An interesting event is happening in Dallas at the moment, city officials are determining if raising taxes on property owners is necessary to create an increase in revenue at the expense of tax payers during an economic downtime.
Mike Hashimoto, a columnists from Dallas Morning News, asks Dallas property owners a series of questions about the legitimacy of raising taxes and if it benefits the city as a whole. The main view he addresses is that Dallas residents are already overtaxed and implementing more taxes would be downright unjust. His supporting evidences comes in the form of numerous numbers from sources he does not cite.
His argument is that the current tax rate of 79.76 is well above the surrounding area's and other major metropolitan taxes. With that stated, he shows the reader the flaws of raising the current tax rate in Dallas even slightly because of the fact that other cities are doing just fine with their lower property tax.
I am no economic major nor do I want to be but after reading this article it creates more questions than answers them. Mike puts emphasis on numbers that have no credible sources to justify their existence. So where does he get his numbers from? Other things that downplay his article is that does Mike have any background in the field he's trying to prove? All I can verify is that he has worked for SportsDay for approximately 20 years and attended the University of Texas-Arlington.
My belief is that probably the tax increase is justifiable due to the fact that these numbers don't have any correlation to Dallas itself. Yes, Dallas has a higher property tax than the rest of the Texas, but it is probably needed to cover the higher expenses the city accrues compared to the other cities. Also, with less sources of revenue coming in (ie. Houston creates revenue from the Port of Houston and Houston Ship Channel) Dallas city officials need to find other ways to create a net positive in cash or they risk cutting needed budgets that keep the city running smoothly.
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