100k Detroit homeowners illegally taxed $600M still waiting to be compensated
metrotimes.com
metrotimes.com
Why is this even a thing? Is it some sort of feel good measure to placate mathematically illiterate voters? The clause is pointless. If everybody's property is assessed at 50% of market value, then property tax rates would have to be 200% to make up for it. At the end the tax you pay is still the same.
> At the end the tax you pay is still the same.
So, no. That is, IIUC, the tax rates are what they are based on the 50% assessment.
>So, no. That is, IIUC, the tax rates are what they are based on the 50% assessment.
I don't get it. You admit that the tax rates would be higher (presumably 2x higher) to compensate for the 50% assessment, but claim that the tax won't be the same at the end?
The important thing here is the injustice that was done to these people and the city’s refusal to make it right.
> Indiana property tax caps limit the amount of property taxes to 1% of property values for homesteads (owner-occupied), 2% for other residential property and farmland, and 3% for all other property
Previous places I have lived without this law, things worked differently.
That's definitely not the case in my municipality (North-East USA).
Tax assessments are as close to market value as you can get, considering that they are only being appraised every 5 years (I think, it may be 3 years). So there's obviously some lag if the market booms or busts. But overall it's pretty damn close to market prices and averages out over the long term.
There are also many firms to dispute your assessment and lower your property tax bill. They do aggressive mass mailing and are able to claim very specific reductions. They then take a percentage (usually half) of first year savings.
The 2x factor increases the taxes paid by people who own properties with a taxable value less than the assessed value.
But once you normalize for all of that, then, assessing at 85% is really like assessing for 170% which would be bad.
Also - in a situation of rapidly deteriorating home values, the state may be short sighted, in wanting to pay it's bills, trying to extract some value.
It's really sad because you generally don't see entire neighbourhoods go to nothing in most of the modern world.
I'm wondering specifically about the foreclosure rate. Were the foreclosures strictly due to not paying the extra $1K per year? Or were they due to not paying any amount of tax due (including the bulk of it which was not an overcharge). The article doesn't say.
[edit]: now I re-read a bit, the article actually does not state how many total taxpayers were affected, only those that were foreclosed on. There is also one anecdote at the end about how one person was over-taxed $4,000.
Should be "contributed to," not "resulted in."
Many lower income Americans saw their dream of home ownership become a nightmare because they simply did not understand adjustable rate mortgages, or if they did, had faith in the argument that in 5 years years a booming economy would provide them with an income commensurate with the substantial increase in their mortgage payment.
The real estate bubble made people feel wealthier when their home values increased (which they were taxed on) but the expected rise in income never materialized. Worse, homeowners covered their shortfalls with revolving credit and home equity loans.
2010 was 12 years ago, but millions of Americans still suffer the consequences of the 2008,2009 financial disaster and may well continue to do so the rest of their lives.
Stories like this make me ill -- which was probably the intent.
True, but don't forget that some of those millions also received tax-free loan forgiveness and walked away from their under-water properties with relatively little harm (mainly emotional distress from being a debtor for a while and having to move).
A huge pile after the family walked away 5 days prior. It's one thing to talk about it, it's quite another to watch the dumpster get hauled away with handlebars sticking out the top.
> An estimated 100,000 Detoiters lost their home to foreclosures because of over-assessments
It's so odd that in the 21st century, we still believe that some people somehow deserve their poverty, because we would rather listen to economical indicators rather than seeing people being homeless.
Countries might be modern and developed to reduce poverty, but there are still societal beliefs that some people should not be helped. I'm happy I don't live in the US, because I would probably be homeless or an addict if I did, and there would be hordes of people claiming it's "survival of the fittest" and that it's fair game, because life involves competition, which is a fallacy of nature.
The nazis actively promoted social darwinism, and the nazis are gone, but sometimes I feel like social darwinism is alive.
Anyway...
> Most of the surveyed residents prioritized cash payments as compensation. But that’s likely not going to happen because Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration insists that state law prohibits the city from providing cash payments or tax credits to any of the overtaxed residents.
1. I doubt it.
2. Even if that were state law, the mayor must uphold his federal and state constitutional obligations in spite or this law.
> Activists say they disagree and are calling on Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to give her legal opinion.
We're talking about 100,000 people. If they just twiddle their thumbs and expect some government lawyers to side with them, they'll probably be waiting a whole lot longer. They should organize, lay siege to city hall and the mayor's house, and threaten further escalation, until the money is deposited in their accounts and whatever other additional measures have been taken.
XKCD386: The river water was not lead-polluted. The river water replaced Detroit sourced water which had been treated with orthophosphate, which inhibits corrosion. Without the corrosion inhibitor lead was leached from water pipes (largely in lateral lines and in people's homes).
> nor have the people responsible been charged with any serious offenses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis#Criminal_pr...
But the guy with authority (local elected mayor, not the state emergency manager) and the engineers/technicians/??? who made the choice not to use corrosion inhibitor, which actually caused the problem, haven't been charged (or the Glasgow guy get let off?) to go after political targets instead and state people who failed to properly detect the mess the locals created.
doesn't the emergency manager have more authority than the elected mayor? How much did the mayor know and how much power did he have?
>and the engineers/technicians/???
1. the plant manager was prosecuted
2. what's the point of prosecuting non-managerial employees? Did they participate in the cover-up? Were they supposed to predict what was going to happen?
Slap on the wrist. If my job was to get you spinach, and I am an expert in that area, and I chose to use animal waste for fertilizer, shouldn't I be held responsible for giving people e-coli if I don't take standard precautions?
As dreadful as it was-- that choice hardly seems likely to be a crime. Negligent sure, but where is the criminal intent? "muhaha I'll make everyone sick!" hardly.
In an event like flint I'd expect the only crimes to be attempts to cover it up, not the event itself. ... and it seems like the the desire to prosecute the people "at fault" caused them to give immunity to the people who actually committed crimes.
The outside engineering firm argues that they didn't warn flint because they assumed flint would be using corrosion control.
When it became clear that there were serious water quality issues, flint hired another outside engineering firm to review and monitor their system and make recommendations and the second engineering firm failed to identify the lack of corrosion control as a safety issue. They basically said 'you could add phosphates to reduce complaints about discolored water, but you're still going to get lots of complaints about discolored water'.
To me it seems like a lot of the root cause was that they knew and expected the river water source would have serious cosmetic issues, but they felt forced into it. When things started going wrong they kept treating it as cosmetic issues (and it sure sounds that by count most of the complaints they had were cosmetic issues) even though the water was actually unsafe.
With two outside water engineering firms, on top of the city's own staff not catching this... I think the explanation has to be more complicated than someone being criminally negligent.
So, for example, suppose I'm a driver who takes a bribe so that I expose my passenger to a sniper somehow. I had no desire for my passenger to die - I just wanted the money, but - in some legal systems anyway - it can be argued that I intended the natural consequences of my actions.
Alternatively, even if I have not "intended", I have certainly gone beyond negligence. The commonly-recognized middle level of criminal responsibility is _recklessness_:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recklessness_(law)
There's something inbetween, which
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis#Criminal_pr...
So, the city manager hasn't been charged; the prosecutor quashed the prosecutorial team's suggestions of serious RICO charges in favor of minor ones; Snyder is charged with "neglect of duty"; etc.
I also wonder whether Governor Whitmer may not have some responsibility for inaction during her time in office, although I don't know nearly enough US law to make stronger claims here except her failing her public, moral responsibility IMHO.