As Property Values Rise, Homeowners Could Be Pushed Out By Taxes

The New York Times reports:

For several days this month, Ms. Snow sat and watched as a panel of Idaho legislators heard testimony about a battery of proposals, more than three dozen of them intended to ease voter anxiety about the state's skyrocketing property taxes. When her time came to testify, amid a parade of economists, homeowners, lobbyists and statehouse gadflies, she wept and begged the state to do something to save the rural life she had come to Idaho to enjoy.

"The whole question is, why do I have to sell my home because the taxes went crazy?" she said. "All I've got is a rundown barn in the middle of Idaho."

Nearly everyone complains about property taxes, but Ms. Snow seems to have a particular point. In the last year, when her land on the edge of Boise's creeping sprawl was reclassified to residential property from agricultural, her taxes rose to $10,871 from $2,200.

There is an important point here, giving the state the power to tax property means you really don't own property.What would prevent the government from raising the tax to $40,000 next year? If you don't pay up you lose your property. As long as majority can gang up on a minority through the ballot box you are going to have this problem.