Property taxes: How long until we lose our Tacoma home?

Today, I was a bit curious how much my property tax would increase over last year. I was a bit dismayed to see it is 16.4%.

This is a rather difficult pill for us to swallow. I looked back at past years’ IRS statements and saw my retirement income has risen a bit, while my wife’s wages have fallen a bit over the past ten years (at age 63, she works less overtime than in past years).

So we have gained less income (take-home dollars) than the increase in our property tax since we moved to Tacoma about 8 ½ years ago.

We moved here intending for it to be our final home. We will never sell this home; we gain nothing by hyper-inflation of values. Now we fear being eventually taxed out of our home.

This is a major flaw in how taxes are calculated. People who do not want to sell are driven from their homes as taxes rise at 10 or more time the rate of incomes.

In the end you have cities like San Francisco with all property owned by the very rich.

This story was originally published February 15, 2020 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Property taxes: How long until we lose our Tacoma home?."