Vote Christopher Hoyt For State Senate From Rutland County! :)
Hoyt4Rutland
Property Tax Concerns
I am aware of the tremendous burden taxes can have on
people these days, especially the property tax, and am
committed to trying to find ways to reduce the burden for
working Vermonters and to make things fairer and more
affordable. After all, where else do you see a tax that
routinely takes 1.5-2.0% (or more) of your accumulated
wealth each year, just for the privilege of owning a home?
To make matters worse, the poorer areas in the state in
terms of land value (such as Fair Haven and other
communities in Rutland County) end up paying an even
higher percentage tax on their property than the richer
areas in the state each year in taxes. All this for a school
system that is largely a relic of the past, and that has huge
fixed costs that seem largely unnecessary in this day and
age.
I am not afraid to really examine this issue, and to try to
make the necessary reforms to ensure that not only are
school children in all towns—regardless of wealth—given
access to the best possible education, but to do it in a way
that saves the average person money each year. I know
too many farmers in town that—even with Current
Use—end up with $15,000-$20,000 property tax bills each
year. Who can afford that? It’s obviously a very complex
issue, but one that must have a solution that can improve
upon the current state of things, and I intend to find it.
So far, I have thought of one small tweak that could help
things. Not much, but it’s a start, and shows they type of
thinking I engage in and how I would approach the difficult
subject of property tax reform.
As it stands now, we all pay property taxes, either directly
or through the rent we pay to our landlord. Each student in
school costs something on the order of $16,000 a year to
educate, but no refund is given to those people with
children that save the towns huge amounts of money each
year by either homeschooling their kids or sending them to
some form of private education--such as a Catholic school
or, like in my town, a private school focused on outdoor
education and learning.
It makes sense to me that if you are saving the school
district $16,000 by not sending your kid to public school,
you should at least be offered some small reward for doing
so, namely a $2,000 refundable tax credit per child, with a
max of, say, $8,000 per family per year. Many people
would like to homeschool, or send their kids to a private
school, but just can’t quite afford to do so. This plan would
reward those families that made the tough decision to
spend time or money to educate their children elsewhere,
and which saves all the taxpayers in town collectively a
huge sum of money.
After all, a family of 4 children home-schooled would save
the district’s taxpayers $64,000 or so--giving that $8,000
tax credit an 800% return on investment. I remember one
year, pre-Act 46, where just one family with four children
moved into West Haven and everyone’s taxes in town
literally went up about 30% that year as a result. So, small
shifts to reduce the number of kids in school can make a
large difference, overall.
Granted, this would be a small step in the overall grand-
problem of the property tax and school spending, but
would still make a difference to taxpayers. The other
issues involving how schools are funded would require a
more in-depth analysis and problem solving, of course, but
is something I would try to tackle right away if elected to
the Senate this fall.