Board worked hard to construct a fair parcel tax Board worked hard to construct a fair parcel tax (December 05, 2003)

Separate levels take 'similarly situated' taxpayers into account

By Ellen Wheeler

I'm writing to thank everyone who helped craft and give feedback on the proposed parcel tax for the Mountain View-Whisman School District, including the Voice for its extensive coverage of the story and Superintendent Jim Negri for providing plenty of forums and study sessions for the school board and the public on the issue.

We all worked hard to make a tax that is fair and simple, and I think, with everyone's help, we succeeded.

Leon Beauchman of SBC challenged the school board at the recent Business and Education Forum to come up with a tax structure that was so simple you could explain it in a few minutes to the person sitting next to you at the bus stop. I think our "bands" approach has that necessary simplicity.

Good tax policy requires that "similarly situated persons be treated similarly." That's an interesting phrase. Why don't we just say that people should be treated the same, or that business owners be treated the same? Instead, we say, "similarly situated."

I'm a homeowner, and Bill Gates is a homeowner. I don't feel that the fact that we both own houses means that we are "similarly situated." He has a much greater ability to pay taxes than I do.

Small businesses in Mountain View and Microsoft are both businesses, but I don't think our small business owners feel that they have a lot in common with Microsoft. Microsoft has a much greater ability to pay taxes than does a small business owner in Mountain View.

Once in a while we hear some business leader or politician like Steve Forbes advocate for a flat tax, saying that method is most fair because it treats everyone the same. Some business owners in Mountain View have said the same thing.

What I think "similarly situated" means is that people with similar economic means are treated similarly. This is the approach our federal government employs when it uses tax brackets. We acknowledge that those with lesser means have less of an ability to pay, and those with greater means have a greater ability to pay.

This is the strength of our "bands" parcel tax approach. We ask landowners with similarly sized properties to pay the same amount of tax. People with smaller parcels, be they homeowners or business owners, pay a smaller amount ($75 - 150 per year). People with medium size parcels pay a medium amount ($200 - $400 per year). And, people with the largest size lots pay the largest amount, with a cap of a modest amount of $600 per year for those largest landowners.

If I was sitting next to someone waiting for a bus I could call this the "Goldilocks" approach." I believe our "bands" approach is "just right" - for small landowners, medium landowners, and larger landowners.

This approach is fair and simple. Our kindergarten to eighth-grade school children deserve the kind of quality education this parcel tax will pay for. I advocate that our community show its support of quality education for our kids by voting for the Mountain View-Whisman parcel tax in the March 2004 election.

Ellen Wheeler is a member of the Mountain View-Whisman school board.

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