IT'S THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK!

This letter from Tom Fry was sent to me by Jerry Johnson:

Greeting fellow Stokes taxpayers and other friends in adjoining counties,

Happy Independence Day!

As you know, our wonderful Stokes Government has socked it to us again
this year with a whopping 23% raise in personal property evaluations,
which obviously will result in a very large tax hike for us all when we
receive that dreaded tax bill in the mail this fall. Unfortunately, even
though I was wise enough to appeal my property evaluation and have it
re-evaluated and the value lowered, I will still have to pay a much
higher tax on the cramped 1300 sq. ft. humble abode in which our family
exists. Of course, you will probably say to yourself when seeing the
raised evaluation of your home: "Wow! My house is worth a lot more. I'm
getting richer"! The crafty politicians are counting on your gullibility
in order to further their goals, namely to get re-elected and resume
their lavish lifestyles. If you had to sell your house tomorrow at the
new property evaluation, do you think you could?

Even though we have had a supposed bad "recession" for the last four
years, real estate property values have just about doubled in the last
eight years in the suburbs of America's largest cities and finally
trickled down to our area. Add to this the dwindling faith in the stock
market in the last three years and it's no wonder that there has been a
real estate buying "BOOM". People wanted to put their money into
something tangible and 'real', such as real estate.

Our local politicians have caught onto to this phenomenon and naturally
"re-evaluated" our properties every two years for the last six years!

If you search the Web for Stokes Government Meetings, you will find the
last report and minutes of the Stokes Commissioners meeting in May. In
it, among many other falsehoods, is their proud statement that there were
"no taxes raised". In that way, when they run for re-election next year,
they can say "we never raised taxes during our watch". As you can
surmise, they certainly did by re-evaluating property upwards
drastically! IT'S THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK! I'll bet it is even as
old as when taxes were first created back in Roman times!

There is hope, however, because just during the last three weeks, the
real estate buying and selling BOOM is starting to dwindle, as Greenspan
has risen the prime lending rate so high that it is scaring the real
estate gurus away, for the time being. The rising oil and gas prices at
the pump isn't helping either.

Hope you took the time to read this long harangue.

Your tax watcher,

Tom Fry