Comment 49194

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted October 11, 2010 at 15:35:55

Data is from 2006 Census and city websites...

Burlington...

348k average home price * 1.04 tax rate = $3,691 tax bill

$3,691/$74,969 median household earnings = 4.92% of earnings to the city in taxes.

Hamilton

252k * 1.54% = $3,881

$3,881/$55,312 = 7.02% of earnings to the city in taxes

If the City of Hamilton cut residential taxes as a percentage of earnings to Burlington levels, residential tax rates would fall to 1.079% and average payments would fall to approximately $2,720. Who thinks that an extra $1,161 per household would help our local economy?

The only reason why we don't have fair tax levels is because the city pays our workers the same wage level as richer communities. This is great if you work for the city, but is a raw deal if you don't.

The time for a fair tax on the people of Hamilton is here. We should start demanding a tax grab no bigger than 5% of our median income. Setting a tax cap would force politicians to make budgets based on serving the taxpayer first and their pet projects (Pan Am Stadium) second. They have a tax cap in both Oregon and Massachusetts and neither Boston, nor Portland have suffered because of them.

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds