she shouldn’t let him in) is a stretch. I also have a beef with the fact that he’s picking on an office when he DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY DO. Seriously?

but this is also my first year in the home so I’m not saying I didn’t get one.

Your so fucked, if you think that the taxes will be the same as the previous owner. You will get at least a 50% increase. So much for Christmas!!

…as long as that govt would have the same right to accurate information.

Here you go; people have rights in this country, not govt. Govt arrogates power to itself, but we have a right to petition for redress of grievances, which was what Rob was doing. If you think govt has rights, you’re a leftie.

Whistler, how is ten minutes to count bathrooms and look at flooring unreasonable? It’s merely a means to get a more accurate value. A residence is going to either be valued by cost (which requires the assessor to have a look to see what factors went into the house to better know how much it in fact cost) or by market, but you can’t compare every 2 story house to the same sale. You must make adjustments for things that affect the value upward or downward. Otherwise some poor guy in a shitty house that happens to look like one down the street is going to be paying the same taxes, even though his is really worth much less. That’s not fair either.

Tax assessors don’t even have to visit the property since all they need is in the public domain of the title that describes the property (sq. footage and location). In larger cities, it’s impossible for tax assessors to visit all the property so they don’t.

In Robs case, the tax assessor was clearly guilty of trespassing since his legal view should only be from the nearest public access.

And for the record, I’ve always appreciated KLunch’s posts in the past and hope to keep this as reasonable people disagreeing.

Then you KNEW I was scarcastic about the meth lab comment – I’m almost ALWAYS sarcastic!

sig, the assessment values are based on the sale of similar properties using some formula. I know this because I challenged an assessment on that basis and was able to get it reduce when I showed proof that the assessment was not based on the sale of similar property, proof coming from a realtor.

If I chose to do something so foolish, and left that “improvement” at the time I chose to resell the property, that “improved” value would be reflected in the sale price – ergo, new assessment to the new owner.

The object of the assessment is to get close to the worth BEFORE it is sold, not to change the value to reflect the sale price. Is a home that is sold at an arms-length transaction supposed to be valued at twice the price as the house that was sold from a parent to a child, or at a foreclosure auction? That’s just asinine.

That’s just asinine.

Asinine or not, it seems that the majority of the country does it that way. The argument used here is that improvements to the interior of a house that do not change it’s footprint, adding square footage, benefits no one but the occupant. Until the time the house is sold, what I do on the inside does not change the value of the house on the market, or effect the value of any of my neighbors property.

I know AS A FACT that most of the Midwest uses a system identical to the one we use.

Since you are in that business I will take your word for it, but I can tell you that here in Western PA that is not the case. Nor was it when I lived in Michigan twenty some years ago. May be now, but wasn’t then.

My argument against this practice is that by looking for interior improvements the assessed value is speculative at that point. If I put in a new $50K kitchen and sell the next day, that will surely bring up the value of the property, but if I live there and use it for the next twenty years, that improvement will depreciate in value, therefore the assessed value is no longer an accurate reflection of the market value.

My argument against this practice is that by looking for interior improvements the assessed value is speculative at that point. If I put in a new $50K kitchen and sell the next day, that will surely bring up the value of the property, but if I live there and use it for the next twenty years, that improvement will depreciate in value, therefore the assessed value is no longer an accurate reflection of the market value.

Right, but if you understood what we do with the information, it might make more sense to you. Say I look at your house today, I fill out a property card. I take down data about the flooring and cabinets, plumbing fixtures, things like that. I put in an age for those items. Then those individual components get depreciated separate from the structure at their own designated rates using either software or a ton of manual calculations depending on how much funding your district has (I do it by hand). The purpose of the follow up inspections is to insure that the kitchen that is 10 years old and half depreciated is still the kitchen that is in that house and a new one hasn’t taken it’s place. That the carpets that are only 3 years old and depreciated 30% aren’t full of dog piss and cigarette burns and if they are, they are going to be worth a lot less.

The way the North Dakota system is set up, we are held accountable to the state tax department for how close the true & full value on a house is compared to what it sells for. We have to do a statistical study of this annually. If we waited until AFTER a house sold to add the new jacuzzi tub and hardwood floors to the equation, we’d be way off. We have to keep this information as up to date and accurate as possible, otherwise we will be forced by the state to raise our values across the board. No one wants that.

Okay, I understand all that, but, when have people’s property taxes been reduced due to the depreciated value of interior improvements? That may happen there, but I’ve never heard of it happening here.

Here in Pittsburgh, people that live in the city neighborhoods pay comparatively huge property taxes. There has been an on-going battle between the city and residents to reduce the tax rates because their property market values have declined in recent years. This is less due to the housing bubble as it has been due to the same phenomena we’ve seen in other cities where the taxes keep going up and up, until people reach the point where the cost of commuting from a lower tax area in the suburbs far outweigh the convenience of living in the city. For example, I live in a 4K square foot, 4 bed, 4 and 1/2 bath home. In the city, my taxes would be about $13K annualy. Where I live, they’re $5K, less than half. In the area I live, properties are re-assessed at time of sale, or every ten years. Even on the ten-year cycle though, it’s always based on exterior footprint, square footage, and like sales in the area.

Okay, I understand all that, but, when have people’s property taxes been reduced due to the depreciated value of interior improvements? That may happen there, but I’ve never heard of it happening here.

Sucks to be you! If the district is using a good software, annually. If it is manually, usually about a third of them get done each year, so every three years you would go up or down.

Property tax clearly prohibits the ownership of property. No rational person believes an owner is someone who must make payments to another to keep what they own. Property tax “FORCES” you into government servitude to keep your home. This makes homesteaders more like slaves than owners.

Property tax is the evolution serfdom where kings and lords have been replaced by rulers of the state. You can own your pants and your shirt but because of property tax no one can own a home. The American dream is a lie, perhaps the greatest lie ever told.

So besides prohibiting the ownership of property what else do property taxes do? In that liberty can be defined as freedom from debt it is also true that property tax prohibits the “acquisition” of liberty. Property tax is the only tax that forces you into debt. It can never be paid off and if you can’t pay them the government kicks you and your family out of your home into the street.

If prohibiting home ownership and denying the people their right to acquire liberty are not unconstitutional then I suggest we need a new constitution.

That the state retains ownership of everybody’s property is an undeniable fact. That, homesteaders are not homeowners and that they are just paying rent to the state is an undeniable fact. The owner is the one with the right to acquire possession of property when the renter fails to make payment. That the state has this right because of property tax is obvious.

If you had no idea it was the government demanding payment and not a landlord the only difference you would be able to discern from conventional rent would be the terms of your rental agreement. All the material facts that determine who the owner is and what a renter is remain the same. All arguments which try to prove that property tax is not the logical equivalent of rent are based on the justification of the tax and are irrational from the prospective of what is ownership and what is a renter.

If we are to believe that the state is not the owner charging homesteaders rent we would have to conclude that an owner is some one who has to make payment to someone else or lose possession of their property. This is absurd and a complete contradiction of what is ownership.

Our government needs to quit lying to the people and just come out and admit they are unwilling to let the people own their homes. If the benefits of property tax are so important why must the government, the media, banks, the schools, and virtually everyone else with authority lie about it and call people home owners.

Perhaps the reason our government and others persist in this lie is that if the truth was exposed property tax would be found to be unconstitutional. One can only hope so.

robert108

You’re an absolutely idiot if you believe an owner is someone who must make payments to another to keep what belongs to them. Duh! Ownership means it belongs to you. The whole purpose of ownership is to become free from debt. If you have to make payments to another to keep what you “own” they are the owner not you.

You can’t tax ownership any more than you can make the earth flat by religious decree. What one does when they claim to tax ownership is make ownership into that which it is not.

Redefining ownership from that which gives you freedom from debt to that which puts you in eternal debt is ludicrous. Every rational person in the world understands this and that you are incapable of seeing this makes you but another member of the “flat earth society”.

To say property tax doesn’t prohibit ownership is equivalent to saying that after you kill someone they are still alive.

I suppose if you had to pay a tax on your freedom and you were not allowed to leave your house unless you paid your Freedom tax you would still be free. You have got to be one of the most irrational people on earth.

Don’t you get it? If own something it’s paid for. If it’s paid for you don’t have to make another payment. Property tax makes paying for something impossible, thus you never own it. You are confusing the concept of rent with ownership.

robert108

You’re an absolutely idiot………
Tomas Real on September 20, 2009 at 04:14 pm

Tomas Real, robert180 is an absolute idiot, if you consider that among other things he famously said:

Telling one lie or even consistently lying about one subject…doesn’t make you a liar…
robert108 on May 18, 2009 at 03:23 pm

For all that it’s worth, I’ll let you know that
Robert180 will call you a liar if he disagrees with you.
He is a known verbal contortionist and defender of racists.

“No rational person believes an owner is someone who must make payments to another to keep what they own.”

It’s your quote, not mine, and to repeat, a property tax is not a “payment”. I’m sorry you are confused about that, but you should study a bit more before you start squealing.

Again, Tom, you stated that property taxes “prohibit” the ownership of property, and you are simply wrong. Again, look up the definition of “prohibit”. Maybe you meant to say “inhibit”, in which case you would be partially correct, but you would still be a whiner.
Again, if you don’t like the property tax rates in your area, you are free to live elsewhere, or to not own real property, if you don’t like paying for the services your local govt provides. If you feel that some services aren’t necessary, you are free to organize voter opposition to those services and vote against them. You might succeed.
In any case, telling lies here only marks you as a whiner.

And Tom, if you can’t deal with reasoned and factual disagreement, you need some emotional help.

robert108

“Taxes are accessed to pay for government services, and are not payments on your property.”

To begin with a service is something voluntarily contracted. Being forced to pay for something is extortion not service. Pizza hut provides a service. The power company provides a service. If don’t pay for a service it is discontinued. Pizza hut won’t take my home. The power company will not take my home. What the government provides is unequally distributed extortionary benefits and if you don’t pay for them they will take your home.

Property tax isn’t called a service tax, it’s called a property tax and it is based on the states assessed monetary value of your property. If it was a service tax you would be taxed based on the services you received. Property tax is based on you making PAYMENT for the assessed value of your property. How the government uses this money is irrelevant.
Property tax is in fact a PAYMENT you must make in order to keep your property. Now, I don’t know about you but where I come from when you have to make a payment to another in order to keep your property it’s a payment on your property and the person you’re making the payment to is obviously the owner. Your assertion is just another attempt to distort the truth, another one of your lies.

That you believe being forced to make payments to the state in order to keep your property doesn’t deny you ownership of property makes for some outrageous possibilities. Obviously if this principle were true the amount is irrelevant. So, if you had to pay the state say a billion dollars an hour to stay in your home you would still is the owner.
Also it’s not just your home that could be subject to property tax but anything that exists. You could have to pay to keep your pants, your shirt, or they could put a meter your chest and tax you on the air your breathed. No problem, you have no right to complain, after all your still the owner of all these things, for as you insist, property tax doesn’t prevent ownership.

I suppose if the government taxed our bodies and forced us to pay with day to day labor we would be free, for after all according to you, being forced to make payment to another to keep what belongs to you, doesn’t deny you ownership. I guess if you were a slave being forced to work for years picking cotton and you claimed something must be wrong you would just be winning.

robert108

Being forced to pay another to keep your property is not ownership. That you can’t understand this is simply mind boggling.

If you continue to owe money on your property every single year, you never truly own it. In effect, you are renting your own property from the government.

robert108

You refuse to answer my question. How do you call an owner someone who is forced to pay another to keep their property? I’ve proven beyond all doubt that property tax prohibits the ownership of property. Every rational person alive understands this. Your just a sick individual or individuals who some how gets off by spinning nonsense for the purpose of destroying the truth

I was wrong about one thing though. You’re not an idiot you’re just evil.

You’re a lying jerk and you know it.
When are you going to decide to be a man and admit that property tax prohibits home ownership? When are you going to answer my question? “How do you call an owner someone who is forced to pay another to keep their property?”

In your response to Kenny you said
“If you don’t make your car payments, your car will be repossessed” You’re quote in analogous to property tax.
You also go on to admit that if don’t make your property tax payments you will lose your home.

It’s obvious the person with the car payments does not own his car… By your own words you have just admitted that property tax means we don’t own our homes.

I figured if you persisted in your irrational gibberish long enough you would make an error like this. Go back and look at your response to Kenny and you will see that Im right.

Be a man or woman and quit your evil ways, admit that property tax prohibits home ownership. You’re the one who needs to come clean here not me.

When are you going to decide to be a man and admit that property tax prohibits home ownership?

I’m man enough to call you out on your lie, and you aren’t man enough to admit you made a mistake. Nothing about property taxes “prohibits” property ownership; in fact, property ownership is a necessary requirement for paying property tax.
Are you really too stupid to understand that, or is juvenile personal attack all you have?

By your own words you have just admitted that property tax means we don’t own our homes.

Again, you try to distract; you don’t own anything until you have made all the payments, which is an entirely different matter from your erroneous proclamation that property tax “prohibits” ownership of property.
Do yourself a favor, and look up the definition before you try to waste any more of my time.

You’re quote in analogous to property tax.

Wrong again! It wasn’t an analogy to property tax, it was an analogy to ownership.

No matter how desperately you try to twist and spin by changing the subject, property tax does not “prohibit” ownership of property. You’re wrong, and no amount of lying will change that.

So, when do you make your last property tax payment?

Again, you confuse house payments with paying property tax. I must assume you are not merely stupid or uninformed, but just another lying troll.
Again: property tax does not “prohibit” property ownership.

Whose little sockpuppet are you, tommy?

Little sockpuppet troll: Property tax does not “prohibit” property ownership. Period.

Since you remain stuck on this rather simple matter of definition, I’ll let you twist and spin by yourself from now on.

I don’t know if it is still there.

It is. Been there as long as I remember.

You do know that I habent exactly refused to pay any taxes right genius? And that I am perfectly within the law in giving this guy the boot?

No wonder you’re a liberal. You don’t even know how this stuff works.

For what its worth, I took the meth lab comment as a joke.

Also, your suggestion that I don’t actually own my home is baloney. For you to suggset that is to suggest that I don’t have property rights.

If I sounded like I was saying that you don’t actually “own” your home, then I spoke imperfectly.

There’s really not another way to take this comment:

We don’t own our homes/property we rent them from the county or city.

At the risk of getting completely flamed here: “yeah, that’s pretty much correct”.

What I meant was that you pay taxes to the government in order to “secure” your property rights. That way you don’t have to shoot all of the trespassers yourself, you can have the sheriff (your employee) come by and help.

I get your point. And I’m fine with taxes for some things like law enforcement, fire departments, etc. And we can debate how the money is spent.

But this isn’t even a spending issue. This is a collection issue. This tax is wrong. We should raise the money a different way.

The city government lies to you, probably because they are afraid to admit the truth to you.

What, that they’re overspending? That we’ve already gone far beyond the basic functions of government the vast majority of us agree upon into areas the government has no business being involved in (like “economic development”)?

I don’t need them to tell me that.

This guy made a crack about my sidewalks. I measured the cracks and they’re not in the range where they need to be repaired.

I called his supervisor and said that I would be reviewing and challenging any increase in my assessment.

In Robs case, the tax assessor was clearly guilty of trespassing since his legal view should only be from the nearest public access.

I don’t think he’s guilty of trespassing. I’m sure they sent a letter to notify me of the visit in advance (I never got it, but I don’t doubt they sent it).

And he never entered my home. Just knocked on the door.

Still doesn’t mean I should let him into my home.

It’s not like they just show up. You know they make every effort to schedule it so you can hide anything you wouldn’t want a stranger to see. Snooping? Not a single cabinet or drawer gets opened. It’s a quick walk through to make sure the notes from the last assessment still apply. You’re making this out to be like some kind of raid. It’s no more than a quick once over.

So?

What if I don’t even want you in for a quick “once over.” My home is mine, no? Don’t I have a right to privacy?

Why should I be punished with higher taxes because I exercise that right?

Again, try to think like you’re not a bureaucrat.

That argument was quite a stretch for you though, I hope you didn’t pull any muscles.

Says the person who was just joking about it a few minutes ago.

If I don’t bend over and let the assessor do what they want to do they’ll slap me with higher taxes.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Move along. Nothing to see here.

If the assessor is not allowed to see everything involved in creating the value (this doesn’t count personal property, but things like new carpet, new cabinets, stuff that would increase the value of the home if it were to be sold) then the assessor is forced to assume that you have done significant improvements.

BS. Local entities around the nation do valuations without entering the home. North Dakota is an exception. Further, my home was bought last year. What I paid is the market value.

What Minot, and a lot of other places, are doing is inflating valuations to raise property taxes. Period.

I never got a letter, but this is also my first year in the home so I’m not saying I didn’t get one.

Maybe it got lost in the move of forwarded somewhere else or something.

But I don’t see where them sending me a letter asking to come in is any different than showing up and asking to come in.

They shouldn’t want to come in, period. And we shouldn’t have a tax code that requires such a thing.

Yeah, Rob, you’re totally a hero for not letting him in your house. Just wait until around March or April when you get a notice of increase in the mail though. Since you didn’t let him in your house, it is policy for him to assume that you have gold toilets and Italian Marble from floor to ceiling. I also happen to know that it is the City of Minot’s policy to send out a letter of notice to schedule walk-throughs (that is a FACT) so if you ignored the letter and didn’t call them back, that’s your problem and I am going to laugh when they jack your taxes up. Just cuz you’re kind of being a weiner about the whole thing.

Weiner?

Not really. I oppose the property tax. I think it’s a foolish, invasive tax.

And I’ve already put the property tax people on notice that I will be reviewing and challenging any increase in my taxation.

Just because you’re a bureaucrat paid to collect the property tax doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

It was a state tax buzz. Honestly, it would be nice if you knew what you were talking about even once.

Just as an update, since coming home my wife told me that the guy made a couple of snide comments to her off the phone.

Real winner, this guy.

My state the state of Washington has a scam of using a bogus blue book to set the values of autos bought from Private parties. They say they use (NMR) national marketing report on their Webb sight but when asked now say that they have changed the name to Price Digests it appears to be a company that’s sole purpose is to selling states this pricing guides subscription to set unrealistic prices to help the states collect more tax’s not a blue-book that could be used to run a auto lot values way to high no one would buy at these prices.The state should have to show proof of these values in that state this is fraud if this pricing guide is what I think it is it’s organized crime (RICO ACT) In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968. At the time, Congress’ goal was to eliminate the ill-affects of organized crime on the nation’s economy. Now I need help to stop this legal tax grab maybe your state is a player to help find the info on these crooks they work for us don’t over charge me do your home work D.O.L stop scamming us.