Regressive tax reveals itself in hard times

People shouldn't ever be in danger of losing their homes because they can't pay the property tax.

It's immoral.

Not that the relatively modest increase in the city of Naperville's tax rate is going to cause that to happen, and raising the tax rate and then ultimately abating it has been the City Council modus operandi as long as I can remember.

At a workshop on Monday, the council informally agreed 5-4 to approve a higher tax rate than that originally estimated -- from .7167 to 7367.

This is a hedge in case the assessed valuation comes in lower than anticipated -- which it might this year -- and is done to assure that the city can still levy the amount it wants to run city government, in this case some $50.6 million.

The city will vote on its levy Dec. 1.

The assessed valuation will not come out until March.

In the past the city has pretty much always been able to abate the tax rate once it knows what the assessed valuation is going to be, because for a long time now local taxing bodies have been fat and happy riding on ever-rising assessed valuations as more land was developed and property values went up. However, the current stiff recession makes that problematical.

These relatively hard times reveal the basic flaw in the property tax -- it forces residents to cough up at least several thousand dollars a year (when all the taxing bodies levies and rates are combined) to keep a roof over their heads, no matter what their economic circumstances may be.

When the city tax rate increase was discussed Monday, Councilman Robert Fieseler brought up the difference between the city's possible new sales tax and the property tax. The sales tax affects discretionary spending, but the property tax is totally mandatory.

He said, "The people who have that (a property tax increase) either lose their home or pay that tax ... it's a very heavy-handed way of extracting money from people and should be a very last resort." I agree entirely.

For the city, its part of the property tax is relatively small, at least in comparison to school districts, which generally take two-thirds or more of the property tax dollar.

From time to time the state gets to talking about changing the system, so schools are supported not by property tax but by some other means such as income tax.

This, of course, is just talk. It never happens.

So if you're on a fixed income and your property tax just keeps going up to the point that you can't pay it, and you lose your home, you at least will have the satisfaction of knowing local governments have plenty of money.

Contact Tim West at west@scn1.com