Quote:
Originally Posted by Winilyme
But that's the same endless cycle we see repeated today:
- Raise $1M (which really isn't $1M since municipal services are required as a result of those new homeowners) and use some/all of the remaining dollars to fund more wants.
- Watch the cost of materials, labor, inflation, etc., to maintain the homeowner services and funded wants eventually overtake the original tax revenue benefit generated by those new homes.
- Then, you realize, you're in the same leaking boat wishing you had kept the Girl Scout camp as it was since at least it would have required relatively minimal municipal services in the long term, and the town wouldn't have been lured into unnecessary additional spending.
Round and round we go - where it stops - nobody knows.
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Yup - tricky situation. Which is worse, the 8 to 10 new $10M homes or continually raising taxes on family camps (which is any shed touching the water at this point) that then leads to owners or families selling - then they get knocked down and we are back to the $10M home. I have personally seen this exact thing play out 3 times in the last 2 years. I suppose one could argue that in either case, they are 2nd homes with likely no additional pressure on the school system. The cycle seems unsustainable to me but what to do. I vote sales tax as at least you have some control over what you buy and don't but I know that's not popular. Live free and die of taxes!