[Vision2020] Column on MSD in the Daily News

[Melynda Huskey]

Bill Strand notes:

"I've always accepted that the property taxes in Moscow are well above average. This seems to be intuitively obvious as the largest employers in Moscow pay no property  
taxes (federal government, U of I, WSU and Gritman). This shifts the tax  
burden from businesses to residential. It is one of the reasons I have  
always supported business development in Moscow - to distribute the  
taxes (and thus lower my own property taxes)."

There are indeed a significant number of tax exemptions in Latah County, not just in Moscow.  Interestingly, one of the duties of the County Commissioners is to review tax exemptions on an annual basis, scrutinizing the rationale for the exemption, and making sure that all reasonable taxes are collected.  A somewhat high-profile example of tax exemption being challenged by a couple of citizens here in Moscow may have crossed your radar screen--but it turns out that tax exemptions of all kinds are generally unchallenged and unreviewed throughout the county.  One easy and straightforward way to distribute taxes would be to ask our Commissioners to perform their duty in this regard--to review applications annually, and to ask for documentary evidence of eligibility, putting the burden on the petitioner to prove their legal right to exemption, rather than granting exemptions without investigation, simply at petitioner's request.  We'd all benefit from this higher level of scrutiny.

Melynda HuskeyGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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