Increase property tax or sales tax? (Pot Holes and Storm Runoff) (Colorado Springs: low income, rental)

[Vision67]

To fix the roads and the storm water infrastructure, the city will likely need to raise taxes.

Here is an article from the Gazette: Colorado Springs potholes a big topic at councilman's first town hall

So which should it be: Property taxes or sales taxes.

[shanen]

I'd be 100% ok with my property taxes going up. They are half as much as my last house, which was half the value of my current. Clearly low property taxes are a silly idea.

[allprolab]

I'd like to know how much sales tax we're losing from recreational weed.

[dr.frog]

Property tax for sure. Sales taxes put a higher burden on poor people when you consider it as a fraction of their income. I also wouldn't mind paying more property taxes..... I paid more where I lived previously, too, and didn't mind it because I could see all the city services I was getting in exchange.

FWIW, the city where I lived previously also had a "residential exemption" to make property taxes more progressive for lower-income folk. Something like the first half of the median home value was exempt from taxation if you live in your
own home, with the tax rate on the remainder bumped up to compensate in terms of overall tax revenue to the city. This meant that if you lived in a modest home your effective tax rate would be much lower than for folks who lived in multi-million-dollar mansions, or slumlords who owned rental properties.

[Vision67]

What about a gas tax? Bigger vehicles do more damage to the road, e.g. a Ford F-250 weighs a lot more than a Toyota Corolla so a tax on fuel seems fair to me. The Corolla driver would pay less than the F-250 driver to go 100 miles.

Gas tax, Agree?

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Vision67

What about a gas tax? Bigger vehicles do more damage to the road, e.g. a Ford F-250 weighs a lot more than a Toyota Corolla so a tax on fuel seems fair to me. The Corolla driver would pay less than the F-250 driver to go 100 miles.

Gas tax, Agree?

The Federal gasoline tax hasn't been raised since 1993 and has since lost a third of it's buying power. Now that gas is a dollar a gallon cheaper we should raise that tax 25 cents a gallon and spend it on roads, bridges and mass transit. Talk about a barn burner of a jobs bill, that would light a fire under the basic economy for people other than software engineers, eh. Even though raising the gas tax would be regressive to low income folks, they too need to have some skin in the game so they can have a stake in things and feel a degree of ownership.

I'd also de-Tabor Colorado Springs and raise our property taxes to where they need to be for the sake of schools (kids come first), roads, storm water solutions, parks, our trivial bus system and other various and sundry essentials that are in the mix of government services. We can always recall a mayor or city councilor for egregious acts and malfeasance with government funds or public issues. IMO TABOR is a huge failure, every pot hole proves it.

As far as the sales tax, I'd round it off to an even percentage, not a fraction like it is now.

In the way of efficiencies we can merge our two governments into one, i.e., El Paso County and the City of Colorado Springs becomes ONE entity with one government and one set of tax rates. Then we reduce our 20 school districts down to no more than 3 or 4 rather than continue paying 20 sets of overhead for chairpersons, administrators, legal staffs, transportation programs and all that goes with running 20 duplicate organizations when a few will do.

[Jalhop]

The tricky part is getting the increased tax revenue to pay for what you want to fund. With so many places having underfunded pension plans (and I see that CO is no exception), I think there will be intense political pressure to have fine print redirect a tax increase to the pensions. They tend to be extravagant, so I'm wary of supporting any tax increase.

[Vision67]

Originally Posted by Jalhop

The tricky part is getting the increased tax revenue to pay for what you want to fund. With so many places having underfunded pension plans (and I see that CO is no exception), I think there will be intense political pressure to have fine print redirect a tax increase to the pensions. They tend to be extravagant, so I'm wary of supporting any tax increase.

Agreed. Any tax increase to fix the roads ought to only go for that singular goal.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Jalhop

The tricky part is getting the increased tax revenue to pay for what you want to fund. With so many places having underfunded pension plans (and I see that CO is no exception), I think there will be intense political pressure to have fine print redirect a tax increase to the pensions. They tend to be extravagant, so I'm wary of supporting any tax increase.

Spending the revenues on the intended targeted spending programs can easily be done with decent accounting methods and software, plus watchdog oversight. Recalling miscreants would still be part of the mix to keep them honest. Even with TABOR we didn't prevent the USOC building deal or the City for Champions deal, and in both cases the anti-tax forces failed to make any real noise or to run recalls on the dastardly schemers.

[otowi]

I think TABOR was a terrible mistake, along with the Gallagher Act/Amendment and needs to be undone before any other fix can have real value.