FROZEN: Tax bill shortsighted

As reported in the Press, House Bill 409, the “property tax freeze bill” seeks to freeze city, county and other non-school taxing districts’ property tax budgets for the upcoming fiscal year at the dollar amount each entity received for the current fiscal year. This bill also impacts highway districts, NIC, fire districts and all other non-school taxing entities.

House Bill 409 is premised on the flawed assumption that freezing property taxes will help homeowners in areas with rapidly escalating values. In reality, this bill is not only making a false promise to the taxpayers, who will not see any appreciable change in their property tax bills, it is also a complete turnaround on the long standing promise to our current citizens that “Growth will pay for itself.” Indeed, the freeze will force the cost of new development on our existing homeowners, rather than taxing the increased values being paid by those moving into our community.

The Legislature has multiple tools at its disposal to fix the increased tax burden on our existing homeowners caused by rising residential home values, including the simple solution of increasing and/or indexing the Homeowner’s Exemption, which was capped by the Legislature at $100,000 a few years ago, and providing additional relief through the Circuit Breaker program, which helps low-income homeowners who are elderly, widow(ers), disabled or blind.

Freezing property taxes will force cities to essentially bring development to a halt, if they are unable to pay for the services and infrastructure needed to serve Idaho’s growing population. Property taxes pay for vital police and fire services that protect our communities and maintain our streets and bridges.

Idaho is and will continue to be an attractive destination for many reasons. Reducing development will not reduce the number of folks seeking to move to our region of the country, but with fewer residential properties being developed, we will certainly continue to see increased prices for those homes being sold (simple supply and demand), and that will provide the increased comparable values that will impact your taxes in the future.

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Len Crosby is a Post Falls resident.