Letters to the editor, Feb. 28, 2016: Property tax

Tax policies broken

Congratulations to Herald-Leader reporters John Cheves and Linda Blackford for the eye-opening report on the farmland preservation tax. This was apparently a well-intended policy that has become unfair and counterproductive through bureaucratic negligence. This story is also a singular example of a much bigger issue: the fact that our state’s and country’s tax policies are broken.

For the last 35 years, our governments have been seriously neglecting essential public needs (notably infrastructure and education, but also health care and the environment) by drastically underfunding them. This decades-long deterioration has mostly been the result of the so-called conservative initiative to reduce the role of government in our society.

Attractive rhetoric promoting the free market, balanced budgets and lower taxes often makes this strategy successful politically, especially when coupled with pointed appeals on hot-button social issues. The actual outcome has been stark income inequality, colossal government budget deficits and serious shortcomings in public infrastructure, public education and other important areas of the public interest.

The lack of proper enforcement of the farmland preservation tax break over the past 47 years is just the tip of the iceberg of the need for comprehensive tax reform in Kentucky and the United States.

An uneven break

Thirteen million dollars for Fritz Farm and $1,750 in property tax. I live one house away from Centre Parkway and paid $750 property tax. Am I getting screwed? Yes.

Clean up the code

The Herald-Leader’s series on the agricultural property tax exemption has been very informative. This is exactly the type of unmonitored tax break that we need to eliminate or explicitly clarify to clean up our tax code. Even more interesting was the response of some property valuation administrator who appear to have no interest in rectifying this situation. Are they afraid of the work required or of rocking the boat?

Adjust assessments

The Herald-Leader’s revelation of land development carrying forward tax breaks from farming support into commercial properties and luxury homes is breathtaking. Such an unconscionable inequity needs to be addressed with due urgency, but it needs to be done with due process.

The properties with property taxes most out of line with property values were purchased or developed based on assumed tax burdens from past practices permissively supported by property valuation administrators.

This probably resulted in high-end commercial and residential properties that would not have been possible to accrue in the Bluegrass otherwise, which has, no doubt, attracted additional high-end businesses and immigrants to the area.

However, fair is fair.

Obviously complicating matters is the fact that this is not an isolated situation, and if such tax breaks were not available in Kentucky, these developments would have gone to adjoining states or would not have happened at all.

And think what a difference it would make in attracting both high-end businesses and professionals if schools had a fair apportionment of dollars to produce the workforce that could make businesses thrive?

I suggest we begin a rectification process immediately with gradual escalation of assessments toward real property value to accrue over a three- to 10-year period, depending on property tax, development history and degree of inequity.

Prepare the pitchforks

I struggle to get by while I know of a 1,400-acre farm on Walnut Hill Road that is receiving farmland preservation tax breaks. It even has an airstrip. Yet there is not a single equine on the place, not even a mule. There are no cattle, either, because the owner does not want them messing up his 1,400 acres of turf.

That is exactly the kind of thing that makes the notion of democratic socialism not just reasonable but vitally important. Here is my five-part plan for getting something done in this state and country:

1. Working class people must vote.

2. Working-class Republicans must stop voting against their own best interests.

3. Working class Democrats must insist, by voting, on candidates with the spine to stand up and be counted.

4. Legitimate animal-husbandry workers who love their work must get involved.

5. The working class should gather on Walnut Hill Road with pitchforks and torches. No wait, that was in France.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 9:20 AM with the headline "Letters to the editor, Feb. 28, 2016: Property tax."