by James Deuvall

My wife sent me a video today called “Born Again American”  and as usual, for these kinds of videos, it brought tears to my eyes.  The values of liberty, freedom, self-determination and personal responsibilities, the values that have made us the greatest nation in the world since the beginning of history are on the doorstep of being taken from us.  It is encouraging that calls are coming from an increasing number of places for Americans to wake up, stand up and put up.  But what are we to stand up against? Politicians and political parties?  No, we’re a Democratic Republic and our representatives are the cornerstone of that institution.  “I’ll act when they try to take my guns or property away.”  Really?

The threat isn’t going to come from a single politician or as a convoy of military trucks into the village square.  The danger is already here, right here in Burlington Flats.  It’s the barely perceptible shift from reliance on self to reliance on government.  It’s the “I don’t care if my neighbor has to pay more taxes, as long as I don’t” attitude. 

There is hardly anything that I agree with Karl Marx, but on this point, he was correct.   

“Democracy is the road to socialism… a nation hell-bent upon voting itself gifts from the public trough. Once an electorate is hooked on government solutions to personal self-induced problems, like a junkie on cocaine, the democratic process once used to guarantee individual freedom is perverted into a tool used to extinguish individual freedom.” 

And I’ll add, individual freedom is inexorably connected to individual wealth. 

So the “trucks” that have arrived in the village square are the vehicles that take the wealth from one group and give it to another, all in the name of a greater good.  The country listened when a certain candidate said to a plumber named Joe, “it’s a good thing to spread the wealth”.  He could not have expressed Marx’s view better if he tried; yet we stood quietly by and just shook our heads.

Are the “trucks” really rumbling through the Town of Burlington?

The town spends approximately $800,000 to $900,000 each year for the things it does, most of it going to the highway department.  Of that amount, the property owners, the taxpayers pick up around $500,000 to $600,000.  There are roughly 1000 taxpayers in the Town of Burlington.  Does each property owner pay 1/1000 of the bill?  Is the bill divided up on the basis of ability to pay or the number of acres owned?  How about on the basis of the market value of your home?  The answer is no to all of these questions.

Here is a graph of the taxes billed to each property owner arranged from lowest to highest.  The tax billed from the lowest paying taxpayer is added to the next lowest and so on until all $600,000 is accounted for.  This arrangement allows a direct comparison of the contribution of residents to the overall cost of running the town, i.e. 100% of the taxpayers account for 100% of the taxes paid.  The first thing that should grab your attention is the exponential sweep upwards.  This means that the taxpayers at one end of the spectrum are paying far more than the taxpayers at the other end. 

In fact, you can see that a whopping 42% of citizens in this town only contribute 10% to the bill.  Think about that.  You go out to dinner with ten friends, you each order the same thing, the bill comes to $200.  Four of your “friends” toss in $5 each.  Seventy percent of the citizens pay less than a third of the bill.  You and your two closest friends, the three of you, get left with paying $132.  

Based on Acreage

Yeah but a person living on one acre shouldn’t have to pay the same as someone who lives on 300 acres, right?  Guess what, due to exemptions, a person living on one acre probably payes more than a property owner with 300 acres.  Presently, there is no correlation between the number of acres and taxes owed. You want to divide up the tax bill by the number of acres, I’m all for it; but doesn’t that hurt the farmer?  

Ability to pay

How about based on the ability to pay?  It seems to be popular in certain political arenas to pass on the costs to the “wealthy”.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”  Karl Marx

Aside from the obvious class envy and wrong direction that takes us, do you want to supply your NY tax return to the town to make that assessment each year?  Its simply not workable.

Market Value of Home

That would require a reval of all homes every year to keep pace with market conditions.  Assessed value becomes outdated the year following a reval and because of the use of exemptions, the whole idea of market value is lost.  Again, the idea of basing one’s taxes on the value of their home is contrary to the values our founding fathers set forth.  Basically it punishes people for succeeding or even keeping their properties maintained.

Flat Tax

In a town the size of Burlington, the fairest method would be to institute a flat tax for all resident taxpayers.  In other words, divide the portion of the tax bill remaining after commercial and industrial enities pay their share, by the number of taxpayers. By my calculations that would amount to roughly $400 to $500 per year per property.  A town-wide special use district for the highway and municipal services would accomplish this end. School and county taxes would continue to be paid as they are now, as unfair as those systems are.  Truly indigent taxpayers could be handled with appropriate policies, perhaps a delay of collection until the property sells.

For over a year, month in and month out, I have stood alone before the town board advocating the adoption of a special district fee for the transfer station fee.  Since it is folded into the general operating budget of the town, the same 69% of its $40,000 cost is bore by  less than 1/3 of the taxpayers and only about 20% of the residents, assuming that each person presently showing up at the station takes the trash for one other person, even utilizes the service.

If you think this is wrong, if you believe there’s a better way, I’m asking you to act.  Send a letter to the town, send two and three letters, come to the board meetings, write a post on this website.  I implore you to not sit idly by, the “trucks” are circling the square.

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