Property appraisals

Regarding “State must fix property appraisal system” (Page A11, Tuesay), I enjoyed reading the article by Rahul Patel regarding fixing the state’s many different county appraisal districts. While I agree that rising property taxes are a problem for many people and cause inequity, especially among the working class and poor, I do not believe that the solution to the problem is in the appraisal district process.

The solution, in my view, is to tax properties at the purchase price paid for the property. Doing this will force local governments to deal with the issue of setting the tax rate at an appropriate rate, something they largely avoid now, due to the built in annual growth in appraisal values.

I believe using the sales price of properties is the fair and equitable way to tax properties, especially for the poor and low income worker homeowners. Local governments could still raise taxes by setting a higher rate, and of course, they would enjoy higher revenues from new construction and sales of existing properties. Gary E. Gray, Spring