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It seems to be a uniquely American practice to expect infrastructure maintenance and renewal to be funded by cities exclusively using property taxes. Cities ge
by sfifs 10y ago
It seems to be a uniquely American practice to expect infrastructure maintenance and renewal to be funded by cities exclusively using property taxes.
Cities generally act not only as trading hubs providing services to the region surrounding them, they also act as tax revenue sweeteners due to higher concentration of high income residents. Ie. they have positive externalities for the region, province or nation.
While I'm certain there would be a level of corruption in city administration, it seems to be incredibly short sighted to force cities to fund infrastructure through only property taxes and such without funding from income tax the province/nation collects as what happens in other parts of the world.
- seanalltogether 10y agoCities have access to money from property taxes and sales taxes. States have access to sales tax and income tax. The state should be assisting with local budgets to level the playing field but that isn't really detailed in this article for some reason.
- maxsilver 10y ago> it seems to be incredibly short sighted to force cities to fund infrastructure through only property taxes and such without funding from income tax the province/nation collects as what happens in other parts of the world. In America, many cities get some revenues like that as well. Many cities levy their own income or sales taxes, in addition to the state income/sales taxes. (NYC has a 2.9-3.6% income tax itself, Seattle has a 2.7% sales tax itself, many small cities in the Midwest have their own income taxes, etc) Cities typically also get some amount of revenue back from state taxes -- although it has unfortunately become common for some state governments to take city/road/school funding to cover spending in other places.
- ensignavenger 10y agoStates and the federal government certainly do help fund city infrastructure. Often it comes in the form of grants (used for capitol costs) and matching funds.