Pasayten's Methow Valley Bulletin Board

And maybe it doesn't matter that they want an indoor pool or are changing their messaging to just "a pool". What matters is we do not want an MPD or recreation district to help fund this endeavor. Justin says it is a big ask and yes, it is just too big for many people.
I prefer my money go to those in need in our community. Those that don't have enough food, or enough money to heat their living space, if they have a living space, those that need medical care and also counciling. There are organizations that provide these things as long as they have donations and some grants. Why would I want to give $600 to a pool, when I could give to these organizations that really care about the welfare of the community.

PAL wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2023 7:01 am I . But we do notice FOP is possibly backing down from an indoor aquatics center, so they are sort of saying. But they really prefer indoor.
Just NO.

This is true, the FOP really does prefer an indoor pool option and if prop 1 passes, that's exactly what they will move forward on. The 20 + Million Dollar (not including land purchase) Mega MAC would be built to support the tourist and amenity driven culture that is taking over a lot of mountain communities in the West like our Valley. Voting for prop 1 means a loss of our community values of giving in favor of "taking" from those who can't afford this luxury tax. Or as Dr Sherman alludes to in her book "Dividing Paradise", a loss of empathy.

From FOP website
"Based on community and expert input gathered from 2019-2022, an indoor, year-round facility with two pools of different temperatures, was selected for the current working plan."

"There is strong public support for a year-round, indoor pool that would accommodate athletes, young children, and our aging population"

A quote From an interview with sociologist Dr Jennifer Sherman author of "Dividing Paradise". That book is based on a study of the Methow Valley.

"On the other hand, I also critique the liberal understandings that I saw there, which often include espousing a belief in social justice and equality but then also judging individuals and not wanting to interact with those poor individuals. You want to solve poverty, but you don’t want your kids playing with their kids. There’s cognitive dissonance between the ideals of equality and the actual practice of it on the ground. I have a lot of quotes from the same individuals saying, on the one hand, “Oh I care about all these lofty ideals,” but then telling me, like, “I don’t know if you’ve met the poor people here, but they’re really lazy,” expressing a lot of judgment for the individuals, while still claiming to care about the ideology or the ideals, which again is that class blindness. The end of the book suggests that one of the things that’s gone wrong here is the division of this place. People don’t know each other the way they once would have in a rural community where everybody is kind of friends with everybody. Some had more than others, but you understood what the other person was going through. Your experiences were similar enough that you still had empathy. I saw that, as these divisions grew more hardened, empathy disappeared and people didn’t understand each other’s experiences and didn’t work together as a community to solve problems."

https://soc.wsu.edu/socnews/interview-w ... -paradise/

I just figured out what the taxes would be for us if the .75/$1000 would be levied. Almost $600 in addition to all the other taxes for the majority of essential services. We usually donate to the Cove, MHT, and the medical community. This could cut into what we like to donate for food and shelter.
Oh, that's right, the indoor pool would give people shelter from smoke.
This will not pass once property owners realize what they would be paying for a luxury. But we do notice FOP is possibly backing down from an indoor aquatics center, so they are sort of saying. But they really prefer indoor.
Just NO.

mister_coffee wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 3:32 pm So what you are saying is that Wikipedia, my college textbooks, and my college professors were all wrong? And you somehow know better because of stuff you read somewhere on the internet? No.

I'm quoting the Washington State Department of Revenue concerning Washington State sales and property taxes as being regressive taxes.

Yes, I trust that source as more credible than the straw man you're building and arguing against.

Here is that WSDOR chart again detailing how low income families pay a greater amount of their incomes towards regressive taxes, such as sales and property taxes, then families with greater monetary resources.

Its really such a simple concept. A Metropolitan Park District that is setup to collect new property taxes in order to fund a luxury pool is just not affordable to some families. So why would anyone voluntarily impose that tax burden on them?

Vote no on prop 1 and help keep low income families in their homes and in our hearts.

Most people would agree that tax fairness would be for each household to have the same ratio of tax to household income. Taxes in Washington State are generated from property taxes, sales taxes, business taxes, and a few smaller taxes. Per Washington State Dept of Revenue, the tax structure in Washington State is very regressive, and is considered by many the most regressive in the country. Households who earn less than $25,000 pay 17% of their total income on state taxes, while those earning more than $500,000 pay less than 2%. Property taxes function as regressive taxes, hitting the poorest the hardest and taking the largest % of their income. Over 20% of the households in this valley have household income of less than $25,000 per year. These are the folks that will be hit hardest by the MAC’s property tax increase. Vote against Proposition 1 and it’s regressive (or harmful, if you prefer that term) taxes!

Thanks Ray for clarifying. That makes sense so they are regressive.

Property Taxes
Property taxes are fundamentally regressive because, if two individuals in the same tax jurisdiction live in properties with the same values, they pay the same amount of property tax, regardless of their incomes.

But they are not purely regressive in practice because they are based on the value of the property. Generally, it is thought that lower-income earners live in less expensive homes, thus partially indexing property taxes to income.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regressivetax.asp

OK, so what would be a better word? Unfair, inequitable? Too late now as the signs are made. And to property owners it could be said it is regressive because the whole way they assess property values is regressive. Assessing on the what the comparable sales are. Or fair market value. It's beyond my control that my property value went up so much. Guess my husband and I shouldn't have worked so hard to make it a nice place to reside. And never mind that they did a comparable sale on an unbuildable piece, as in a small strip of land between the road and the river. 50'x6'. So they call it riverfront. We appealed, no, nada, nope.
This to me is regressive or down right robbery. We gladly pay our taxes for the services we are getting. But be sure and vote no on this unfair Prop.
Unfair, as it is on the backs of property owners.

Fun CH wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 12:19 pm please stop pretending that you are the tax expert.

[/quote]

I'm not a tax expert. I just paid attention in economics class at University. I don't think these folks did.

What Paul Heyne ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Heyne ) told me in 1982 was that taxes that are at a higher rate for lower values of the object being taxed are regressive. Just like Wikipedia's and Google's definition in 2023.

So what you are saying is that Wikipedia, my college textbooks, and my college professors were all wrong? And you somehow know better because of stuff you read somewhere on the internet? No.

The "tax experts" you use are using an absurd definition where all taxes would be regressive by definition. That only makes sense if you just blindly take what you read on websites at face value without actually thinking critically.

The end point is that arguing the pool tax is regressive doesn't help the cause and might well hurt it. I think enough good information has been collected to make the case against the aquatic district to persuade reasonable people to vote against it. Calling the tax regressive when it is arguably not won't persuade more people.

mister_coffee wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 11:55 am
I can't say anything about the articles you have read or the tax experts you are quoting. All I know is that the serious classical economics definition of "regressive tax" is what Wikipedia and Google also give us.

please stop pretending that you are the tax expert. I'm not a tax expert either. I'm just quoting tax experts like the Washington State Department of Revenue study who say property taxes and sales tax are regressive and hurting the poor.

Its also a fact that low income families below a certain income threshold minus the standard deduction, aren't required to pay federal income taxes.

You can refute these facts all you want it doesn't change the facts.

Or you can continue to base your argument on semantics, which is a weak argument in the face of tax experts who don't support your faulty logic.

The trouble with misinformation is that people believe it. Or at the very least it gives them reasoning that allows them to turn a blind eye towards the plight of the low-income families in this Valley and vote in favor of a luxury pool tax on the backs of their hard labor.

dhop wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:08 am Mr. Coffee. Every article I’ve read on property taxes considers them regressive taxes. Property taxes are fundamentally regressive because “if two individuals in the same tax jurisdiction live in properties with the same values, they pay the same amount of property tax, regardless of their incomes”. In Washington State, the lowest income earners pay 15.7% of income for total excise and property tax while the highest earners pay 4.4% for the same taxes.
Payroll taxes are assessed to pay for your social security retirement. Your bad example of investment income not being subject to payroll tax makes absolutely no sense because that income does not count towards your social security benefit when you retire. You really want to tax peoples’ investment income and then deny them social security benefits when they retire?
Almost 50% of households pay no federal income tax. I agree that tax loopholes give the rich tax benefits that the middle class doesn’t get, but income taxes are hardly regressive to the poor, who pay no tax.
Ask any low income earner in our valley what tax is killing them and I’ll bet the vast majority will say the property tax. And that tax keeps going up and up as property values rise and additional taxes like the pool tax arise. The theme of this thread is more than valid.

Let's break that up a bit.

Property taxes are fundamentally regressive because “if two individuals in the same tax jurisdiction live in properties with the same values, they pay the same amount of property tax, regardless of their incomes”.

How exactly does that happen? You don't need to be a genius to see that, on the average, people with higher incomes own more valuable properties (and hence pay higher property taxes in absolute dollars). And also people who have higher incomes, on the average, tend to live in neighborhoods with higher-valued properties (which will also pay more in property taxes).

When we are talking about "progressive" and "regressive" we are really talking about averages for the discussion to have any meaning at all.

If you were to make a scatter plot of incomes versus effective tax rate for all taxes, it would be true that the people at the lower end of the income spectrum pay higher overall tax rates. Absolutely. But what is causing that is mathematics and not an unjust tax system. And if your definition of "regressive" (or the definition of your favorite tax experts) makes nearly all taxes be regressive by definition, then what use is the term? It is like calling socks "foot socks". It is redundant.

And it isn't just taxes. People with a lower income pay higher percentages of their income for food, housing, and health care. And not because the system is unjust (but it might still be) or rigged (but it might still be) but because people with a lower income have less money to pay for stuff. So they can't afford luxuries like skis or snowmobiles or fine dining experiences in Chelan.

I can't say anything about the articles you have read or the tax experts you are quoting. All I know is that the serious classical economics definition of "regressive tax" is what Wikipedia and Google also give us.

mister_coffee wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 8:06 am
I stand by my position that the thread title is misleading and false. And it is a bad look for the effort to oppose the pool district.

David, your opinion is wrong. The experts at the WSDOR on that graph list two of the Wa State regressive taxes, a sales tax and a property tax. What part of tax experts reporting that property taxes are regressive don't you understand?

Both of these regressive taxes are already hurting low income people in our State and in our Valley. Every tax expert will tell you that property taxes are regressive taxes, yet you don't agree. It doesn't matter that sales taxes in Wa. are more regressive than property taxes. They are both regressive taxes.

Oh and here just one example of how the FOP is misleading voters (perhaps your reference to a lie).

From the FOP web page.

"Creating this Aquatics District means that all property owners within the district will pay a tax based on the assessed value of their property. For every $100,000 of property value you own, the most you’d pay is $75. The tax will never be more than that, but it could be less. "

Stated again by FOP on Methownet BB.

"The levy by law CAN NOT be more than $75 per $100,000 of assessed value. No more."

Wa State laws defines under RCW 35.61.210 a MPD can return to the voters to raise an additional excess levy with 60% voter approval.


"3) The board is hereby authorized to levy a general tax in excess of its regular property tax levy or levies when authorized so to do at a special election conducted in accordance with and subject to all the requirements of the Constitution and laws of the state now in force or hereafter enacted governing the limitation of tax levies. The board is hereby authorized to call a special election for the purpose of submitting to the qualified voters of the park district a proposition to levy a tax in excess of the regular levy rates authorized for the district under subsection..."

Mr. Coffee. Every article I’ve read on property taxes considers them regressive taxes. Property taxes are fundamentally regressive because “if two individuals in the same tax jurisdiction live in properties with the same values, they pay the same amount of property tax, regardless of their incomes”. In Washington State, the lowest income earners pay 15.7% of income for total excise and property tax while the highest earners pay 4.4% for the same taxes.
Payroll taxes are assessed to pay for your social security retirement. Your bad example of investment income not being subject to payroll tax makes absolutely no sense because that income does not count towards your social security benefit when you retire. You really want to tax peoples’ investment income and then deny them social security benefits when they retire?
Almost 50% of households pay no federal income tax. I agree that tax loopholes give the rich tax benefits that the middle class doesn’t get, but income taxes are hardly regressive to the poor, who pay no tax.
Ask any low income earner in our valley what tax is killing them and I’ll bet the vast majority will say the property tax. And that tax keeps going up and up as property values rise and additional taxes like the pool tax arise. The theme of this thread is more than valid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.[1][2][3][4][5] "Regressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, so that the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate.[6][7] In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich: there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer's ability to pay, as measured by assets, consumption, or income. These taxes tend to reduce the tax burden of the people with a higher ability to pay, as they shift the relative burden increasingly to those with a lower ability to pay.[8]

This is the strict economic definition of a regressive tax. As such, it has nothing to do with the overall income of the taxpayer (well, unless it is a regressive income tax).

The Wikipedia article goes on to give examples of regressive taxes in the real world. US Payroll taxes are included (and rightly so) but flat taxes on property are not.

Another definition of "regressive" is that a tax is regressive if a lower-income person pays a higher proportion of their income on the tax than a higher-income person does. This definition is in many ways ridiculous but the most obvious one is that nearly all taxes effectively work this way because of simple mathematics. About the only way you could have a truly "non-regressive" tax under this definition is if all of your taxes were calculated subject to the reported income of the taxpayer -- which means that when you buy beer at Hanks you'd need to show last years tax return? We don't do things that way and that is not how things work. Even a rebate on a tax for low-income people only sort of compensates for that, as the low-income person still has to pay the tax and give the government an interest-free loan until they get the rebate check.

Our income tax system is "regressive", even though our personal income taxes are "progressive". When you take the whole thing as a system (basically whatever we account for on the 1040 form) the system is very regressive, through capped flat-rate taxes on wages to much lower tax rates on capital gains and other investment income. Poor people don't have investment income, while wealthy people usually do. Investment income is not subject to payroll taxes. Wages are.

I stand by my position that the thread title is misleading and false. And it is a bad look for the effort to oppose the pool district.

Mr. Coffee. A person making $150,000 pays the same payroll tax rate as a person making $30,000. Payroll taxes were established to help pay for your retirement. The uppermost taxable payroll amount is capped at $160,000 because the uppermost social security benefit amount is capped. At least that’s the rationale for not taxing all payroll.
Lower income folks pay a much, much higher percentage of their income in property taxes than wealthier people. This is the very definition of a regressive tax.
A sales tax of 0.2% would be a far fairer way of funding the pool, as it would tax all users, not just property owners. And it is much less costly. You could spend $100 in Winthrop and Twisp every single day and the additional tax would amount to only $73 (groceries aren’t taxed). We pay extra sales taxes when visiting cities like Seattle. We should return the favor and tax visitors to our towns as well.
I am a landlord but will not pass on these ridiculous pool property taxes to my hardworking tenants struggling to get ahead. Property taxes should be for essential services everyone uses and needs, not for a $20 million luxury pool.

mister_coffee wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 4:20 pm Definition of a regressive tax:

A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. "Regressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, so that the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate.

Good examples of regressive taxes are taxes on alcohol and tobacco. The tax for a hypothetical pool district is not a regressive tax because the tax rate is the same for all property values.

It is true, even if the tax is not regressive, that it will certainly cause hardship for many homeowners and renters in the valley.

One could argue that the effect of payroll taxes on the US Tax system makes those taxes regressive.

the quote that you used has a second paragraph. The Methow Aquatics District /Methow Aquatic Center MPD (MAD MAC)will impose Property taxes that are regressive taxes and by nature impose a greater burden on low income families than middle income and wealthy familes. This is just a fact no matter how anyone wants to spin it.

Second paragraph of your quoted Google search result.

"In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich — there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer’s ability to pay as measured by assets, consumption, or income."

https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Booksh ... tax%20rate.

mister_coffee wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 10:49 pm Chris, in the very first paragraph of that screenshot it says that the primary source of the regressiveness in Washington's tax system is the sales tax, not the property tax. So arguably Ray's proposal to use sales taxes to pay for the pool is more regressive than using property taxes.

dhop, social security payroll taxes are 6.2% for the first $160,200 and zero after that. So if you make $320,400 per year you pay 3.1% for social security taxes. That is pretty damned regressive.

The overall federal income tax system is extremely regressive when you consider that the very wealthiest people earn most of their income through investment income, which is taxed at much lower rates and sometimes not at all. This combined with the payroll tax bite from social security taxes at the lower end makes the overall system pretty darned regressive in practice.

Listen, strictly speaking regressive taxes aren't necessarily worse than progressive taxes. For example, alcohol and tobacco taxes are extremely regressive but I'd argue that is okay. because part of the purpose of those taxes is to deter people from purchasing those products. Also, even a progressive tax can make life hard for people with less money. In general it is very easy to unintentionally make life hard for people who don't have much money.

My point continues to be is how property taxes are structured in Washington State is not regressive. So the proposed Pool District tax based on property taxes cannot be regressive. So it is incorrect to characterize the proposals as such.

Again if you are accusing your political opponents of lying you absolutely want your own facts straight.

Mr. Bonn, it is you who do not have your facts straight. Yes sales taxes are regressive as shown on that WSDOR graph that I posted. That still doesn't alter the fact that property taxes are regressive. That graph shows the effect when they're combined.

So are payroll taxes as you have indicated (but income taxes, which we've already discussed are not regressive taxes). Payroll taxes we get back in the form of Social Security and Medicare benefits, both programs that benefit low income families.

Even the Washington State Department of Revenue says that Washington State taxes are regressive which is entirely contrary to your point.

So yes, the property taxes that proposition 1 imposes on low income familes that really can't afford them, are regressive taxes.

Chris, in the very first paragraph of that screenshot it says that the primary source of the regressiveness in Washington's tax system is the sales tax, not the property tax. So arguably Ray's proposal to use sales taxes to pay for the pool is more regressive than using property taxes.

dhop, social security payroll taxes are 6.2% for the first $160,200 and zero after that. So if you make $320,400 per year you pay 3.1% for social security taxes. That is pretty damned regressive.

The overall federal income tax system is extremely regressive when you consider that the very wealthiest people earn most of their income through investment income, which is taxed at much lower rates and sometimes not at all. This combined with the payroll tax bite from social security taxes at the lower end makes the overall system pretty darned regressive in practice.

Listen, strictly speaking regressive taxes aren't necessarily worse than progressive taxes. For example, alcohol and tobacco taxes are extremely regressive but I'd argue that is okay. because part of the purpose of those taxes is to deter people from purchasing those products. Also, even a progressive tax can make life hard for people with less money. In general it is very easy to unintentionally make life hard for people who don't have much money.

My point continues to be is how property taxes are structured in Washington State is not regressive. So the proposed Pool District tax based on property taxes cannot be regressive. So it is incorrect to characterize the proposals as such.

Again if you are accusing your political opponents of lying you absolutely want your own facts straight.

mister_coffee wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 4:43 pm These replies might seem nit-picky. They probably are.

On the other hand, accusing your political opposition of lying when you are also making misleading statements (or just playing fast and loose with words) is a very poor look.

Words have meanings. You needn’t make up new ones.

Your going to have to give an example (quote) of a misleading statement.

And what is the word that I am making up a new meaning for? Are you saying that property taxes are not regressive?

Because if you are, check out this capture of a page in a Washington State Department of Revenue study which includes a chart of regressive taxes.



https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... jJtc73WDNC
Income chart from the MAC feasibility study

Mr. Coffee, Payroll taxes are 7.5% for everyone, so they are not considered regressive. I’ll give you an example of how property taxes are regressive, and it especially applies to people in this valley: Twenty years ago two houses of the same quality and size are built next to each other. The owners of the homes put in a lot of sweat equity building the houses, and thus the total cost of each was less than $100,000. Both owners earn $30,000 per year in a valley where that is a sufficient amount to live on. Property taxes for each home are $500 (2% of income). A wealthy person making $200,000 per year working in the valley remotely buys one of the homes for $1,000,000. Both properties are taxed at the same rate, but at the new “fair market value” of $1 million. Both pay $5,000 in property taxes, but the old timer is now paying 17% of his income in taxes while the new wealthier guy is paying 2.5%.
This is happening big time in this valley and is the subject of Jennifer Sherman’s book “Dividing Paradise”. There is no misleading going on here, at least by the opponents of Proposition 1. Twisp Works just released a publication showing that 19% of the folks in the Methow now work remotely and earn salaries that average over $200,000. I’m guessing most moved here recently during and after the Covid scare and paid very high prices for their homes. I don’t think these are the folks that will suffer from the increased property taxes, but many whose property assessments went up big time will suffer.

These replies might seem nit-picky. They probably are.

On the other hand, accusing your political opposition of lying when you are also making misleading statements (or just playing fast and loose with words) is a very poor look.

Words have meanings. You needn’t make up new ones.

Definition of a regressive tax:

A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. "Regressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, so that the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate.

Good examples of regressive taxes are taxes on alcohol and tobacco. The tax for a hypothetical pool district is not a regressive tax because the tax rate is the same for all property values.

It is true, even if the tax is not regressive, that it will certainly cause hardship for many homeowners and renters in the valley.

One could argue that the effect of payroll taxes on the US Tax system makes those taxes regressive.

Its a fact that the property taxes that the FOP Proposition 1 proposal will impose on our community will hurt low-income families. If the family described in this article below were living in our School District, the good people of the FOP would be taxing them to pay for a luxury pool while this family struggles to pay for insulin.

20% of the families living in our school district earn below $25,000 per year. Depending upon the number of children living in that family, that income is below the poverty line.

I can't understand how people can support Proposition 1 knowing the harm it will cause in our community, in so many ways.



"ABERDEEN, Wash. — As she opened her $1,600 property tax bill in February, Edith Baltazar suddenly lost her appetite for the eggs she’d prepared for lunch with her daughter. Her thoughts raced: Would their home be taken away if she couldn’t pay it?

Baltazar’s daughter wept. The family would have to make a difficult decision: the property tax or $2,000 for diabetes medication.

The taxes won.

“Sometimes you have to choose — pay your property taxes instead of paying your water bill and everything else,” said Baltazar, recalling the stressful experience in a July interview.

The lowest-earning residents in Washington state, where Baltazar lives, pay almost 18% of their annual incomes in state and local taxes, while the wealthiest chip in 3%. "