Editorial, 1/1/09
Here's an unpleasantry awaiting Maryland homeowners in 2009: Even if your home has declined in value this year - perhaps even substantially - and your local tax rates are unchanged, you may be facing a higher property tax bill. Talk about adding insult to injury. There's nothing quite like taking a heavy dose of theoretical pain (the loss of equity in your home, which you don't see until it's time to sell) with a bracing chaser of higher taxes in the here and now. For about one-third of homeowners, the bad news arrived in the mail this week with the latest round of real estate assessment notices.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.assessments01jan01,0,7596815.story
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This is another perpetual money machine feeding the state's coffers. The idea was to avoid rate adjustments in the face of rising assessments. Many thought the tax rates would never catch up to the rising values...but they will...because those values are dropping - quickly and far. And that's especially bad news as Central Maryland housing values are dropping up to 20 percent in the "correction" and many are (were) transient owners. Toss in the number of home owners who are already "upside-down" on their mortgages, and there will be a real crisis as taxes are based on trailing assessments that will take years to correct downward. Another example of that road paved with "good intentions."
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