3379 Tax Shock

Saturday, October 29, 2011

One does not reject, dislike, or avoid pleasure itself because it is pleasure,
but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter
consequences that are extremely painful.
-- Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC --

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I don't pretend to understand the green quote above, but for some reason it intrigues me.

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Latest hitch in my gitalong: The township has suddenly become aware that there's a house on my lot, and has raised the assessment. I get quarterly coupons to pay the real estate taxes, and I have dutifully paid them, to the tune of almost $3,000 so far for the first three quarters of 2001. That sounded about right to me, so it never occurred to me that there might be a problem.

My house upriver is technically larger than this house, walk-out basement, 2.5 car garage, deck and huge windows across the back, on 1.3 acres, on a ridge with a fantastic 20-mile view. This house is smaller, on a tiny lot (probably about 1/4 acre, over half of which I can't use because of a township easement), no basement, tiny 1 car garage. The taxes upriver are a bit over $5K per year, so a bit less than $4K here seemed a bit high, but reasonable enough.

Surprise! That was just for the land. Now that they've figured out there's a house (in addition to the mail box they'd been sending the coupons to, don't know what they thought the box was attached to), they've sent me a bill for the back taxes for 2011. By 11/10 I have to come up with an additional $5,198.75!

The total tax bill for this house is almost $8,000 per year! Holy Crap! I was not expecting this. Gonna have to have a talk with the assessor, I think.
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