[Mpls] Carol Becker and the Board

[Carol Becker]

Ed Felien wrote:



>Can the property tax be made progressive?  What would you suggest as a form 
>of progressive taxation?  You say the income tax is the only progressive 
>tax.  Are you suggesting a City income tax? or just more aid from the state 
>(which may be subject to the whims of an unfriendly administration)?



Absolutely property taxes could be progressive without much difficulty. For 
example, in 1998, the property tax system was more progressive than it is 
now. There used to be three tax classification rates for homes (1%, 2% and 
3% depending on how much your house was worth) but somewhere along the way 
(surprise) the top rate one went away (now there is only 1% and 1.65%).  If 
the State wanted to make the property tax more progressive, we could simply 
adjust the tax classification rate to put more weighting on higher value 
homes like it used to be.



A city income tax would be problematic because it would give people a 
disincentive to live in Minneapolis.



Regarding state aid, a good start would be to restore the substantial cuts 
in Local Government Aid made over the last couple of years.



Thanks for the good questions.



Carol Becker

Longfellow

Future Member, Board of Estimate and Taxation