City and County Taxes

Recently the city council approved a .1 mill levy increase for those living in the city of Topeka. In my opinion they should have made a decrease in the mill levy. What I see hurting the population growth in Topeka is that the tax burden is very high in the city. Please respond if you agree or disagree and give me your reasons. Topeka needs to lower the mill levy if Topeka expects to be able to compete with nearby cities and counties that may possibly be lower in taxes. New construction in Topeka comes with “special taxes” attached to the property for streets and water services. Which means you are paying your monthly water bill plus an additional tax included in your property tax burden for water service. Also an additional tax for the road in front of your house along with the standard tax that takes care of the rest of the cities roads. These “special taxes” can last around 20 years or so. I recently moved back here from Leavenworth County where my wife and I owned a new home that was appraised at a higher value than the new one we purchased in Topeka last year. The house in Topeka is constructed better but is cheaper per square foot. We paid 1/3 less in property taxes in Leavenworth County than we do in Shawnee County even though the house in Leavenworth County is worth more. There were also no “special taxes” in Leavenworth County like there are in Shawnee County, which hurts new home construction, which hurts growth of the city. This is an example of why it is hard to attract new residents to Shawnee County and Topeka. Topeka needs to broaden its tax base, and by broaden I don’t mean raise taxes on current residents, but lower the taxes and attract new residents. Please let me know how you feel about our current tax rates and let me know in your opinion what would help attract new residents to Topeka.

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7 Responses to “City and County Taxes”

gwenda

August 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

Aaron-

I am not overly concerned about the .1 mill levy increase as it does not amount to a large amount of money, and am happy that was all it was, but do completely agree that the tax burden is too high in Topeka. We do need to be in line with other cities in our area to be competitive. I think we have to go deeper,though, to the why are taxes here so much higher?
I don’t have the answer for that, but it seems that there must be something wrong with the way the money is spent, or what property is or isn’t being taxed. One thing to look at that has some interesting stats, is the Heartland Visioning Scenario #9 (http://www.heartlandvisioning.com) which talks about real estate assessed valuation. Basically what they say is that assessed valuation of business properties has fallen, putting much more of the tax load on the residential properties. It also gives a stat that property there was $467.5 million worth of property that was exempt from real estate taxation in 2007, ie government & non-profit owned.

Brandon

August 26th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

I’m with Gwen, that I don’t think the .1 mil tax increase was a big deal.
I think it takes money to make a good town, and if it takes a few more dollars out of my wallet, I’m all for it.
As for the “special taxes” that you’re talking about with the new houses. I don’t really like that whole idea either. My wife and I actually just purchased a new house and had looked at a few with these “special taxes” attached and you know how we got out of paying them for 20 years? We didn’t buy a house that had this clause. I’m not trying to pick on you, but I don’t feel any sympathy about the special tax addon. Don’t most cities do this with the new developments?

Aaron

August 28th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

When we lived in the Kansas City area, the new construction houses we looked at in Leavenworth County, Johnson County and Wyandotte County did not have “special taxes”. The tax rate on new construction was the same as older homes of the same value. When I say a new home, I mean a home that is newly constructed. I’m not sure how the population of a city can grow if there are not new houses being built and people buying them. If everyone is buying a used home then that means you are replacing one family with another family that moved out of the area or essentially just changing homes with other Topeka residents. One of the only ways to add to the population is by building new homes and attracting more people to the area than are moving out of the area. Why would we want to discourage new home buying? Do you believe that we will attract more people to Shawnee County and Topeka if our new home property tax burden is 33% higher than surrounding counties and cities? This, I believe, could be one of the reasons that the areas outside of Topeka and Shawnee County have been growing in population and Topeka has not.

In regards to the city’s .1 mill levy increase, this tax is on Topeka City residents only. If you don’t live inside the city limits you do not have to pay this tax increase on your property. When people move out of the city limits they hurt the city’s tax base because now there is one less family in the city limits. On property tax; why should someone have to pay more in property taxes then someone else solely based on the house’s value? They don’t use the services the tax dollars pay for anymore than anybody else in the city or the county. Maybe there should be a flat tax on property; everybody pays the same amount, or even better yet, maybe a consumption tax instead of a property tax.

Travis

August 29th, 2008 at 8:30 am

Every dollar of property (or specials) tax on a home lowers the amount people can spend on the home itself. I’m not debating whether property tax is good or bad, I’m saying and I believe Aaron is too, that when competing with other surrounding areas you have to be competitive or people will buy somewhere else. People can get more home for their dollar in other areas.

Alissa Sheley

August 29th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Aaron, I think you make some good points. I agree that it’s not fair for non-city dwellers to get out of paying taxes for services they use just as much as those living in town. I mean, our move earlier this month took us just outside the city limits. But has that changed the amount of services/opportunities provided by the City of Topeka that I use on a regular basis? Not really.

How are other cities making lower property taxes work, yet still provide the level of services necessary to make a city successful? Where are they saving money that we’re not? What other taxes are they collecting that we’re not? I’d be interested in seeing what possible opportunities are out there.

denise

September 1st, 2008 at 9:25 pm

Those are good questions, Alissa, and ones that need to really be addressed by city council. I’ll say what nobody really wants to hear… the city must annex ares of the county. There is no way to increase the tax base of the city because there is development right up to the city limits. There are many people who live just outside the Topeka, but use the services provided by the city. These areas that used to be “out in the county” aren’t really living country anymore. Even in the last decade, the landscape has changed. Where there were pockets of people living in the mid-1990’s, there are neighborhoods and retail. I completely understand that there is a huge concern from long-time non-city county residents.

So, the next question in this discussion is: How can the city of Topeka entice those would-be-Topekans Shawnee county-etes to want to be a part of Topeka?

Tyler Johnson

November 20th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

I talked with Ryan this morning and he said I should post. Here goes. I believe our tax burden needs to stretch across the county to insure that we have the infrastructure we need to support our community. When I say infrastructure I mean roads that we can be proud of and see the money well spent. And see projects stretch across the entire community to support our growth and development. We need to put the CommunityFirst. I propose we find city council people we want to run under the CommunityFirst name in each open district that share our ideas for the future of our town. Before we can unify Shawnee County we must put our CommunityFirst.