Some people can't play youtube.

"Can't play youtube," what does that mean?

not being able to play a YouTube video...

Ancient computer. It loads, and loads, and loads, and loads, and loads, and loads. If I let it load for 8 or 10 minutes, it'll sort of play, but not so that one can understand what anybody is saying.

Does your local library have high speed internet?

been down there for years. Since I got my first old clunker.

Whenever a local jurisdiction increases their tax revenue more than 5% in a year, they must advertise the tax rate. So, if home assessments increase more than this 5%, they must either cut the tax rate or advertise the rate if the absolute income will exceed 5%. (Arlington & FX have done this advertising forever.)

All local governments need to do to provide property tax relief for their residents is to reduce the tax rate when the home assessments go up - and keep the income within the 5% range - not the 15-25% range we saw in the past 7 years until 2007. Even  if the homestead exemption is passed, local gov'ts will find a need to make up for this "lost" revenue. This means that the tax rate will go up...or user fees...commensurate with the "lost" amount of revenue.

Am I missing something? This legislation seems like a waste of time to me. There has to be local political will to keep spending low so residents don't see huge tax bills.  

is for additional sources of revenue for local jurisdictions in Virginia. Local property taxes are the main way localities fund themselves--- including all those "unfunded mandates" that come at them from the state and federal government.

Thanks to the way we're set up in the Old Dominion, localities are pretty much limited to real estate taxes to pay for things.  Self-righteous talk about localities limiting their expenditures is fruitless if you want strong schools, fire and police, and so on.  Local government is where the rubber meets the road, but the best things in life are not necessarily free.  

There will be no tax relief, with or without this bill.

Existing law says 1% increase means that they have to have a hearing. But that's all they have to do. See this.

I've been following this issue carefully for quite some time now. Bottom line is that tax reductions have resulted in significant refunds to commercial property owners while residential property owners have seen little relief. The answer is to have two separate rates, but the business lobby is totally against that idea.

The homestead exemption essentially results in 2 separate rates, which is why businesses are against it. However, this law does not mandate the homestead exemption, but gives localities the option of implementing it.  

Property taxes on businesses are based on income that they generate - not the true value of the real estate. If the income on property is down in their business district, their tax rate decreases proportionately.

Compare this to a divorced couple - if one person leaves the house, the tax rate does not drop for that "household". The tax burden is still the same on the real estate.

VA has been giving tax breaks to businesses forever.   However, the localities still need a base amount of revenue to run their county and city (according to what they've defined). Thus, the residential tax has made up the difference in revenue that is not covered by sales, car, recordation, business taxes (BPOL and property) etc. taxes.

If the GA gives an break to a homeowner, the local pols will raise the residential tax rate to cover any loss in absolute residential property tax revenue. IMHO, this legislation is only symbolic/a "feel good" red herring.

Correct. It is 1% that a public hearing must be conducted. FX supervisors have made it an art pitting one social service group against another to increase budgets. This has the advantage that few people actually look at the CIP or other mundane costs that are huge, which probably should be cut or removed from the annual budget.  

BAD FRAMING!  BAD FRAMING!

Usage of the "Tax Relief" frame demands a severe reprimand.

House of Delegates Democrats! :)

This is something that has hit me personally. When the housing boom started, we saw our home assessment go up 25% a year for about 4 or 5 years. This happened to be the same period of time when salaries froze for about 4 or 5 years.

This kind of unbridled assessment destroys communities and sets the stage for disastrous tax revolts, like the one that happened in California in the late 1970s. The same conditions that we live today occurred at the time: a speculative real estate market drove the prices of homes up, forcing many people to leave the homes where they lived for decades.

The state government was unable to handle the crisis correctly, and the circumstances were seized by Grover Norquist-like government haters. They were successful at having Californians passed a draconian anti-tax proposition that crippled local government.

Before proposition 13, California had the greatest public schools in the country. Today it competes for the the worst public schools title.

Recreation programs pretty much disappeared. Maybe it was a coincidence, but gang activity seems to have exploded at the same time. In Oakland the police seemed to agree that lack of recreation contributed to gang recruitment so the only local recreation club that I remember there was run by the police department.

I personally wouldn't mind paying more income tax to the state of Virginia to help the county. Or pay a higher sales tax. Fine with me. I can afford to contribute that way.