HB 2480-1 smacks homeowners with $122 million tax hike!

HB 2480-1 hits property owners with a $122 million property tax increase just as home ownership is at its lowest rate in 18 years. People are losing their homes and losing their jobs and local governments through HB 2480-1 wish to make living in Oregon more expensive with a tax increase. HB 2480-1 makes it legal for counties to strip away at the 2-3% property discount homeowners get for full payment of their property taxes. Don’t we wish taxpayers to pay their taxes promptly, does that help both the taxpayer and local governments? If so, why punish them with a new tax by removing their discount? Homeowners are being taxed because local governments are unable to control the $14 billion government pension PERS crisis and they are unable to slow down funding the nation’s 17th biggest spending per capita state in the nation. This is also a tax on jobs as this tax increase impacts commercial property.

These taxes are occurring when taxpayers are seeing other taxes and costs increase. For instance, it was just a few months ago that wage earners saw their payroll taxes increase by 2%. That 2% tax alone has had a measurable impact on consumer spending this year. The more we continue to tax homeowners the more we will see home ownership drop.