While I was the Mayor of Montpelier, during the height of Covid, I oversaw the lowest percentage tax increase in the prior decade. Why? Because that is what Montpelier needed at that point. They needed a break. And that is true now for working and middle class Vermonters across the state.
One thing became clear during the last session: our education funding and property taxes have not landed in a sustainable place. Property taxes, which are mostly made up of education funding taxes, are a major expense for household budgets, and while I support the idea of everyone contributing to make our school districts strong and equitable, many Vermonters are at or beyond the limits of what they can afford for property taxes. So what do we do? Below are ideas that I would like to explore to potentially lower education taxes or property taxes in general for middle class and working Vermonters.
Additionally, I am supportive of adding a fifth tax bracket to ask Vermont's wealthiest residents (those who make over $500,000 per year) to contribute more of their income to state programs. I deeply believe that we have enough resources in the state to meet our needs, but we have significant imbalance in the distribution of wealth. So when households making over $500,000 are contributing a smaller percentage of their income than those making under $100,000, that's a problem. These are just some ideas that I'm working on, and I'm open to whatever practical suggestions you may have to make property taxes more affordable to working and middle class families. These ideas I've listed here may be the right ones and they might be the wrong ones, but either way, we need to find some solutions to get financial relief to Vermonters. |
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June 2024
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