K-12 Tax and Spending Climate

A few articles on the current tax and spending climate:

• Property Tax Frustration Builds by Amy Merrick:

  In some markets where real-estate values had been rising sharply for years, property taxes are still climbing. That is because it can take a long time for assessments, which commonly are based on a property's estimated market value, to catch up with the realities of the real-estate market.

  The lag time has led to an outcry to cut property taxes reminiscent of the 1970s, says Gerald Prante, an economist with the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in Washington.

  "In many cases, incomes were growing faster than property-tax bills in the 1990s," Mr. Prante says. "Recently, property-tax bills have grown faster than incomes, on average."

  State and local property-tax collections increased 50% from 2000-06, according to Census Bureau data. During the same time period, the median household income rose 15%, before adjustment for inflation.

  Property taxes supply $65% of the Madison School District's $349M budget (2007-2008) [Citizen's Budget with 2.5MB PDF amendments]
• A look at the progressivity of the Federal Income Tax by Alex Tabarrok:

  Despite all the deductions, loopholes and clever accountants the federal income tax is strongly progressive. Moreover the federal tax system remains progressive even if you include the payroll tax, corporate taxes and excise taxes. The chart below with data from the Congressional Budget Office, shows the effective tax rate by income class from all federal taxes. Effective tax rates are considerably higher on the rich than the poor.

  The effective tax rate is higher on the rich and the rich have more money – put these two things together and we can calculate who pays for the federal government. The final column in the table shows the share of the 2.4 trillion in federal tax revenues that is paid for by each income category.

Dean Mosiman:

School taxes increased more than 7 percent statewide, the biggest increase in 15 years, fueling renewed cries for reform of the state school funding system.

The state school finance system is "broken, " said Pete Etter, interim superintendent of the tiny Black Hawk School District about 60 miles south of Madison, which had the highest local school property tax increase of any district in the state. "It 's not only Black Hawk. It 's every district in the state. "

Critics say the system is flawed because state revenue limits for districts don 't grow enough, if at all. If state aid is insufficient, districts must turn to taxpayers, sometimes through referendum.

Dane County range

School taxes -- as well as the total tax bill -- depend mostly on where you live.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 19, 2007 12:00 AM
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