The General Assembly is kicking around something called a “Homestead Exemption” for Real Estate taxes. The idea is to make up to 20% of your homes value exempt from real estate taxes. The reason for this is because the General Assembly only lets localities set one tax rate for both residential and commercial property. Allowing localities to exempt some portion of residential real estate from taxation is a (convoluted) way to allow a different rate for residential property. This way when real estate values go up, some adjustments can be made to allow residential property to have a lower rate.
I would welcome more flexibility in property tax rates but it seems to me that a more sensible way to fix this is to allow for two different rates. One for residential and one for commercial property but Richmond has become incredibly partisan and putting this issue in terms of an exemption sells better.
As a local elected I wonder, if Richmond is so worried about the tax burden, why don’t they cut their budgets at the state level? The Real Estate tax funds local operations – schools, public safety and other local responsibilities – not state operations. If the citizens of Manassas want the tax rate lower, they will find Council Members whose priorities are lower taxation and more austere budgets. Just askin….
January 13, 2008 at 10:45 am
A bifurcated tax rate in which commercial property is taxed at a higher rate (no matter how it is derived) than residential property is not the answer. Local businesses already pay a significant tax to the localities (property tax, BPOL, etc) and receive less services than residential properties.
A better method to provide relief for residents is to encourage both the City and the County to continue recruiting more businesses into this community. We have existing space already designated for commercial growth. Manassas and PWC have done a credible job over the past few years in expanding our commercial base, but both jurisdictions still have further to go. In my opinion, this is one of the best methods to “grow” our way out of our current financial problems.
January 13, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Another shell game by our Richmond’s Rogues – remember the car tax?
Cut the taxing authority of local government while increasing
local responsibility for state functions – like K-12 education – AND
take credit for it! Big Bully GA shaking down cities and counties –
again. Arrrr.
Why don’t they dump their damn state income tax and reduce THEIR
spending? They would deserve accolades for that!
January 14, 2008 at 1:33 pm
The GA is also looking at a phase out of the machinery and
tool tax (HB 124). This LOCAL tax generates $83.5 million a year-
including $4.5 million in Manassas. Once again, some devious
folks want the praise and campaign donations for eliminating
a tax, but not the responsibility of filling a huge funding gap for
LOCAL governments.
January 27, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Anyone who has spent time in “Old Town Manassas” knows what has really occurred is a carbon copy of Arlington.
Arlington took its premier river area, called Rosslyn, and then built multi-story buildings to attract office workers and corporations. The county also chose to make as many buildings as tall as it could so it could fit many more day workers.. Even the tourist attraction, the Newseum, saw it could not stay there because it was tourist and local resident unfriendly.
Well, that example of city redevelopment is the model that the current Manassas City Council has chosen to adopt for its downtown area. No less than 4 multi-story buildings have been approved and built with only one having any kind of main street retail operation. Al the others are for offices only. And to do this, exisiting retail space was taken down in some cases.
It seems that City Council wants to choke the retail life out of “Old Town” and replace it with nine to five, Monday to Friday businesses. They rant and rave about the sign on Liberty Street, but don’t bring new retail businesses to Old Town. It seems that Waldron and company want you to shop in PWC.
And then these same fine individuals will tell you that city taxes for 2008-09 need to go up cause they don’t have enough money.
What geniuses. Do nothing to bring retail life to Old Town so that their is actually out of city money spent in Manassas, but allow it to become another Rosslyn…dead at night and on weekends and let you and I, as city residents, be the suckers for paying higher taxes this year.
February 7, 2008 at 9:34 am
It’s sad that our “Old Town” is essentially a ghost town. I don’t blame the current council/mayor though, this should have been addressed back in the mid 80’s when all those “city” farmlands were turning into Wellington and Clover Hill subdivisions.