The headline in the Arizona Daily Star this morning reads $1.16B county budget has 20-cent property tax increase:
Supervisor Ramón Valadez said the increased primary rate, which equals 11 cents of the new combined rate, is from state costs the Legislature shifted to the county.
“This budget is not a Pima County budget,” he said. “This is the state of Arizona determining our rate for us.”
He pointed out that as much as one-third of the county’s primary property tax collections goes to support state-provided services.
If Pima County knows exactly how much of this tax increase is due to our Tea-Publican Arizona legislature transferring state obligations to county and local governments so they can falsely claim that they have “balanced” the budget — by transferring state obligations to counties and local governments, while simultaneously sweeping stealing shared tax revenues — and to falsely claim that they have “reduced” taxes — by forcing your county and local governments to raise taxes — then Pima County should have a line on its county tax assessments highlighting this amount as the “Tea-Publican Transfer Tax.” After all, this state has “truth in taxation” laws. Pima County residents should be told that Tea-Publican Arizona legislators are directly responsible for this tax increase.
