Our city has accomplished much and demonstrated its ability to tackle tough issues. Now is no different. We must acknowledge a structural defect in our city’s foundation and seek to address it if we are to prepare ourselves for future opportunities and prosperity. That structural defect is our Residential Property Tax Freeze. There is a proposed remedy never tried before, so the failings of the past are instructive, but not determinative. This idea -- Sunsetting our Tax Freeze -- protects those who have it (if you’ve got it, you keep it), but new transfers will not re-vest in the freeze. It is an idea that citizens all across Columbus have listened to respectfully for months as we have broached the subject openly. Here are the reasons why people are listening. Valuation limits, like our property tax freeze, have a 30-year history in this country, and it is not a pretty one. A recent survey of valuation limits conducted by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy cites Muscogee County’s freeze as an “extreme version” of the Limit phenomenon. The study goes on to list the unintended negative consequences of valuation limits. Muscogee County suffers from each one.
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