Mar 15 2008
Perdue Proposes Senior Citizen Property Tax Relief
Raleigh – Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue today announced a plan for property tax relief for seniors, matching a proposal by rival Richard Moore.
The Democratic candidates for governor are responding to complaints from seniors living on fixed incomes that make it hard to pay the taxes that go along with rising property values in growing communities.
Perdue’s campaign said she would double the income limit for the homestead exemption to $50,000, the same cap called for last month by Moore. Both candidates say that would make about 200,000 more seniors eligible for property tax relief.
This is political pandering. What about the rest of the home owners in North Carolina who have bills to pay, kids to put through college, food that need to be put on the table? Why don’t they get a property tax cut; why just senior citizens? The answer is simple. Senior citizens are the largest voting block so in order to get their votes Bev Perdue is willing to pass the burden of their property taxes on to you. What a saintly woman.
When I asked about the “homestead exemption” and helped a couple of Old Ladies file for it, the Tax Office asked me if I was from “Up North” because they said the only people who ever know about that are from “up north”.
Any of these Laws or regulations that help people are useless by design because the People they are in theory designed to benefit never know about them and are not informed. If they are serious these programs Must include a mechanism that requires people to be automatically qualified and not made to go through a secretive system of semiannual red tape. As they stand, these type acts only benefit the Politicians and a select few who are in a position to know about them.
I knew one Old Lady who almost lost her Home on the Trent River because the County raised the taxes and she couldn’t afford to pay. They were in the process of taking her home when they knew full well she qualified to be grandfathered. The system is simply legal theft as it stands. The Tax Office should be required Under PENALTY of Law to inform people and offer assistance but they DO NOT, they help the The Professional Thieves instead of the Citizens.