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| 2025 School/Real Estate Tax Bill! |
Sometimes good things do happen!
Not often but sometimes, good things actually do happen.
For months now I've been dreading receiving my 2025 Annual School/Real Estate tax bill.
The reason is that Delaware this past year had a long overdue reassessment. You know what that usually means don't you folks? Reassessment is MORE taxes.
The main reason I moved to Delaware twenty years ago was that I could no longer afford to pay my former home state of Pennsylvania's outrageously high school/real estate taxes. As a matter of fact, most of the retirees from surrounding states such as New Jersey, New York, and Virginia move to Delaware expressly for that reason, to escape the high taxes of their home states. Of the fifty-seven new homes in my development, fifty-six were retirees from surrounding states, mostly New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
My school/real estate taxes in Pennsylvania were approaching six figures (over $10,000 a year). I was only able to manage to stay in Pennsylvania for the last five years before I moved because my Mother was giving me and my brothers an annual gift of $10,000 a year of savings she had accumulated during her lifetime. Once she stopped doing that I had to move because I literally couldn't afford to live in Pennsylvania anymore. Pennsylvania not only has high school/real estate taxes but a sales tax, state income tax, a township tax and a personal property tax. When I worked in Philadelphia I also had to pay a wage tax of 5.625%. Pennsylvania just got too expensive to live in, I had to move.
When I moved to Delaware I found out that the taxes that two of my neighbors, who moved from New Jersey, were paying. Their taxes were approaching $20,000 a year! Yes, for the "privilege" of living in New Jersey and you know how those Jersey politicians were using that tax money. Yes, the same way the Pennsylvania politicians were using it, waste and excessive salaries for state legislatures for jobs that weren't even full time.
We all left beautiful homes that we planned to live out our final years. I remember my late friend Bart, who moved to Delaware from upper New York State. There was hardly a week that went by that he didn't wistfully bemoan how beautiful his country house was and how high the taxes had become. Same with my neighbor Marty and her husband Howard who had also moved here New York State. Of course Bill and I had a beautiful home on almost eight acres of wooded land that we had built in 1980. To his dying day Bill always sadly remembered how much he missed our home in Pennsylvania. When the new owners defaulted on their mortgage and the property went into foreclosure, we would often drive up and visit our former home. So sad. Even to this day.
I had friends in Delaware that I have known for years (all passed on now) and knew how little they were paying in property taxes on their homes, only hundreds of dollars, including my one friend Ed who was a millionaire. He was paying less than $400 a year in taxes. My friends Bob and Larry were also paying less than a thousand a year in taxes on their homes. In addition to low school/real estate taxes, they didn't have to pay sales tax, state income tax or any other nuisance tax like a "County Tax" or personal property tax (on stocks and bonds in an investment portfolio). So when I was faced with paying a $9,000 plus tax, I had no choice but to move to Delaware, much to the consternation and disappointment of my Mother. My move affected my relationship with her at the end of her life. Another sad fact of outrageously high taxes for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. My surviving brother still lives in our modest eleven hundred square foot one bath ranch home in Pennsylvania. Last I saw his taxes were $4,400 a year.
Pennsylvania attempted offer "relief" to retirees by offering seniors to earn credit for volunteer work like working in school cafeterias. Yes, I can imagine my eighty year old mother working in her local school cafeteria a certain number of hours to earn a $50 credit to a maximum of $500 credit towards her taxes. That's your venal and corrupt Pennsylvania State legislatures "relief" offer to retirees. California had the right idea to offer seniors relief on the ever rising school/real estate taxes. They freeze the tax rate once a senior has lived in their home for a certain number of years. However, once they sell their home the new taxes are one percent of the total sale price. Now that's fair! My friend Glenn, who lived in Los Angeles took advantage of that tax relief when he became a senior. And then when he moved to Palm Springs he could transfer that tax relief to his new home. Some states get it right. But these eastern states like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, even though they are mostly dominated by Democratic legislatures, are just greedy and unrealistic. Both parties, Republicans and Democrats are equally guilty. Tax more, spend more. I am so thankful to the Democratic controlled state of Delaware and Sussex County for this unexpected and pleasant surprise. Now I can breath a little bit easier knowing that I can easily pay my real estate/school tax bill for whatever years I have remaining on this earth. I'm not religious but thank God for this act of grace!
2 comments:
I'm a senior in NJ with an outrageously high property tax bill. But for several years now I've been the beneficiary of the Senior Freeze. I'm refunded any additional property tax over my baseline year. Its still expensive but not going up year over year. I know people who've moved to Delaware for similar reasons to yours.
Boud,
Many of my neighbors who moved down here in 2005 when I moved here for tax reasons were from New Jersey. I thought I was paying high taxes but I was shocked by what they were paying. Don and Al had a beautiful home near Princeton New Jersey and were paying over $13,000 a year. My neighbor right next to me Bob M. was paying over $16,000 a year. He lived right outside New York City. I didn't know New Jersey had a program like Senior Freeze. Makes sense though. That's what California finally had to do because their seniors were being taxed out of their homes like Bill and I were taxed out of our beautiful home in Pennsylvania. Delaware, especially Sussex County, has seen a population growth in the thirty years mainly because of the low taxes. What is really interesting, we see our tax dollars at work too. The roads down are are great, unlike Pennsylvania road which are full of potholes. They're always working to improve the roads. I didn't see what my Pennsylvania tax dollars were getting me. I especially love the fact that I don't have to pay sales tax or income tax and especially that stupid tax on my E*Trade account holdings which was called a Personal Property Tax. I could have stayed in Pennsylvania even with my $9,000 tax bill but it was it was the ever increasing taxes every year. Ed Rendell, one of the Pennsylvania governors finally got a bill passed that the taxes couldn't be increased more than 3.2% a year. Of course the first year he had to blow past that when the teachers went on strike. That was the year I moved down here. I am so happy to finally see a state government bring equity to taxes. The rich people who live near the beach have been paying outrageously low taxes for years. If they can afford to pay $300,000 for a Delaware low number license plate, they can afford to pay their fair share of taxes. Up until this reassessment many of them weren't even paying $1,000 a year.
Thanks for your comment. Always good to hear from first time commenters.
Ron
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