Property Tax Rebels Targeting Assessments Are Fighting the Wrong Enemy
I live in one of those neighborhoods where watching house prices leap-frog is a major spectator sport.</br></br>Every new "For Sale" sign is an economic indicator. Every open house is another ticket in a lottery where every buyer wins. Every moving van is a validation of the investment wisdom that led to the purchase of a white-washed cottage that's now worth 10 times what it cost to build. Even today, my neighborhood inflation rate regularly runs in the orange and red zone of the real estate section's monthly map of price changes, up 10, 20 percent or more annually at a time when many markets are stalling out.</br></br>But the days when all the owners celebrated each incremental increase in the value of their houses are over. The talk these days is "tax revolt." A guy down the block is organizing the oppressed owners of $300,000 and $400,000 houses against the tyranny of taxes that are escalating along with home prices.</br></br>The property tax system was pretty much okay with most people as long as they didn't have too much property to be taxed. They accepted the principle of taxing property and the corollary that if you're going to base levies on people's accumulated wealth, you have to keep close track of how much wealth they have accumulated by regularly reassessing their property.</br></br>Now, however, folks who would never fudge a nickel on their 1040 forms have decided that equally accurate assessments of their property values are outrageous. Stunned by 60, 70 and 80 percent jumps in assessed values of their houses-and corresponding increases in property taxes-they're demanding a limit to assessment increases. No more than 15 percent a year is the rallying cry of the Montgomery County property tax revolutionaries.