KTVB’s Joe Parris recently put House Majority Leader Mike Moyle on the spot.
By trying to freeze property taxes, Parris wanted to know, what is the Star Republican really up to?
“I’ve seen a lot of comments, trying to characterize what you’re trying to do. People say, well, he’s trying to do this, he’s trying to do that. I’ll ask you: What are you trying to accomplish?”
Here’s the genesis behind that question: What Moyle is promoting and what he is promising are not one and the same.
Moyle says he’s trying to help the “widow woman” whose skyrocketing property taxes will drive her “out of the home she’s lived in her whole life.”
That rationale is withering.
As noted during the Feb. 13 House Revenue and Taxation Committee hearing, what local government officials spend has a lot less to do with that “widow woman’s” tax plight than many of the actions Moyle has either engineered or supported.
Lawmakers stripped the Homestead Exemption of its inflation index four years ago, just as the demand for residential housing exploded. As a result, about a third of the tax break for owners of modest homes has disappeared. Statewide, 62 percent of homeowners have lost the full protection of the tax break. In Ada County, it’s more than 88 percent. Residential values are rising much faster than the demand for commercial property. As a result, homeowners’ taxes went up 8.9 percent last year while owners of commercial property paid 2.1 percent less.
For 13 years, the program designed to protect that “widow woman” from being taxed out of her home has been the victim of legislative neglect. Thirteen years of inflation have eaten away at the ability of Idaho’s property tax reduction program — commonly known as the circuit breaker — to help low-income seniors and others, including the disabled, pay a portion of their property tax bills. Expanding the maximum benefit from the current $1,320 to $2,600 — as proposed by a number of county assessors, including Dan Anderson of Nez Perce County — would help a lot of “widow women.”
Because Moyle and others insisted on cutting income taxes on corporations and high-income families in 2018, the state has lost about $180 million — maybe more — that otherwise would have gone toward public schools. As a result, the supplemental property taxes school patrons volunteer to pay to prop up education budgets have soared to a record $214 million statewide.
That’s why, as Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane told Moyle at the tax committee’s hearing, a freeze would do little to slow the rise in residential property taxes.
Had Moyle’s plan been in effect in 2019, the eroding Homestead Exemption combined with escalating demand for residential housing would generate tax increases on 82.8 percent of homes in Ada County. A narrow 8.5 percent of Ada County homeowners might not see the tax increase they otherwise would without Moyle’s freeze.
That put Moyle back on his heels. In his own backyard of Star, he insisted, there is little commercial property benefiting from the eroding Homestead Exemption.
“You can’t shift (the burden) to commercial,” Moyle said. “So how honest is it for you to promote a solution that just shifts the burden back onto the same people who need relief? There’s no where else to shift it.”
Looks like he was bluffing.
McGrane’s office went back to review Star’s situation.
Even with Moyle’s tax freeze in place last year, 87.8 percent of the homeowners in Star would have paid an average 9.3 percent more in property taxes. Meanwhile, 80 percent of Star’s businesses would have paid an average 10.2 percent less.
Moyle’s right: Star’s tax base is more residential and less commercial than Ada County overall. But the city of Star accounts for about 12 percent of the tax bill borne by its residents. Another 31.4 percent goes toward the West Ada School District, 24.1 percent heads to Ada County and about 26 percent support myriad districts such as sewer, water and a community college. Within those districts, commercial property remains a bigger part of the tax base. That’s why — Moyle’s assertions to the contrary — his neighbors and constituents in Star are not immune from the tax shift.
So back to the question Parris put to Moyle. What’s he really up to?
“I am trying to accomplish the slowdown in the growth of property taxes and I am trying to force these taxing districts to come to the table and find a solution,” Moyle said.
If it’s government austerity Moyle is after, why doesn’t he just say that? Why is he marketing it under the guise of property tax relief?
If Moyle were selling cars instead of tax bills, you’d think he was running a bait and switch operation. — M.T.
