Published Friday, September 28, 2007 in East Valley Opinions of the Arizona Republic as “Ok, Kcid, it’s time to eat property tax crow.”
Did you receive that cool cartoon in the mail? You know, the one from Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert that includes your 2007 property tax bill.
Since April, numerous opinion pieces have discussed Tempe’s city property taxes including an exchange between columnist Dick Foreman and myself over what the tax bill would look like. Now that it’s arrived to use Dick’s words from his May 12 column, let’s see who’s “got [it] backwards,” Namerof Kcid or Sllew Evad?
On April 5, after much debate, the Tempe city council sided 4-3 to retain a $1.40 per $100 assessed value tax rate over a counter proposal to lower it by about 12 cents to $1.28 per $100 for the year.
When Foreman first wrote on the issue, he suggested that the council vote combined with higher assessed values would raise his daughter’s city property tax by $300.
I countered that it was more like $30. Read the rest of this entry »