Letter to the Editor from Donald Weyer:
Me too! "What about me? It isn't fair; I've had enough, now I want my share," according to the Moving Pictures song. Or if you're communally oriented, Pink's "What About Us!"
Genesee County Legislature is considering raising the income limits for senior citizens to receive a fifty percent exemption on county taxes. I learned this from Joanne Beck's report in The Batavian on Feb. 9.
But wait a minute. I'm a veteran, a senior citizen, and a Genesee County taxpayer. As such, I receive a fifteen percent reduction as a veteran in the assessed value of my property, on which the county tax rate is figured. (Income limits not a consideration).
That fifteen percent reduction has not been refigured in light of inflation and prices and significant increases in the assessed value of real estate (assessed value goes up, tax goes up; assessed value goes up, but percentage reduction in assessed value goes up, tax may stay the same; simple arithmetic, no?), similar to the reasons given for recalculating the seniors' fifty percent exemption.
I have no opposition to the current proposal to raise the income limits for the seniors' tax exemption. However, "I hope you know what I mean when I say, me too" (credit to Toby Keith); or, at a minimum, Genesee County should study increasing the veterans' tax exemption on real property assessed value, from fifteen percent to twenty percent, to thirty to fifty percent, etc., to be determined.
