A proposal that seeks to prevent wild swings in property tax bills is encountering a late surge of opposition from tax consultants, who argue it would create inequities among property owners.



Some quarters of the Republican Party are also convinced it won’t do enough to stop tax hikes. And at times, legislative leaders have had to aggressively counter some grassroots activists from directly undercutting the measure.

Arizona has one of the most complex and confusing property-tax systems in the country. We are also subject to rapidly changing property values, which can cause dramatic tax increases for taxpayers and instability in tax revenue for local governments.

Proposition 117 gives Arizona's voters a chance to clean up our property-tax system, making it more fair for taxpayers and more predictable for local governments.

Critics of the state’s 1-cent sales tax initiative argued today that its passage would make it all but impossible to simplify the state’s sales tax code.

That means losing out on the chance to tax Internet sales, said Kevin McCarthy, president of the Arizona Tax Research Association, which is opposed to Proposition 204.

But the chairwoman of Quality Jobs and Education, the group behind the ballot measure, said nothing prevents lawmakers from going after Internet sales taxes or broadening the sales tax base.

I used to be a purist when it comes to property taxation. All property should be on the rolls at its market value. That's the only way to ensure an equitable distribution of the tax burden.

I scoffed at those who wanted to limit the increase in property values, equating that to increases in taxation. Values are just about distributing the burden, I would confidently assert. The size of the burden is determined by spending decisions and property-tax rates. Concentrate on controlling them.

The coalition organizing against a new sales tax initiative is far cry from the anemic opposition to Proposition 100 two years ago.

Some of the key figures from the yes-on-100 effort are now in the opposition camp for Proposition 204. Even Gov. Jan Brewer, who lined up many of Arizona’s biggest interest groups behind her temporary sales tax hike and brought in millions of dollars to pass it in a May 2010 special election, stands against the proposal to make the 1-cent tax increase permanent.

Editor:

A letter to the editor by Jeff Nolan was recently published describing his opposition to Prop 117. It's interesting that Mr. Nolan did not disclose in his letter that he is a property tax consultant in the Phoenix area.

Editor:

Lynne Weaver's characterization of Proposition 117, of which I was the prime sponsor in referring to the ballot, was inaccurate on a number of counts and begs for a rebuttal. While I can appreciate Ms. Weaver's frustration in her repeated failures to gain support for her version of California's Proposition 13, she damages her credibility by suggesting that Proposition 117 is not good for property taxpayers.

Editor:

In your July 12, 2012 edition, reporter Steve Ayers gave an unfavorable review of Proposition 117, which is on the November General Election ballot. Mr. Ayers suggested that any fifth grader with basic math skills could understand that Prop 117 won’t be good for taxpayers. While Mr. Ayers accurately described the simple mathematical calculation for determining property tax rates, adults who actually pay property taxes know he glossed over the real story.

A Tea Party activist asks Secretary of State Ken Bennett to check into Barack Obama’s birth certificate and Bennett springs into action, launching an investigation.

"This,” he said, “is a constituent from Arizona, whom I work for.”

Nearly 300,000 constituents ask Bennett to put a sales tax initiative on the ballot and once again Bennett springs into action, launching all 19,071 petitions into the trash.

From the political notebook:

I don't know whether the courts will allow the initiative enacting a permanent 1 percent sales tax and divvying up the spoils between educators and contractors to make it to the ballot. But in addition to the procedural screw-up, the initiative is a drafting mess. It deserves to be tossed from the ballot for incompetence.