One of the interesting things that happen as you get a tad older is that you begin to see the long term in situations.

For example.....

There is a law firm in Central Pennsylvania which, in the interest of "fairness in taxation", had initiated in several counties, lawsuits on behalf of "citizens" to force the county to do a reassessment of property for the purposes of taxation.  The contention is that, while the county did a reassessment twenty years ago, property has changed hands, been improved, etc. and now the assessments are unfairly tilted toward newer property owners paying more in taxes.

Well, duh.

Buying property and improving on that property or building large and new structures on that property will increase the worth of that property, thus making it worth more in taxation.  What is so hard to understand about that?

What is interesting is that the "citizens" involved have made no bones about the fact that lower income property owners (who tend, if possible, to hang on to their property as long as possible) are still paying the same amount of taxes they were twenty years ago.  Since most of low income owners have made few, if any, improvements on the property, in essence, they are probably overpaying their taxes.

So, what's happening (as evidenced in a county to the south of this one) is that re-assessors come in, assign new property values to the property and then take the fees and run.  This leads to some incredibly interesting ideas about the relative value of property.  In the county last "helped" by these lawsuits, mountainous and swamp property, which is useless for development, was often assessed at close to $100.000 per acre.  This meant that farmers and owners of vacation and hunting camps were now being assessed a value on their property that made it virtually impossible to hang on to that property.  The only recourse for these land owners was for them to petition the county for an asssessment hearing, which meant that they had to take time away from their jobs or livelihoods (many were farmers) to attend these hearings and defend the realistic value of their property.

The "citizens" who are claiming the unfairness of the taxation seem to have low income property owners in their sights.  And for what purpose, you may ask?

If an individual cannot pay the taxes on their property, it then goes to the county after several years and is sold (often for pennies on the dollar-valuation wise) to whoever can come up with the money to pay the back taxes and small administrative fees.  What is interesting, and I have personal experience in seeing this happen, is that these properties are often bought up by brokers, who then sell to out of the area interests and companies, who then take the properties and develop them for such interests as local zoning or lack of zoning will allow. This is how rural areas become landfills and tire "farms" (large areas where vehicle tires are stacked for disposal) or where several large tracts of land are tied together, sold as a large unit to out of state concerns who then post the land against any use of it.  This posting of the land makes it illegal for fishermen, hunters, hikers, photographers, etc. to visit and use the area for recreation.  It also changes the local culture to an extent that where individuals used to get along and look out for one another, now there is dissention and suspicion among various groups.

In the past decade or so, many of these properties have been sold to groups of investors from urban areas who have relocated to this area and have created compounds where families will "go back to the land", supposedly to give their families a better life, but who, in actuality. believe that a culture war will erupt and they are creating a safe zone to survive the upcoming conflict. No, I am not making this up.

I firmly believe that this "fairness in taxation" has less to do with equalling out the tax base and a heck of a lot to do with making a land grab of the property of elderly and low income individuals.  I suspect, if you will, a sort of "white flight" to the rural areas with the idea of driving out the poor.

If you think about it, the foot dragging in New Orleans is accomplishing, very quietly, the very same thing.

I've been too busy to post the last couple of days.

So, my footprints say 113 visits so far today, not all from the same browser, all about 3-4 min apart.

This is seriously weirding me out.