OK, add Maine to the growing list and looks like soon South Carolina:
4-12-2004
Rising property taxes scare off homeowners
Andy Sanders would like to build a new home on his 2.6-acre lot in Orangeburg, S.C. But he's afraid he couldn't afford the taxes.
The property taxes on his small house have nearly tripled to $800 a year since he bought the home in 1997. The tax on a new house could exceed $3,000, and he fears it could rise to $4,000 or $5,000.
"I can afford the house payment, but I'm afraid of the taxes," says Sanders, 29, who works at his father's tire dealership. For now, his family will stay in its old home, appraised at less than $100,000.
Property taxes are resented even in states where they are relatively low. South Carolina's property taxes are below the national average. But when Sanders published a letter in his local newspaper, more than 200 people contacted him about his complaints about the tax.
"They wanted me to lead a crusade against property taxes, but I have a young child and a baby on the way, so I have no time," he says.
Carol Palesky, 64, a tax accountant from Topsham, Maine, did have the time. After two failed efforts, the grandmother who works out of her home gathered the 51,000 signatures to put an anti-property-tax measure on the ballot, probably in November.
Modeled after California's Proposition 13, it would roll back property taxes to 1% of a home's 1997 value. Today, the tax rate averages 1.5% of a home's value in 2002. The proposal would limit future increases to 2%.
Palesky is a citizen activist in the tradition of Howard Jarvis, the 76-year-old retiree who got Prop 13 on the ballot, and was a national symbol of the 1978 tax revolt.
The political establishment from both the Republican and Democratic parties has lined up against her.
Palesky says her campaign began seven years ago while waiting in a line to pay her taxes. Behind her, a burly man with calloused hands had tears in his eyes and a check in his hand.
"He told me, 'If I pay my taxes, I won't be able to buy medicine for my wife or put oil in my furnace,' " she recalls. That night, while brushing her teeth, she asked herself: Why doesn't somebody do something about this? "Looking at myself in the mirror, I knew I had to do something," she says.
It's unclear whether the revolt will spread from Maine. But Palesky says people from other states have called to ask about her campaign.
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The political establishment from both the Republican and Democratic parties has lined up against her."
The Revolution is on. This time instead of England it is our very own Government, the "Blue" coats.
Just a matter of time when the first blood will be shed.
