WELFARE FOR THE TAXMAN

You wonder how our bureaucrats proposed this one with a straight face ...

David Czurak reports in this week's edition of the Grand Rapids Business Journal that the Grand Valley Metro Council (you know, that layer of "regional" government that no one has figured out a use for) is looking into using your tax dollars to set up a legal defense fund for local tax collectors to pay private law firms to fight against citizens appealing their property tax assessments.

Kurt Kimball, City Manager of Grand Rapids, is not happy that "More and more businesses throughout the state are challenging their tax assessments in fundamental ways ..."  Of course, none of that matters if there is no legal merit to these challenges.  Apparently there is, however, otherwise property tax payers wouldn't be getting any traction in the courts, and local governments wouldn't be complaining about the legal costs of responding to challenged tax assessments.

What seems to be lost on bureaucrats like Kimball is that no taxpayer is obligated to pay a dollar more in taxes than the law requires.  It is nothing but a sense of entitlement he has to the hard-won dollars of taxpayers that makes him begrudge the lawful appeals they make to keep more of their dollars.  Instead of considering the possibility that City assessors are not applying the current standards in determining the taxable value of properties, thus provoking these appeals by property owners, Kimball wants the Grand Valley Metro Council to help pay the freight to defeat in the courts taxpayer appeals.

So, if the local tax collectors get their way, they'll have a treasure chest funded by YOU the taxpayer to pay hired guns to beat in court YOUR challenges to their assessments of YOUR property.