Monthly Archive for Taxes
Taxes Stories Posted in August 2008
NOVEMBER BALLOT: Property tax petition advances
Category: Taxes · State: Nevada · Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Secretary of State Ross Miller on Thursday rejected a challenge to Sharron Angle's initiative petition to cap property tax rates, sending it to the November general election. The constitutional amendment, which would limit annual property tax increases to 2 percent per year on all property, faced a challenge from the state teachers union aimed at keeping it off the ballot. After a review of the complaint and the response from Angle's attorney, the concerns over the affidavits filed by signature gatherers were rejected, said Matt Griffin, deputy secretary of state for elections. Barring a successful legal challenge by the Nevada State Education Association in the courts, the measure will be on the ballot, he said. It will have to pass twice, in November and again in 2010, before it can take effect.
Tax rates proposal may go to ballot
Category: Taxes · State: Michigan · Source: Detroit Free Press
Residents in Troy may get to decide during the November election whether the city would need to get voter approval for future tax increases. Advertisement The Troy City Council is considering a citizen-initiated petition, signed by more than 2,700 residents, that proposes freezing the city's tax rate for operating and capital costs at 8.1 mills, costing a resident with a home that has a $124,885 taxable value -- the average in Troy -- $1,012 a year. The council discussed the issue Monday but postponed making a decision until the Aug. 11 meeting. "I am 100% for the people and putting it on the ballot," Troy resident Audre Zembrzuski, who signed the petition, told the council Monday. "I think it's about time we got down to brass tacks."
Judge: Redo wording on 1-cent tax plan
Category: Taxes · State: Arizona · Source: Arizona Daily Star
The group backing an initiative on the November ballot to raise the state sales tax to fund transportation won a battle to get the proposal's description rewritten in the voter information pamphlet. The initiative would add a penny tax on each dollar spent to pay for 30 years' worth of road and transit projects statewide. Supporters went to court over the wording in a state voter information pamphlet approved by a legislative committee, saying it would sway voters to say no.
Petition for state education funding filed
Category: Education · State: Oklahoma · Source: Tulsa World
Leading public education support groups including the Oklahoma Education Association filed a petition Wednesday with the state to put to a vote of the people a requirement that Oklahoma's students are funded at the average of the seven-state regional level. Chuck Pack, a teacher at Tahlequah High School, said he is spending about $600 a school year so that his math students have adequate supplies.
Make it a double: 2 drink tax referenda likely
Category: Alcohol Sales · State: Pennsylvania · Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Drink tax foes will submit a petition to the Allegheny County board of elections today, setting the stage for dueling ballot referenda in November on the controversial levy. Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation amassed far more than the required 23,006 signatures to get its measure on the ballot, said the group's attorney, Cris Hoel. The referendum, if approved by county voters, would mandate that the tax on poured alcoholic drinks be reduced from 10 percent to no more than 0.5 percent. County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and his allies on County Council oppose such a measure, saying that reducing or eliminating the drink tax -- which, along with a $2-per-day rental car tax, helps fund the Port Authority -- would require a property tax hike to compensate.
Boston Tax Party
Category: Taxes · State: Massachusetts · Source: Wall Street Journal
Massachusetts is about the last place one would expect a tax revolt, but that's what's brewing in Beantown. The state board of elections recently certified that citizen activists have gathered the 125,000 signatures required to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to eliminate the state income tax. The Small Government Act would repeal the 5.3% income and wage tax, as well as the state capital gains tax, which reaches as high as 12%. The ballot initiative would replace the $12.5 billion in taxes with . . . nothing. "One of the points here," explains Carla Howell of the Committee for Small Government that is driving the referendum, "is to force the state legislators to start cutting the bloated state budget." The political shock of having no income tax would force the pols on Beacon Hill to make the difficult spending choices they now refuse to make.
Petition seeks referendum on spending
Category: City Government · State: Wisconsin · Source: Fon du Lac Reporter
A petition with more than 400 signatures calls for the Village of North Fond du Lac to go to referendum for all future expenditures that exceed $1 million. The petition was filed in the village office on Thursday, just one day after a heated public hearing during which officials moved plans forward, despite some citizen opposition, for a $37 million lakeside hotel/convention center/marina. Copies of the petition were being circulated during the meeting Wednesday night that ended when members of the village’s Community Development Authority (CDA) approved a resolution that launches the process for formation of a tax incremental financing (TIF) district. The TIF district would help fund redevelopment of land, and the proposed Winnebago Project resort, to be located along Lake Winnebago on blighted property owned by developer Alex Zabel.
Ritter says credit used to lure industries in 1970s
Category: Taxes · State: Colorado · Source: Grand Junction Sentinel
“Enough is enough.” That’s the message Gov. Bill Ritter brought to Grand Junction on Thursday in his pitch for eliminating a lucrative tax credit Colorado’s oil and gas companies receive. Ritter told The Daily Sentinel’s editorial board that abolishing Colorado’s “ad valorem” tax credit is a matter of “fairness.” Ritter said the tax credit, which allows energy companies to subtract 87.5 percent of their property tax bills from the severance taxes they owe, has its roots in the late 1970s when Colorado wanted to help the energy industry establish itself in the state. State economists have credited the subsidy with severely eating into the amount of money Colorado can use to confront the stresses energy development places on local governments and public infrastructure. Ritter said the need for the credit is gone, given the health of the energy industry in Colorado. “There is a time when a tax credit becomes obsolete as a matter of fiscal policy,” Ritter said.
Other Monthly Archives for Taxes
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