this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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Senate unexpectedly passes the No Tax on Tips Act in a unanimous vote (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I understand your skepticism. In Michigan they are proposing to exempt seniors (70+) from property tax, which seems good to me, but I'm suspicious as hell that it's a Republican proposing it.

Could just be it's a gimme to their base, but I'm suspicious it's more nefarious.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

It's to prime the voters to vote a specific way. I lived in Texas for some time and the state constitution was a total fucking mess that had to be amended by ballot measure.

The pattern was like this:

  1. Tax break for literally 3 widows of veterans who died in this one specific way. OH WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE POOR VETERAN WIDOWS!? (vote yes because you're a sucker)
  2. Now that you've got that pen over the YES button - click "YES" here! This extremely convoluted wording tells you (incorrectly) that by voting yes you will make the big bad government get out of the way of small businesses (by creating a new office and giving that personal crony friend of the governor dictatorial powers over which small businesses win and lose to extract bribes and force loyalty)
  3. bullshit that should be a legislators job
  4. bullsiht that should be a legislators job
  5. Dont you just hate government officials tromping all over your land do do their job? You should obviously vote YES on this one because otherwise mean ol G man will not be able to use your land in extremely rare circumstances that only happen to people with tens of thousands of acres and you feel for that person because you're wearing your constitutionally mandated Cowboy hat and boots that stand in for RealID
  6. Now that your pen is over YES - here's another amendment that is so badly worded you don't know what the fuck it does and you might as well just click YES so you can move on with your life! This amendment would allow billionaires to dam rivers to make their own personal recreational lakes. Fuck the people downstream!
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exempting the people who own most of the property from having to pay property tax is a great way to bankrupt schools and fire stations...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Do 70+ year olds own most of the property? I don't know the proportion of property owned by 70 year olds. You could be right.

My personal experience is that people are transitioning to assisted living around that time. Also by keeping the property owned instead of allowing it to be moved to a trust, that has inheritance tax implications, and it also is going to require the property to be sold and that money all spent before medicaid will cover a nursing home.

It's complicated and interacts with a number of other things going on, which is why I'm struggling to understand all the implications.