Here in our state, there are provisions in place for homeowners aged 62 and older — who also fall below a certain income level — to get substantial breaks on their annual property tax bills.
In certain ways this actually makes sense because these folks are typically retired and on so-called "fixed income," AND they are not actually users of things like schools... school taxes are a major part of our property tax assessment.
In fact, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I have benefited from this program for a couple of years now, and it has saved us $5,000+ a year in taxes, which is definitely more than chump change!
The problem has arisen because the income threshold being used to determine whether you get benefits or not is based on a percentage of the median income of whatever county you reside, and it's calculated as the average of a number of trailing years... and with the recent lockdowns due to Covid and a generally poor economy in many counties... that means the limit amount has actually gone down.
Meanwhile, there has been considerable inflation for a couple of years. The actual tangible cost of living is substantially higher, and this is of course affecting everybody. However, this is particularly important for retired people who are receiving some kind of government benefits whether it is retired military pensions, Social Security or something else that has been subject to recent cost of living increases in benefits paid by the government.
Whereas that might be well and good, these cost of living increases are still well below the actual street level rises in the cost of living.
Where the squeeze really comes into play is that there's a group of people who now have a higher level of qualifying income to be considered against a declining median income in the counties where they live, which would include the county where we live. So not only are you worse off in terms of daily affordability, but because your "on paper" income has risen, you no longer qualify for a desperately needed benefit!
The outcome, at least for some people, is that they suddenly find themselves already being worse off due to inflation and rising costs, and now they will be notified that they no longer qualify for a break on their property taxes because their slightly increased income now puts them above the declining median income figures being used to qualify.
As a result, a number of elderly folks are now finding themselves facing property tax bills that have suddenly tripled or quadrupled, on top of already having increasing expenses.
Imagine that you're already struggling financially because of rising costs and fixed income, and then you get a notification from your local property tax assessor to inform you that you now owe an additional $5,000-$6,000 in property tax!
Of course, a substantial part of the problem stems from the fact that many areas have these artificially inflated property values, and many of the people affected are — as I said — elderly and they probably bought their house 20-3030 years ago for $75,000 or $100,000, and now the property value is being assessed at a $1 million or more on which they now have to pay the full fare tax, rather than getting a 70% exemption.
Personally speaking, we're still sneaking in under the limit because we're self-employed and we haven't been subject to any "cost of living increases;" we just continue to suck when like we did before! However I'm not sure what options we would have if we were suddenly faced with our property taxes increasing from a manageable $1,300 a year to $7,400 a year which would be the full assessed rate at the moment.
Just another example of the financial craziness that permeates much of the world these days. But I suppose we should be grateful that we have a home at all, and aren't already out living in a tent somewhere!
We already have a growing "tented village" here in our small city of just 10,000 people!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!
What do YOU think? Financial insanity? Or should these benefits not exist, in the first place? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT posted anywhere else!)
Created at 2023-08-03 15:25 PDT
0908/2163