[nndl] Guess who's not paying their property taxes?

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M Ward wrote:
>
> From: ChangeAustin. org
>
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 7:56 AM
> Subject: Guess Who's Not Paying Their Property Taxes----- Original
> Message -----
>
> Guess who's not paying their property taxes...
>

Thanks go to Brian Rogers for doing the legwork on this. That guy gets
more stuff done than anyone I know. Recently Sebastian informed me that
AISD teachers are paid considerably less than their counterparts in the
suburbs. I responded that something must be rotten in Denmark then, as
we're the ones with the billions of dollars worth of commercial real
estate paying into the system. If anything, AISD teachers should be
paid a lot MORE than their counterparts in the 'burbs.

If the commercial real estate owners are not paying their share of the
property taxes (as is clear from Rogers' research), then this would
explain why AISD is having budget problems. Unfortunately, this is a
complicated issue, as in the state of Texas does not require the
disclosure of the purchase/sales price of commercial properties (making
it much harder to figure out what the appraisal value should be). For
anyone outraged by this and interested in doing more, I suggest talking
to Kirk Watson and Elliot Naishtat and/or Dawna Dukes (our local state
senator/reps) about making this a legislative priority in 2 years when
the leg convenes again.

It certainly doesn't seem fair to me that an out of town developer can
buy a commercial property for 11.2 million dollars and then pay taxes on
an appraised value of 3.7 million -- less than 1/3 of the actual value.
Why doesn't the county me this kind of slack? I actually live here.

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