4 ms·

It's clear in the area where I live that the poorest urban areas have the highest tax rates. The cost of government doesn't seem to be proportional to the tax b

It's clear in the area where I live that the poorest urban areas have the highest tax rates. The cost of government doesn't seem to be proportional to the tax base, so the taxes are higher with respect to assessments, and people who can, move out of the jurisdiction, making it worse over time. In order to solve the problem, it seems important to ascertain whether it's institutional racism or direct discrimination. I don't know the answer to why local government can't function on a fixed percentage of the tax base everywhere. Something that made an impression on me years ago, was how a bike trail ran from a well-off suburb into a small city, and after a snowfall, the plowing stopped exactly at the city limits. They had, and have, about the highest tax rates anywhere but they basically did not plow. In the data set you reference, I wonder how they deal with different owners grieving (or not) their assessment.

asiachick 5y ago
> I don't know the answer to why local government can't function on a fixed percentage of the tax base everywhere That seems pretty obvious no? Town of 100k people each making $20k a year, taxed at 10% (just making a number up) means you have $200 million in taxes. Vs another town with 100k people each making $50k a year means you have $500 million on taxes. Further, probably (maybe) the town with people only making $20k a year, the residence probably need more government support (examples: free meals at schools, free child care, more policing (lower incomes correlates with more crime). etc... Given that more services are needed in a town with lower-income people it makes total sense to me at least that the taxes would need to be higher. Heck, even if they didn't need more services, a 100k people need the same services but the tax base of the lower-income people is lower so they need higher taxes to pay for the same services for the 100k people. The alternative is the higher income town pays for the services of the low-income town. That happens to some degree via federal grants in the USA but I suspect most people in the high income town would not want to be paying for the low-income town's needs. I don't see any racism or discrimination here. It just seems like fact. 1 < 2. There's no racism or discrimination in that fact. If there is any discrimination, it's why that low-income town has low-incomes, not why it's taxes cost more.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >That seems pretty obvious no? It seems pretty obvious to a lot of people that the cost of schools is not proportional to the number of students who are being educated. I remember years and years ago someone explaining how, if you have X fewer students, you can't just heat part of or sell part of a building, so costs don't decrease. >I don't see any racism or discrimination here I'm sure there is both individual racism and institutional racism. I'm not certain how the former works, since I have never seen a tax assessor in person. For that matter, I've never seen an insurance assessor, they seem to just drop by when I'm not there.

asiachick 5y ago

> I don't know the answer to why local government can't function on a fixed percentage of the tax base everywhere That seems pretty obvious no? Town of 100k people each making $20k a year, taxed at 10% (just making a number up) means you have $200 million in taxes. Vs another town with 100k people each making $50k a year means you have $500 million on taxes. Further, probably (maybe) the town with people only making $20k a year, the residence probably need more government support (examples: free meals at schools, free child care, more policing (lower incomes correlates with more crime). etc... Given that more services are needed in a town with lower-income people it makes total sense to me at least that the taxes would need to be higher. Heck, even if they didn't need more services, a 100k people need the same services but the tax base of the lower-income people is lower so they need higher taxes to pay for the same services for the 100k people. The alternative is the higher income town pays for the services of the low-income town. That happens to some degree via federal grants in the USA but I suspect most people in the high income town would not want to be paying for the low-income town's needs. I don't see any racism or discrimination here. It just seems like fact. 1 < 2. There's no racism or discrimination in that fact. If there is any discrimination, it's why that low-income town has low-incomes, not why it's taxes cost more.

perl4ever 5y ago
>That seems pretty obvious no? It seems pretty obvious to a lot of people that the cost of schools is not proportional to the number of students who are being educated. I remember years and years ago someone explaining how, if you have X fewer students, you can't just heat part of or sell part of a building, so costs don't decrease. >I don't see any racism or discrimination here I'm sure there is both individual racism and institutional racism. I'm not certain how the former works, since I have never seen a tax assessor in person. For that matter, I've never seen an insurance assessor, they seem to just drop by when I'm not there.