Oliver Twist-Moco
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Anonymous
+1 The fact that the county decides to raise my taxes does not mean that my property value automatically increases proportionally. Moreover, I believe that education is vital, not just for the individual students’ futures, but for the future of our community. I don’t mind paying taxes to ensure our kids have safe schools, a solid curriculum, and to make sure our teachers are fairly paid, including COLAs and other adjustments so that they can afford the high cost of living in this county. What I object to is MCPS treating the county budget like their own (bottomless) piggy bank. They embrace every educational trend and continually market themselves so that they can convince the taxpayers that “MCPS is one of the best school systems in the country” and that they are providing a “21st century education”. I remember when I first realized how self-indulgent and profligate MCPS actually was. I was attending a curriculum meeting during the 2008-09 school year, during the financial crisis (which certainly wasn’t raising property values), while things were still trending downhill and we didn’t yet know how just how far the economy might eventually fall, when MCPS proudly announced their new initiative to put a Promethean SMART board in every classroom. They boasted about the assorted functions, but were flummoxed when I asked what they could do that we couldn’t already do with the current technology of the equipment that the school system already owned. After hemming and hawing a bit, they finally realized that Promethean boards would allow teachers to annotate videos they were showing. When I suggested that maybe we should wait a few years until the economy had stabilized before we made a significant spending commitment, my caution was dismissed, after all, they had to provide the aforementioned “21st century education”. Later, as the Promethean boards started appearing in the classrooms, I asked my kids teachers about their experiences with the boards. The general consensus is that while they made some functions more convenient, they were under a lot of pressure to use the bells and whistles, even in cases where the “smart” functions were less effective and efficient than simply using traditional methods. I don’t mind paying taxes to provide a high quality education to our students, moderately generous salaries that will attract teachers to our country and allow them to live here comfortably, and assisting disadvantaged families (regardless of color) that struggle with our high cost of living. I do object, however, to stoking the whims and egos of the MCPS administrators with my taxes. Coming from a mid-sized district in another state, I was shocked that in “one of the best school systems in the country”, educated parents tended to either support the booming tutoring industry or teach their kids at home, and too often kids whose parents wouldn’t or couldn’t supplement education were left floundering. Now, apparently, discipline has deteriorated to the point that bathrooms are kept locked and some classrooms have to be repeatedly evacuated because a student is having a meltdown (I’m sympathetic to a student in crisis, but if they are frequently in crisis, then they need something to change to help them, not just abandoning them to deal with their problems and then leaving the problems unaddressed). I would like for the county to put their foot down with the MCPS budget. I want them to make it clear that if the relatively generous educational budget falls short of their desired spending, they need to start trimming the fat and focus on confining expenditures to those that directly benefit education. |
Anonymous
Maybe you missed the "DP" at the beginning of the post. No railing about socialists, there or here. Separately, moving (selling and then moving even more so) is incredibly burdensome, not only to the individual(s) involved, but also to society as a whole, which really sees no benefit from such churn (outside of those servicing such churn -- real estate agents, title companies and the like, whose gains are paid for entirely by the transacting parties, resulting in a net societal loss). Suggesting that as a remedy is a really poor, knee-jerk response to anyone who might wish to see societal paradigms different from those of your own preference. |
Anonymous
+1. The only council member who has consistently questioned public benefit from all the tax abatements given to developers is Jawando. |
Anonymous
You know what's poor and knee-jerk? Acting as though taxation of real estate at current market value is some sort of unexpected or novel phenomenon. This has always been the arrangement in Montgomery County, as well as every other jurisdiction in the DMV, so if you wanted a different "societal paradigm," you should have chosen a different place to live. The whining about property taxes of 1%, when you are sitting on 100% property value gains amounting to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, is just too much. Most people would love to be sitting on 100% property gains, and instead of being grateful for this tremendous blessing, you just whine and complain. What a way to live your life. |
Anonymous
The county used to have a curb on how fast taxes could go up, so this is actually new here. Andrew Friedson sponsored the charter amendment so that taxes went up at the same rate as assessments. This one change has accounted for more tax increases than Elrich proposed. |
Anonymous
PP to whom you responded. In addition to the immediate PP's point about the charter amendment changing the expected paradigm, I'd say that nothing in your post really counters the observation about the "remedy" of a move being an unreasonably huge burden -- highly ineffecient, even from a societal perspective. Nor is there really anything addressing the suggestion two posts back about accruing some differential property tax to be paid at transfer so as to avoid the "house poor" argument in the first place. Instead, there is a doubling down on "100% gains" rhetoric, which is a straw man, in this case, because I'm a different poster from the one earlier in the thread who noted their property taxes had increased by about that percentage. "DP," as I'd indicated in both posts. |
Anonymous
He’s right. |
Anonymous
if this is the case, why cant MOCO spend the money appropriately? why do they need special tax assessments to fund MCPS and their other social problems above what you say is the "market rate"? the county knows what the increases are and need to budget accordingly. the original post was a citizen angry b/c his taxes have doubled AND the county wants a special assessment to pay for Capital projects. this while there are NO improvements in our services and overrall decreases in MCPS test scores and school ratings. and for all your talk of "being grateful", this property tax increases only makes it more expensive to own or rent in the county. this taxes will be passed on to you as a renter. so when you complain that rent is too high, probably 1/3 to 1/2 of that is to cover your landlord property tax increases. so you be grateful when rent is raised another $1k. you need to pay your fair share |
Anonymous
Investment properties, including rental apartments, are excluded from the council president’s tax increase. They’re the only group that escaped higher taxes. Not to worry though: Increasing the cost of home ownership will give landlords more headroom to raise rents, and I’m sure they’ll do so even though their tax burden isn’t increasing. |
Anonymous
really? How can that be? if true, then the homeowners have an even bigger reason to be upset. the council is putting these special assessment on the backs of homewowners and yet we should be grateful....amazing |
Anonymous
It is true. The council president’s change to property taxes is eliminating the income tax offset credit, or ITOC. The ITOC is only available to owner occupied properties (specially the principal residence). Rental properties don’t qualify for the ITOC, so the only landlords who lose it will be those committing fraud. Eliminating the ITOC has been on the developer wishlist for a while because it’s a tool the executive and council could use right away to make property taxes more progressive. Raising the ITOC and tax rates together would shift more property tax burden to commercial and other investment properties while shielding homeowners from increases. Eliminating the ITOC entirely makes that possibility more distant. Killing the ITOC is a dirty trick because many people do not understand their property taxes well enough to understand that eliminating the ITOC will cause their bills to go up by more than 10 percent, and because the limited relief provisions in place to protect homeowners from rapid increases in taxes don’t apply if the council takes away the ITOC. Retirees, who own a disproportionate number of the homes affected by the upzoning bills, will be especially hit hard because they will lose the ITOC and don’t have enough taxable income to get offsetting benefit from the income tax changes. Some will have to move, which is one way to accelerate redevelopment in the Georgia Avenue and University Boulevard corridors. |
Anonymous
Ding, ding, ding! And you know who has enough taxable income? West county retirees in Bethesda and Potomac. Funny how Fani-Gonzalèz's and Friedson's initiatives continue the unholy alliance of advantaging developers at the expense of the middle class while protecting the wealthy, all with propoganda about helping nurses and firemen. Progressive, my tuchus! |
Anonymous
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Pagnucco is right. Jawando is talking out of his ***. He is all image and no substance.
That video looks suspiciously like a campaign ad using county time and funds too. https://montgomeryperspective.com/2026/04/22/absolutely-bonkers/ |
Anonymous
Where are the Friedson or Glass plans? So far they’ve only come out for spending more money. I don’t remember Pagnucco criticizing Friedson or Glass when they opposed the property tax increase, so this just sounds like another hit job. I wonder who pays him to write that blog. |
Anonymous
elrich wants more increases on top of Moore increases. what are blue states and cities doing? why cant they manage finances instead of turning every one of their states into a tax nightmare? where are the plans to bring major businesses to MOCO and collect tax money?? these increases always on the backs of the citizenry during a high inflation and major fed job cuts. but somehow we are all rich and they'll keep raising property taxes until we are California, without the businesses or the weather..... |