Tax system needs fixing
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Editor,
My wife’s family has owned West Shore property on Flathead Lake since the 1920s. Over the years, that has been parleyed down to less desirable property to maintain ownership. Our dream has been to preserve it for future generations. So the children can play in the water, row the boat, watch the stars and sleep on the dock, as my wife did as a child in the ’50s. We are now looking at losing it because of higher taxes. Yes, if we rent it we “might” be able to keep it, but then we can’t use it.
We have protested to no avail. We have attended meetings and asked for help.
Obviously the state, county and school system needs money. I struggle to understand the rationale of the tax system. If you sell your property, it has value. If it’s not for sale, it has no value. The state disagrees.
Likewise, if you have enough acreage, or enough fruit trees, then your property has little value because it is “agricultural.” It doesn’t mention anything about you being out there digging in the dirt, working 14-hour days struggling to survive, making your living from the family farm. Or that you inherited the farm. It means as long as you can preserve that loophole in the system, you pay next to nothing in taxes. Let’s not forget the federal subsidies for “not” growing anything.
I note with interest how some of our “representatives” dodge an obvious way to me to generate revenue. If you paid big money for prime recreational property on the lake, you should pay proportionally. I find it disturbing when I hear, “if local cherry orchards are not appraised as agricultural, there will not be any more orchards. Not many people want to see housing development here.” In other words, “I have mine; too bad for you. I don’t want any trailer trash down the shoreline from me.”
Better we force you to sell your property to an out-of-state rich person who will bulldoze the cheap house daddy built on weekends while working full-time and replace it with a nice new luxury home.
I’d like to give Carmine Mowbray another shot at trying to fix the system.
Dave Sheesley
Polson
