Protest against the proposed Tucson Rent Tax, 4/28/09

[wyldemusick]

Protest page with information.Basically, the Mayor and Council are going to be discussing implementing on a tax on rentals. This will be a 2% tax, and though it seems a small percentage, it will be an additional hardship for a lot of people, as well as providing landlords with an additional procedural burden

Comments

[tatoeba_tadayou]

thanks for the link (and Kynn, for writing it). This part is what stands out to me:
"The rental tax is used in many other communities. Our sources tell us that it used to be charged in Tucson, but it was repealed as a sort of trade-off when state lawmakers started making landlords pay more in property taxes. Those lawmakers, a few years later, changed their minds and gave landlords a property-tax break, but the city never went back to charging landlords their 2 percent tax."

... why should a rental property be exempt from property taxes? aren't property taxes part of how local school districts are funded? roar roar etc etc

[kynn]

That's me quoting the Tucson Weekly, which doesn't say who their sources are. And I sure wish they had, because that's an important part of the equation here.

[anonymous]

It doesn't say they don't pay property taxes, it says they no longer have to pay way more than everyone else.

Funding schools with property tax is ridiculous anyway.

[tatoeba_tadayou]

thanks for the clarification, I'm tired as hell right now.

funding schools with property taxes makes a lot more sense to me than funding them with cigarette taxes, anyway. :P

[aaybara]

I'm a landlord and I pay plenty of property tax. The rent I bring in doesn't fully cover the mortgage on the house, the rest I pay in as an investment. But, I also pay income tax on the rent that I collect, and it's considered self employment tax, so it's slightly higher than what I pay on the money I get from my job.

Why should my renters have to pay more taxes? Why should I have to take another step to collect this from my renters and have to have more forms to fill out for my tax stuff to pass that money on to the government?

[kynn]

Well, to be fair, my post doesn't debunk the idea of opposition to the tax -- but I do ask some questions designed to get us wondering just who is behind the astroturf corporate-sponsored protest tomorrow, and what their agenda is.

I can see someone reading over my post and still deciding it's worth it to oppose the rent tax. But I'd wonder why those same people aren't calling for better rent control laws so that we can avoid having our rents increase drastically every time we sign a new lease.