Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Leslie writes:
(comments are not in order)

>If the taxman cometh and taketh the land for non-payment or under payment of 
real estate tax - there's no way to homestead.

This need not be a major concern.  This county is infamous in this state for 
higher real estate taxes.  The yearly taxes on twenty acres and a house with 
outbuildings and other imporvements is currently $265 a year.  As far as the 
prospects of those taxes gettin appreciably higher, this county is also 
famous 
for lynching anyone who even whispers the notion of a property tax increase.  
Any county councilman who even utters the phrase is out of offive for life.  

In the case of a nearby county, the county board raised the property tax rate 
and the people initiated a proposition reducing it previous levels and also 
recall petitions to oust the board members who had voted for it.  Both were 
hugely successful.

Here almost all property tax revenue goes for three things  1) Government 
schools  2) Roads   3) Police.  All the fire crews are volunteer and very 
little 
is spent on that.  As society shifts, I expect to see government school 
participation waning.  As motor fuel rises once again, the expense for 
highway 
departments will also decrease.  Alas, we don't pay the police very much and 
so 
they aren't much of a tax burden.

All in all the spectre of losing one's farmstead to property tax delinquency 
is rather remote, at leas it is in may locations around the country.


>(If James has reached the point where he can live "money free" except for 
the taxman - I congratulate him.)  

Leslie, as long as we do not fall into an 'argumentum ad absurdum', then it's 
true that except for a few inevitable taxes, I CAN live money free.    I had 
a long reply supporting this but I have deleted it.  Talking about money to 
true believers is like talking to fundamentalists about Jesus.  The subject 
really isn't open to debate, like the devotee who sees Brahman in every stone 
and 
twig, the monetary true believer sees every transaction in terms of money 
even 
if it doesn't really have anything to do with it.