PA School Property Taxes

[Berks_Iraq_Vet]

I'm interested in everyone's opinion on this subject. My opinion is that the current system in unconstitutional. Home ownership does not exist in Pennsylvania. When you pay your mortgage off, you must still pay tribute to the school district or else they sell your home out from under you. The system is not uniform or fair and it deprives me of my property.

From the PA Constitution:
Inherent Rights of Mankind
Section 1.
All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness.

Public School System
Section 14.
The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth

Uniformity of Taxation
Section 1.
All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and collected under general laws.

[Dredly]

They are as legal as all the other taxes we are forced to pay

[JDePietro]

I'm really tired right now so if my thoughts read incoherently I apologize. Thank you for serving.

The public school system is devised on the same principle as all social services. I rob you, you rob me and some how we are lead to believe that we get ahead. This rings true for welfare, section 8, social security, medicare, medicade, disability and so on.

We are all tightly wound in this barbed wire concoction that there really is no way out via the government. Even those who claim to be on the far right have convinced themselves and their constituents that this process is for their benifit. As with most things coming from the government its total and utter nonsense.

Besides the obvious short comings of public schools the door is opened and is used daily to distort and alter the facts and truths that children should be taught to observe for an agenda of some sort. I could really go on for many paragraphs about the danger of allowing the government the ability to school your children but as I stated I am beat.

If you want the cycle to end, prove to the .gov you don't need them. Enroll your children into private schools, get your neighbors and family to do the same. If we all banded together and proved to the .gov how useless they truly are we could actually change the course of events taking place right now.

[autotech6506]

It's perfectly legal. If you didn't pay school taxes you how would the schools get funded? There sure as heck isn't money in the budget from the government. The answer to that is that you would be charged tuition. My wife is a teacher and she checked on how much it would cost to bring our kid (we don't have any yet) to school with her. They would charge us somewhere around $4000 to go there since the child would be comming from outside their district.

[Berks_Iraq_Vet]

It's perfectly legal. If you didn't pay school taxes you how would the schools get funded? There sure as heck isn't money in the budget from the government. The answer to that is that you would be charged tuition. My wife is a teacher and she checked on how much it would cost to bring our kid (we don't have any yet) to school with her. They would charge us somewhere around $4000 to go there since the child would be comming from outside their district.

A sales or income tax with school districts losing their taxing authority. Districts funded based on student population. Taxpayers vote on capital projects proposed. Taxpayers approve contracts. Standard designs for schools. Fees or fundraising requirements for extra curricular activities. Contribution based retirement plan.
Larger Co-Pays for benefits/ benefits in line with private sector. County Level Districts. Eliminate overhead/ administration waste. Too many layers of fat.
That would be a start.

[Berks_Iraq_Vet]

They are as legal as all the other taxes we are forced to pay

Many things were "legal" that were later found to be unconstitutional. Today, legal does not equal justice. As I said, the current system eliminates true home ownership in the Commonwealth.

[ddefazio]

My parents live down in Mississippi and they pull school taxes from vehicle registrations. They did this so that they would collect from everyone not just property owners. The only problem with this is now my mother 2009 toyota 4runner went from 785 for 2008 to 1560 for 2009. That is crazy! Property taxes are great though. They have an acre on the Gulf and pay 975 a year.

[Guns4Fun]

In my opinion, it is just as unconstitutional as any other tax we are forced to pay.

When you sit down and think about how much we pay in taxes a year, it boggles the mind.

When you consider that we need to work until mid April just to pay off our payroll tax debt -- then when you add up sales tax, sin tax, luxury tax, gas tax, auto tax (registration), property tax, school tax and all the other taxes I’ve missed -- we probably end up working at least half of the year if not longer, just to pay the tax man.

Me personally -- I think schools should all be privatized and people with children forced to pay tuition and have the school tax dropped. This does a couple things -- one, it doesn't force those without children to pay -- it doesn't force people with adult children to continue to pay -- it makes schools compete for students -- thus making schools have better teachers to draw people in. Competition is always a good thing -- especially when it comes to our children’s education.

[Farbmeister]

Look up the 16th Amendment.

The Constitution says the exact same thing. Taxes are apportioned (everyone pay the same rate/taxes).

Since the gubment would rather mettle in our lives, they had to pass the 16th in order to get around the Constitutions 'everyone pays the same' rule'.

So, you could probably fight it, depending on what the State Supreme Court has already ruled on the subject.

[RandomTask]

Property taxes are definitely unconstitutional.
I'll go so far as to argue that publicly-funded schools, compulsory attendance and The Department of Education are all also unconstitutional.