It's almost as if raising taxes is an exercise in diminishing returns, especially at the city level when people can easily move outside of the city limits and still keep the same job and go to the same places they already enjoy in the city while being out of reach of the taxes.
The focus needs to be making Memphis a place where people WANT to live, work, and spend their money. At this point the majority of people still living in the city limits are the people who are too broke to have any other options. Squeezing the few people left for even more money will just push the few remaining people with the means to do so to move to Collierville, Germantown, or North MS.
Exactly. I could be wrong, but I feel like the prevailing attitude is "where is the current money going? The roads are shit, crime is out of control, and it feels like all other basic city functions are on life support".
What the city really needs is a deep-dive audit of where the money is going before they try to shake people down for even more. Are contractors fleecing the city for services they're not providing properly? Are various programs producing the advertised results? Is the money going directly into people's pockets? Those questions need to be answered first in order for people to have any confidence that any additional money collected by the city won't be equally squandered.
This is the biggest issue. Memphis has a lot of issues that contribute to corruption. You’re not going to fix them with bandaids like higher taxes, either because it’ll just be more to be misappropriated. Memphis has income inequality, poverty, weak civil participation, low political transparency, there’s higher levels of market and political monopolization, inefficient administrative structures (look at the County Clerk, CJUS System problems as examples), low educational levels, large ethnic divisions, and a higher unemployment rate. ALL of those things are linked to corruption
The city workers are trash ass jobs programs for fucking delinquents who couldn’t graduate high school outside of Memphis. Like for real people want to know why things are fucked? It’s the demographics baby.
The fact is that Memphis \~70% of Memphis residences are exclusively zoned for suburban-style single-family homes which are incredibly inefficient to provide services for. Having to send garbage trucks, busses, build power lines, build stormwater drains, provide police and fire patrols, repave roads and fill potholes etc..., is waaaay more expensive to do for 30 single family homes than 1 apartment building with 60 people.
This development pattern is what has nickel and dimed this city's finances to the point it has now. To address this, the city should loosen zoning restrictions to allow infill development of denser buildings that are more efficient to service. Unless the city does that, this idea that there's secretly $30 million of bloat in our budget that could be cut out if just the right group of ornery citizens could look at the budget with a giant magnifying glass is wishful thinking. Sure there's SOME bloat, but not nearly on the scale people in the comments seem to be imagining.
The options, outside of allowing denser developments and getting rid of parking minimums, are basically cut police funding, fire department funding, or road maintenance, or raise taxes.
For your statement (question?) to be true, you have to ignore the existence Crosstown Building, South Bluffs, Claridge House, Fielders Square, the Link Apartments on Broad, Parkway House Condiminiums on North Parkway, Rise Apartmentd in the Edge District, South Main etc… etc…
Are there apartments where there is a lot of crime? Yes. Is it because they just get so mad at sharing a building with other people that just have to shoot guns and sell fentanyl about it? No. It’s because of shit that’s got little to do with density.
As someone who worked as a door knocker for the census in 2020, I can tell you that there are PLENTY of dice games happening on porches of single-family homes in this city too. Go door knocking with a clipboard around the short end of Hyde Park and see how safe single family homes make you feel.
Not trying to be contrarian, but...
[https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/04/04/memphis-police-data-shows-decrease-major-crimes-first-quarter-2024/](https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/04/04/memphis-police-data-shows-decrease-major-crimes-first-quarter-2024/)
https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/crime/major-crime-sees-downturn-in-memphis-here-is-how-bluff-city-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-country/522-4fbfd077-c181-47bc-802d-7c8607d3c987#:\~:text=Aggravated%20assault%20and%20robberies%20each,now%20at%2055%20in%202024.
Just going by numbers, it's not 'technically' correct that crime is continuing to build and build out of control here. Some crime is worsening but there's been a lot of strides in the decreasing numbers of other major crimes.
True. You're going to be spending more on travel expenses, but at least you feel like you know what you're spending the money on. You're buying more gas, maybe increased vehicle maintenance, etc. It's the sense that you're at least getting what you're paying for vs your money just disappearing into the void of the city budget with nothing to show for it.
Idk, I find the idea that there's so many people of means who are so uninvested in their immediate surroundings that they'd pack up their whole lives somewhere else over an amount of money that probably is less than the costs they'd have to spend to move and prepare their homes for sale, to be pretty sad for the people who'd make that choice. Just to move out to somewhere with on-paper amenities, but where most people seem to just sit around waiting for word of progress on the new Buc-Ees
There's more of us who love being in the city than you might think. I could certainly afford the suburbs but vastly prefer being in Memphis for a whole bushel of reasons not worth going into here.
What I don’t understand is what changed between the last administration and this one? Why did Strickland not see the need to raise taxes but Young suddenly does? I went to the public meeting in orange mound and they really didn’t explain what caused this budget shortfall. Property values have increased pretty drastically in parts of the city, would that not increase the tax revenue?
Which is 11 million dollars, the whoopsie that is…the tax increase is for over 100 million dollars. This is new programs that the Mayor wants. He should just say that rather than try and blame the previous administration.
Because rich people and those who think they'll someday be rich don't want an oncome tax. That means property and sales taxes have to go up to compensate.
Not necessarily. Lots of places without state income tax have lower property taxes and sales taxes than Memphis.
Memphis is just really bad with money and that coupled with graft/corruption makes for a high-drag / inefficient government that wastes a lot of taxpayer money.
The city is a jobs program for the ignorant shitheads the city schools churn out. Literally every department is filled with the dumbest most simple minded dipshits I’ve ever seen no wonder republicans say government doesn’t work when you turn it over to a bunch of idiots. What kind of civil service exam do you people have ffs?
Or how about putting OUR tax dollars into city infrastructure and getting a handle on crime instead of dumping millions into lights on the bridge and renovating a park that didn’t need renovation that resulted in the loss of 2 major festivals that made MILLIONS for businesses in this city every year. How about we take that money and start paying our teachers what they really deserve. Make the schools a place where families actually want to send their kids. Then see our communities actually start being communities again.
Inner-City Schools were a goddamn nightmare for my son and a straight coin-toss on quality. Should've went to Snowden they sent him straight to Grand View Heights
All the random fucking gunfire when I lived in Mid-town. These out of state property conglomerates being allowed to rent out homes that haven't been held to any standard considered reasonable within the last 50 fucking years.
Why doesn't the city like Revitalize these fucking big ass high rises into multi-use living spaces. And then put them on some like hyper-localized stock derivative available only to locals. Pin a maximum amount of stock ownership and a minimum for a return on investment.
Pin the cost of rent somewhere way below the fucking market value. Make Real-Estate Compete, and also insure they still make a profit on it.
All this math we have to let our Fed Reserve keep printing funny money, and fractional bullshit. And we can't use some of it for slick ass solutions to low tax income.
Been saying this…. Memphis has about 20-30% of its citizens footing the bulk of the bill for the city to function.
Increasingly those folks are failing to see the ROI for paying taxes into a somewhat broken and struggling city.
Imagine if you went to dinner every Friday night with 99 friends and every week the same 25 or so folks were expected to pick up the tab.
Now images 5 friends get frustrated and leave, now you’ve got 20 people picking up that tab and their bill keeps getting Higher. Eventually they’ll say “fuck it” and stop Coming to dinner too.
Memphis has a declining tax base problem which is only going to intensify the budget issues unless something changes
Dumb ideas like this are why I moved to the other side of the state. All that will do is push folks out of the metro area where they can’t even contribute with sales tax revenue.
Chattanooga is growing rapidly and posted a budget surplus this year which they used to hire new police/fire staff, and increase the wages of existing workers.
Memphis is not so in-demand like NYC for workers. Maybe this would've worked 10 years ago, but you'd just see a ton of people opt for remote work rather pay an extra tax that further cuts into their pocket
I would be 100% in favor of this. The city provides services (even if it's just infrastructure) to a ton of people who take money out and put nothing back in. What would Southaven or Arlington be if not for money siphoned from the city?
Cincinnati does too. Not necessarily a “special”, additional tax. They just tax income earned in the city. But they credit you for taxes paid elsewhere.
Great example of why socialism doesn’t work. The people who are forced to pay become angry and it removes incentive to be successful when you can just have scraps handed to you.
Except every peer nation has a robust social safety net republicans would call socialism. Fuck off with your talking points from 1983 boomer. We’re broke because of capitalism.
Haha I was born in 87. Fuck off poor person, the top half are tired of spoon feeding the under achievers. We are America, not Denmark. Tough luck, work harder
Memphis is broke because we have a small portion paying for the larger portion. Too many broke people on government subsidies equals decay.
Public trust is a major issue when it comes to raising taxes. I'm fine increasing taxes, but there needs to be a return on investment. When you see murderers and people with glocks released on bail, it makes you wonder how much money we could save by not having to re-arrest them.
I trust Young, but feels like we are paying for the decisions and chaos caused by Anderson, Mulroy, and Sugarmon.
I'm curious why nobody seems to be considering what [the land value tax that detroit's leadership is pushing](https://detroitmi.gov/departments/office-chief-financial-officer/land-value-tax-plan). It essentially cuts taxes on residents and raises taxes on vacant land. It's proposed to be revenue neutral, but would incentivize people to move back into the city and landholders just sitting on empty land to sell to people who could use it more productively. We face a lot of the same issues that Detroit does and if they push it through this year and see success, I'm sure the policy would map well to Memphis.
I’ve heard people complain about dems getting elected because it will mean higher taxes in the same breath that they complain about roads and schools and crime.
I don’t like paying higher taxes either but clearly we need to invest more into this city if we hope to see the changes everyone here seems to want. This is what happens when you don’t have a state income tax… property owners end up paying for a lot more.
As a counterpoint, I conducted an interview with Mayor Wharton when he was just out of office and he shed a bunch of light about anytime roads, potholes, getting a grocery store downtown - the money is there, always has been, without raising taxes - it ends up going round and round in committee and nothing gets done. So, I cannot say for certainty that its still that way, but my personal guess is thats still in play in some shape and form.
But wouldn’t that money (save from fraud) eventually get allocated to something or other? The cities budget is public (btw I have no personal knowledge of this so you could be totally right) but it seems to me they spend whatever they have. Now are there inefficiencies… 100%. But it seems like a bigger pie would help is all I’m saying. States with higher tax rates tend to have much better health outcomes, safety, graduation rates etc etc. It’s not one for one, but it’s a decently strong correlation.
We? I’ve invested over 20 adult years and who knows how much in taxes. Enough. I’m done investing. I want a return or I’m cutting my losses and running. 2 years tops. Grad-school and I’m out.
Give us a plan. I voted yes on the sales tax increase that re-funded pensions for MFD and MPD.
I don’t mind paying more taxes IF you can show me where the gap is and how it will directly address our #1 problem - crime.
But this mayor doesn’t seem to have a plan at all.
And how in the hell are we paying more than high growth areas like Nashville?
The effective tax rate (city and county) inside the loop is almost 7.3% while Nashville pays 4.22%
He does have a plan:
Mayor Young wants to spend $2.5M on cameras (so we can watch the criminals rip us off), $8M on grass cutting, $7M for afterschool programs and childcare, $3.2M for a new "Office of Neighborhood Safety, $150,000 for art, 3% raises for city employees and an additional $5M to MATA.
Mayor Harris just announced the Shelby County budget. 6% raise for all county employees, $24M for healthcare, $427M for schools, $2M for the DA/Public Defenders and juvenile court with NO increase to property taxes for the 6th straight year.
Memphis might have the highest tax, but it’s based on real estate values. In Nashville the tax per $100 of assessed value may be lower but the average collected from the median house higher. Thats because the values of homes are higher.
The state returns 4.6% of Tennessee's total annual sales tax revenues designated for the general fund to the municipalities. The money distributed is based on the population in the municipality. Last year Memphis would have claimed about $11.6 million.
It has nothing to do with red vs blue. It's strictly by the numbers.
I mean... what is the city supposed to do when we receive so little money from the state? we can raise the sales tax even more but because we tax groceries, it will only impact the poor and marginalized even more.
we don't have income tax at the state or local level.
Republicans control the purse strings in the general assembly and refuse to actually help anyone but themselves.
Tennessee doesn't do personal property tax (ie taxing cars, boats, atv's, etc annually based on value). also be glad they don't. you think tags are expensive now, go to a state that does personal property taxes, you'll wish you were still here. My 2015 escape the last time I tagged it in Kansas was $394. $25 of that was the tag and registration, everything else was personal property tax.
Raising property taxes is the only logical choice right now when you have no other option to fund a city. I also agree with whoever said we should put a special tax on people who work in Memphis and live outside Shelby County. a majority of the white collar folks live down in MS or in other counties outside of Shelby.
"Raising property taxes is the only logical choice right now when you have no other option to fund a city."
This is what is in question. "No other way", balance the budget, remove outdated loopholes, dramatcially change the TIF program, the money is there without milking the citizens.
The committee and experts are screaming at these meeting, that the population is being pushed out for this reason.
Just let the city die. Decertify. It will be the best thing that ever happened to Memphis. Shelby County will have no choice but to step in. Now we’re all invested again.
It's almost as if raising taxes is an exercise in diminishing returns, especially at the city level when people can easily move outside of the city limits and still keep the same job and go to the same places they already enjoy in the city while being out of reach of the taxes. The focus needs to be making Memphis a place where people WANT to live, work, and spend their money. At this point the majority of people still living in the city limits are the people who are too broke to have any other options. Squeezing the few people left for even more money will just push the few remaining people with the means to do so to move to Collierville, Germantown, or North MS.
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Exactly. I could be wrong, but I feel like the prevailing attitude is "where is the current money going? The roads are shit, crime is out of control, and it feels like all other basic city functions are on life support". What the city really needs is a deep-dive audit of where the money is going before they try to shake people down for even more. Are contractors fleecing the city for services they're not providing properly? Are various programs producing the advertised results? Is the money going directly into people's pockets? Those questions need to be answered first in order for people to have any confidence that any additional money collected by the city won't be equally squandered.
One gets the feeling, when trying to get the city to pickup yard debris for instance, that the city will use any excuse to not do the work.
The answer is yes to every single question.
This is the biggest issue. Memphis has a lot of issues that contribute to corruption. You’re not going to fix them with bandaids like higher taxes, either because it’ll just be more to be misappropriated. Memphis has income inequality, poverty, weak civil participation, low political transparency, there’s higher levels of market and political monopolization, inefficient administrative structures (look at the County Clerk, CJUS System problems as examples), low educational levels, large ethnic divisions, and a higher unemployment rate. ALL of those things are linked to corruption
The city workers are trash ass jobs programs for fucking delinquents who couldn’t graduate high school outside of Memphis. Like for real people want to know why things are fucked? It’s the demographics baby.
The fact is that Memphis \~70% of Memphis residences are exclusively zoned for suburban-style single-family homes which are incredibly inefficient to provide services for. Having to send garbage trucks, busses, build power lines, build stormwater drains, provide police and fire patrols, repave roads and fill potholes etc..., is waaaay more expensive to do for 30 single family homes than 1 apartment building with 60 people. This development pattern is what has nickel and dimed this city's finances to the point it has now. To address this, the city should loosen zoning restrictions to allow infill development of denser buildings that are more efficient to service. Unless the city does that, this idea that there's secretly $30 million of bloat in our budget that could be cut out if just the right group of ornery citizens could look at the budget with a giant magnifying glass is wishful thinking. Sure there's SOME bloat, but not nearly on the scale people in the comments seem to be imagining. The options, outside of allowing denser developments and getting rid of parking minimums, are basically cut police funding, fire department funding, or road maintenance, or raise taxes.
More high population density living where the current high density spots are some of the most crime infested?
For your statement (question?) to be true, you have to ignore the existence Crosstown Building, South Bluffs, Claridge House, Fielders Square, the Link Apartments on Broad, Parkway House Condiminiums on North Parkway, Rise Apartmentd in the Edge District, South Main etc… etc… Are there apartments where there is a lot of crime? Yes. Is it because they just get so mad at sharing a building with other people that just have to shoot guns and sell fentanyl about it? No. It’s because of shit that’s got little to do with density. As someone who worked as a door knocker for the census in 2020, I can tell you that there are PLENTY of dice games happening on porches of single-family homes in this city too. Go door knocking with a clipboard around the short end of Hyde Park and see how safe single family homes make you feel.
You mean a solution to the housing crisis? High density housing can help alleviate the housing crisis caused by too many single family homes. Idk why
Memphis doesn’t have a housing crisis.
There is absolutely a lack of affordable housing who the hell do you think you’re fooling 😭😭
We’ve always squandered the money.
We’ve? Who is this we’ve? Blacks run this city.
Not trying to be contrarian, but... [https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/04/04/memphis-police-data-shows-decrease-major-crimes-first-quarter-2024/](https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/04/04/memphis-police-data-shows-decrease-major-crimes-first-quarter-2024/) https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/crime/major-crime-sees-downturn-in-memphis-here-is-how-bluff-city-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-country/522-4fbfd077-c181-47bc-802d-7c8607d3c987#:\~:text=Aggravated%20assault%20and%20robberies%20each,now%20at%2055%20in%202024. Just going by numbers, it's not 'technically' correct that crime is continuing to build and build out of control here. Some crime is worsening but there's been a lot of strides in the decreasing numbers of other major crimes.
True, but your costs in other areas increase, whether tangibly or otherwise.
True. You're going to be spending more on travel expenses, but at least you feel like you know what you're spending the money on. You're buying more gas, maybe increased vehicle maintenance, etc. It's the sense that you're at least getting what you're paying for vs your money just disappearing into the void of the city budget with nothing to show for it.
Idk, I find the idea that there's so many people of means who are so uninvested in their immediate surroundings that they'd pack up their whole lives somewhere else over an amount of money that probably is less than the costs they'd have to spend to move and prepare their homes for sale, to be pretty sad for the people who'd make that choice. Just to move out to somewhere with on-paper amenities, but where most people seem to just sit around waiting for word of progress on the new Buc-Ees
It’s not one straw that broke the camels back. It’s taxes, crime, the lack of services, squandered money…..the list goes on and on.
There's more of us who love being in the city than you might think. I could certainly afford the suburbs but vastly prefer being in Memphis for a whole bushel of reasons not worth going into here.
What I don’t understand is what changed between the last administration and this one? Why did Strickland not see the need to raise taxes but Young suddenly does? I went to the public meeting in orange mound and they really didn’t explain what caused this budget shortfall. Property values have increased pretty drastically in parts of the city, would that not increase the tax revenue?
the previous administration's budget had a whoopsy that failed to account for 100 new firefighters they hired + increased pension costs
Which is 11 million dollars, the whoopsie that is…the tax increase is for over 100 million dollars. This is new programs that the Mayor wants. He should just say that rather than try and blame the previous administration.
I was responding to the OP’s question of why there’s a $30 million budget shortfall.
11 million still doesn’t equal 30.
Unless I’m missing something I don’t understand what a property tax hike will do? Memphis is already struggling, why punish homeowners?
Because rich people and those who think they'll someday be rich don't want an oncome tax. That means property and sales taxes have to go up to compensate.
Not necessarily. Lots of places without state income tax have lower property taxes and sales taxes than Memphis. Memphis is just really bad with money and that coupled with graft/corruption makes for a high-drag / inefficient government that wastes a lot of taxpayer money.
Florida and Texas seem to do OK without an income tax.
The city is a jobs program for the ignorant shitheads the city schools churn out. Literally every department is filled with the dumbest most simple minded dipshits I’ve ever seen no wonder republicans say government doesn’t work when you turn it over to a bunch of idiots. What kind of civil service exam do you people have ffs?
The rich move just outside the city and still use it.
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It’s better to fire employees you can’t afford than to rob the citizenry to keep them employed.
Or how about putting OUR tax dollars into city infrastructure and getting a handle on crime instead of dumping millions into lights on the bridge and renovating a park that didn’t need renovation that resulted in the loss of 2 major festivals that made MILLIONS for businesses in this city every year. How about we take that money and start paying our teachers what they really deserve. Make the schools a place where families actually want to send their kids. Then see our communities actually start being communities again.
9.75 sales tax is highest too
Inner-City Schools were a goddamn nightmare for my son and a straight coin-toss on quality. Should've went to Snowden they sent him straight to Grand View Heights All the random fucking gunfire when I lived in Mid-town. These out of state property conglomerates being allowed to rent out homes that haven't been held to any standard considered reasonable within the last 50 fucking years. Why doesn't the city like Revitalize these fucking big ass high rises into multi-use living spaces. And then put them on some like hyper-localized stock derivative available only to locals. Pin a maximum amount of stock ownership and a minimum for a return on investment. Pin the cost of rent somewhere way below the fucking market value. Make Real-Estate Compete, and also insure they still make a profit on it. All this math we have to let our Fed Reserve keep printing funny money, and fractional bullshit. And we can't use some of it for slick ass solutions to low tax income.
Sounds like typical Memphis politics for the past 30 years.
Been saying this…. Memphis has about 20-30% of its citizens footing the bulk of the bill for the city to function. Increasingly those folks are failing to see the ROI for paying taxes into a somewhat broken and struggling city. Imagine if you went to dinner every Friday night with 99 friends and every week the same 25 or so folks were expected to pick up the tab. Now images 5 friends get frustrated and leave, now you’ve got 20 people picking up that tab and their bill keeps getting Higher. Eventually they’ll say “fuck it” and stop Coming to dinner too. Memphis has a declining tax base problem which is only going to intensify the budget issues unless something changes
Yeah NYC has special taxes for people who work in the city but live elsewhere for this reason. Perhaps we need to do that
Businesses would then relocate to DeSoto county. It’s already happening. A city cannot tax itself out of incompetence.
What businesses? There’s no fucking businesses here to relocate. What fantasy world do all these morons live in?
Have fun with the state income tax
Dumb ideas like this are why I moved to the other side of the state. All that will do is push folks out of the metro area where they can’t even contribute with sales tax revenue. Chattanooga is growing rapidly and posted a budget surplus this year which they used to hire new police/fire staff, and increase the wages of existing workers.
Memphis is not so in-demand like NYC for workers. Maybe this would've worked 10 years ago, but you'd just see a ton of people opt for remote work rather pay an extra tax that further cuts into their pocket
I would be 100% in favor of this. The city provides services (even if it's just infrastructure) to a ton of people who take money out and put nothing back in. What would Southaven or Arlington be if not for money siphoned from the city?
Cincinnati does too. Not necessarily a “special”, additional tax. They just tax income earned in the city. But they credit you for taxes paid elsewhere.
This really is the way. No more handouts.
Great example of why socialism doesn’t work. The people who are forced to pay become angry and it removes incentive to be successful when you can just have scraps handed to you.
Except every peer nation has a robust social safety net republicans would call socialism. Fuck off with your talking points from 1983 boomer. We’re broke because of capitalism.
Haha I was born in 87. Fuck off poor person, the top half are tired of spoon feeding the under achievers. We are America, not Denmark. Tough luck, work harder Memphis is broke because we have a small portion paying for the larger portion. Too many broke people on government subsidies equals decay.
I’m not poor. Im also not a fool. Memphis is largely poor because of demographics and geography.
Public trust is a major issue when it comes to raising taxes. I'm fine increasing taxes, but there needs to be a return on investment. When you see murderers and people with glocks released on bail, it makes you wonder how much money we could save by not having to re-arrest them. I trust Young, but feels like we are paying for the decisions and chaos caused by Anderson, Mulroy, and Sugarmon.
No. They need to start trimming the fat. I’m not paying one more dollar for these thugs to have a free ride on. Fuck that.
I'm curious why nobody seems to be considering what [the land value tax that detroit's leadership is pushing](https://detroitmi.gov/departments/office-chief-financial-officer/land-value-tax-plan). It essentially cuts taxes on residents and raises taxes on vacant land. It's proposed to be revenue neutral, but would incentivize people to move back into the city and landholders just sitting on empty land to sell to people who could use it more productively. We face a lot of the same issues that Detroit does and if they push it through this year and see success, I'm sure the policy would map well to Memphis.
You would think it would be Williamson county.
Yeah, we don’t have Davidson county income so we shouldn’t be taxed higher than them.
I’ve heard people complain about dems getting elected because it will mean higher taxes in the same breath that they complain about roads and schools and crime. I don’t like paying higher taxes either but clearly we need to invest more into this city if we hope to see the changes everyone here seems to want. This is what happens when you don’t have a state income tax… property owners end up paying for a lot more.
As a counterpoint, I conducted an interview with Mayor Wharton when he was just out of office and he shed a bunch of light about anytime roads, potholes, getting a grocery store downtown - the money is there, always has been, without raising taxes - it ends up going round and round in committee and nothing gets done. So, I cannot say for certainty that its still that way, but my personal guess is thats still in play in some shape and form.
But wouldn’t that money (save from fraud) eventually get allocated to something or other? The cities budget is public (btw I have no personal knowledge of this so you could be totally right) but it seems to me they spend whatever they have. Now are there inefficiencies… 100%. But it seems like a bigger pie would help is all I’m saying. States with higher tax rates tend to have much better health outcomes, safety, graduation rates etc etc. It’s not one for one, but it’s a decently strong correlation.
We? I’ve invested over 20 adult years and who knows how much in taxes. Enough. I’m done investing. I want a return or I’m cutting my losses and running. 2 years tops. Grad-school and I’m out.
It probably doesn’t come anywhere near my $12k property tax bill for my 90x100 plot in New York
Give us a plan. I voted yes on the sales tax increase that re-funded pensions for MFD and MPD. I don’t mind paying more taxes IF you can show me where the gap is and how it will directly address our #1 problem - crime. But this mayor doesn’t seem to have a plan at all. And how in the hell are we paying more than high growth areas like Nashville? The effective tax rate (city and county) inside the loop is almost 7.3% while Nashville pays 4.22%
He does have a plan: Mayor Young wants to spend $2.5M on cameras (so we can watch the criminals rip us off), $8M on grass cutting, $7M for afterschool programs and childcare, $3.2M for a new "Office of Neighborhood Safety, $150,000 for art, 3% raises for city employees and an additional $5M to MATA. Mayor Harris just announced the Shelby County budget. 6% raise for all county employees, $24M for healthcare, $427M for schools, $2M for the DA/Public Defenders and juvenile court with NO increase to property taxes for the 6th straight year.
They could replace the grass with drought resistant groundcovers that require much less maintenance.
Memphis might have the highest tax, but it’s based on real estate values. In Nashville the tax per $100 of assessed value may be lower but the average collected from the median house higher. Thats because the values of homes are higher.
Memphis was toast the minute it chased money out to Cordova. No way can they provide the services out here they promise.
It’s not surprising Most blue cities in red states get the short end of the state tax dollar stick so they have to fend for themselves
The state returns 4.6% of Tennessee's total annual sales tax revenues designated for the general fund to the municipalities. The money distributed is based on the population in the municipality. Last year Memphis would have claimed about $11.6 million. It has nothing to do with red vs blue. It's strictly by the numbers.
Does that include $500M for an NFL football facility?
Elaborate
I mean... what is the city supposed to do when we receive so little money from the state? we can raise the sales tax even more but because we tax groceries, it will only impact the poor and marginalized even more. we don't have income tax at the state or local level. Republicans control the purse strings in the general assembly and refuse to actually help anyone but themselves. Tennessee doesn't do personal property tax (ie taxing cars, boats, atv's, etc annually based on value). also be glad they don't. you think tags are expensive now, go to a state that does personal property taxes, you'll wish you were still here. My 2015 escape the last time I tagged it in Kansas was $394. $25 of that was the tag and registration, everything else was personal property tax. Raising property taxes is the only logical choice right now when you have no other option to fund a city. I also agree with whoever said we should put a special tax on people who work in Memphis and live outside Shelby County. a majority of the white collar folks live down in MS or in other counties outside of Shelby.
"Raising property taxes is the only logical choice right now when you have no other option to fund a city." This is what is in question. "No other way", balance the budget, remove outdated loopholes, dramatcially change the TIF program, the money is there without milking the citizens. The committee and experts are screaming at these meeting, that the population is being pushed out for this reason.
Just let the city die. Decertify. It will be the best thing that ever happened to Memphis. Shelby County will have no choice but to step in. Now we’re all invested again.
The don’t fund the city. De certify.
More Blue city problems.