This in thanks to Will Fox at the Libertarian Party of Delaware listserv:
Towns all over the country have a new idea for collecting property taxes from senior citizens on fixed incomes: put them to work for the town government at low wages to pay off their debts to society.
According to CNN such programs now exist in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina.
What's truly bizarre is that this is presented as some kind of boon to seniors:
These towns are collecting their property taxes from senior citizens through municipal jobs paying roughly $7.00-$8.50/hour.
What I'm wondering is where are all the people who complain that senior citizens having to go take low-paying jobs at McDonalds to make ends meet represents a failure of the "social safety net," but the government paying them the same rate (just to re-collect it as property taxes) somehow becomes a humanitarian initiative.
Towns all over the country have a new idea for collecting property taxes from senior citizens on fixed incomes: put them to work for the town government at low wages to pay off their debts to society.
According to CNN such programs now exist in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina.
What's truly bizarre is that this is presented as some kind of boon to seniors:
Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn't limited to menial work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.
Boulder County, Colorado, pioneered a tax workoff program in 1986 for residents over 60 and now has about 250 applicants for the fewer than 100 openings, said spokeswoman Barbara Halpin. The work done by the seniors includes landscaping, gathering climate data, clipping newspapers and staffing the courthouse information booth.
"Taxes aren't that high out here, so even at $7 an hour people can burn off their county taxes pretty quickly," Halpin said. She added that many stay in the program as volunteers after paying off their taxes.
These towns are collecting their property taxes from senior citizens through municipal jobs paying roughly $7.00-$8.50/hour.
What I'm wondering is where are all the people who complain that senior citizens having to go take low-paying jobs at McDonalds to make ends meet represents a failure of the "social safety net," but the government paying them the same rate (just to re-collect it as property taxes) somehow becomes a humanitarian initiative.
Comments
By this logic, taxes can be raised as high as the government wishes, and we can all work second jobs for the government. Retirees shouldn't be forced out of retirement due to government greed. If retires are forced to take out jobs due to taxes, that's an obvious sign taxes are just too high.
If the senior was more responsible during her working lifetime, and built up enough of a nest egg to afford her lifestyle, this wouldn't be an issue.
Under some circumstances I'd agree with that, but in some parts of the country property values and property tax assessments have been rising so rapidly that there's no real way anybody could have planned to keep up.
Take an example from Maine, about a couple I know personally, who purchased a house 30 years ago for $80K. The assessed value of that house topped $600K around 2004, and the property tax rates there have gone up nine times in the past 20 years.
Of course you could argue that by liquidating their house these people could get out from under their tax debt, but think about the propriety of forcing you to sell property that you've already paid for because the government can continually raise both the taxes and the valuation (even if you have no plans to sell the property).
Something is haywire here.
So these taxes are being squandered, rates rising to recover, and the lesson of budgeting is never learned.
Therefore a society exists where seniors are forced into slavery to pay the government because they can't get their act together.