Should Downtown Go Cheaper?

I’ve never fully agreed with Ed Lazere’s (and his one man D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute) statistical assessments. Jack Evans’s real estate tax proposal simply limits the amount your tax can rise each year. It doesn’t reduce the revenue to the city, only the potential revenue to the city. Kind of like saying, “by not doubling taxes, we are losing xxx million dollars per year”. Jack is putting a cap on increases because of the huge number of complaints in his district from low-mid level income individuals who own their homes (sometimes for generations) and now they are having trouble paying their tax bills. So he put in a cap across the board. Ed says it is unfair, because it benefit rich more than the poor. However, if you did away with real estate tax all together to entice more people to move into the district, that would also benefit the rich more than the poor when you look at it in the aggregate, even though the poor wouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all. I also think it benefits low income renters, because the slower rise in taxes to their landlords keeps off the pressure for the landlords to raise the rents.

If landlords pay the same property taxes as private residents, then this proposal really would ease everyone’s housing burden, rich or poor (or, in my case, yuppie who’s not yet rich enough to own a house).