[Altavia]

Originally Posted by Ben Franklin

Making people who already live in the county pay for the future, that new homebuyers create IS government taking your money and giving it to new homebuyers. It's also called socialism. These politicians are Republican in name only.

New homes pay a higher percentage than legacy homeowners in property taxes and bonds. Existing homeowners benefit from the expansion through the growing tax base and the compression of their tax rate due to the homestead exemption. Continuous growth is why taxes did not increase the past ten years.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by Robbie0723

New homes pay a higher percentage than legacy homeowners in property taxes and bonds. Existing homeowners benefit from the expansion through the growing tax base and the compression of their tax rate due to the homestead exemption. Continuous growth is why taxes did not increase the past ten years.

If that last line was the reason for them not increasing their taxes, then they wouldn't have needed to catch up after 14 years of no increase.

Fact is, Sumter County has not fared well with their budget. Remember SOMEONE owned all that land during the past 14 years, and SOMEONE was paying taxes on it all along, even the parts that weren't being developed.

But the tax amounts were stagnant, and now they're behind on their bills, and don't have enough to pay for certain services that you, the taxpayer, enjoy.

So now they have to catch up. If they had made MODEST increases every year, instead of relying on new development to foot the bill for everyone else, they wouldn't have had any need to catch up.