Make Them Pay!--Anderson Proposes Crackdown

[Brian Essi]

The City has to make up for lost revenue caused by the hospital debacle somehow.

Councilman Anderson is taking action.

One solution Anderson is proposing is to "ensure Lakewood's overall long-term sustainability" is to make owner occupied two-family homes apply for licenses in order to track the tenants for income tax purposes.

So, a licensure law that was designed to monitor landlords' keeping properties in good repair is now going to be used to have Lakewood Landlord/Home owners help the taxman collect revenue.

He thinks it might bring in $200K.

Why not propose another law to require every Lakewood homeowner in every single family house to get a "license" and report the the names, driver's licenses and social security numbers of everyone who lives in their home so that the taxman can cross check those names with tax returns?

Let's Make Them Pay Mr. Anderson!
Make Them Pay!

I hear that train coming....

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Anderson Letter to Council IMG_1486.jpg (99.13 KiB) Viewed 2994 times

Anderson Letter 2.jpg (66.74 KiB) Viewed 2994 times

[Michael Deneen]

The City has to make up for lost revenue caused by the hospital debacle somehow.

Yep. Get ready to be "nickel and dimed" to death.
This City Hall just gave away one of the city's major tax sources....and will now go through the proverbial couch cushions in a feeble attempt to replace revenue.

The proposal mentions owner-occupied rentals.....what about absentee-owned properties?

[Bridget Conant]

Are you kidding me?

What a joke! What will this do other than burden landlords and cost them more money without a corresponding benefit?

What is "basic tenant information?" The only relevant information, in terms of what the tax department could use to find tax scofflaws, is the tenant social security number.

Does Anderson realize there are serious issues with social security numbers and privacy? Most advisors on landlord legal issues now recommend NOT asking for tenant social security numbers because once you have that information, you must secure it and you may have legal liability if the tenant is a victim of identity theft. The liabilities favor not collecting that information.

Absent that, a name is relatively useless. There are other ways the city can cross reference returns to state and fed with filers using Lakewood addresses

This is a burdensome regulation that is SO typical of Lakewood. It will have no effect on tax collections.

[todd vainisi]

I don't know about the method, but trying to make sure renters pay their income tax is a good idea. I've known lots of people who rent here and don't file/pay their city taxes and they never get called on it because their name is not attached to a house in the city. I, personally, don't mind making land lords work a little harder. I actually would be in favor of a higher property tax rate to be assessed to rental property (if it is not already). Or at least I would support studies to find out what percentage of rental properties in the city have school age children in them vs what percentage of owner-occupiede single family homes have school age children in them. A lot of folks rent in lakewood so they can go to lakewood schools (along with our very safe neighborhoods, despite what Lori claims about the crime here). If it's found that the rental units have a disproportionate amount of children consuming school resources, then it would make sense to me to assess rental property at a higher rate.

Am I nuts?

[Bridget Conant]

Todd

Their name is attached to a W-2 that has an address. Don't tell me Lakewood cannot find out who these people are because that info goes to the Feds and the state.

I'd like to know exactly how turning landlords into "enforcers" will benefit the city. I suspect people who don't pay city tax aren't necessarily big income earners, nor long term residents. If you are mainly going after minimum wage earners, and temporary residents, how much potential revenue are you talking about.

[mjkuhns]

I, personally, don't mind making land lords work a little harder. I actually would be in favor of a higher property tax rate to be assessed to rental property (if it is not already).

What have I done to you? What have my landlords done?

I pay city income taxes. My landlords, so far as I know, pay property taxes; they also do considerable work maintaining my building.

Not every landlord does that—but I don't see that drafting all of them as unpaid tax-compliance officials will improve the (very real) problem cases of negligent property maintenance.

If it's found that the rental units have a disproportionate amount of children consuming school resources, then it would make sense to me to assess rental property at a higher rate. Am I nuts?

If your goal is to make households' share of school expenses proportionate to how much they use, this would actually make little sense to me. I rent, and my household's "amount of children consuming school resources" is zero. It has never been more than zero for as long as I have lined in Lakewood, and is very unlikely ever to be more than zero.

I am content nonetheless in supporting the general idea of community funded public schools. (As opposed to a simple per-student fee, which would actually address your concerns about proportionate use better than anything.) While there are better and worse ways to implement that general idea, in detail, arbitrarily picking one household characteristic (rented vs. mortgaged) out of the air and saying "let's slap a higher tax rate on the category with more students per household" does not seem to represent a better way.

[Stan Austin]

This whole idea of singling out renters "Show me your papers" has Trumpian or unAmerican overtones. Stan Austin

[Bridget Conant]

This whole idea of singling out renters "Show me your papers" has Trumpian or unAmerican overtones. Stan Austin

And that has been par for the course for this administration and Council.

Sue the local media, stifle dissent, present "alternative facts," and now enlist landlords to enforce their policies.

Disgusting.

[cmager]

VOTE!
November 7, 2017.

[Lori Allen _]

Why is Councilman David W. Anderson so concerned about this generating roughly $200,000? I have a very simple way that Anderson could collect almost half of that, very easily. Actually, this could be a job for Ward 3 Councilman John D. Litten, since the property in question is in his ward.

Here is how council could make almost half of that $200,000 goal. They could go after the mayor's alleged friend named Nick, who owes City Hall at least $60,000 for the demolition of his property at 13351-53-55 Madison Ave. Also, could City Hall also put liens on the profits from the properties that Nick is currently flipping in Lakewood? I will give City Hall a hint here: these flipped properties are on Giel, Woodward, and Brown. Not to mention Nick also owns numerous rental properties that he is most likely profiting from.

Also, forcing owner-occupied rentals to apply for licenses will discourage owner-occupied rental property even more, something that Lakewood absolutely does not need right now.There is a group of about 10-15 Lakewood landlords that live out of Lakewood or out of the state right now that are nuisances, to say the least. Their properties are dumps and their tenants (who are mostly white, by the way in case I am called a racist) are nothing but trouble. How about going after these landlords to start? Anderson could easily achieve his $200K goal by going after these landlords alone. If Mr. Anderson wants the names and addresses of these landlords, he is more than free to PM me.

Regardless, probably the best way for Mr. Anderson to achieve his $200K goal is to hold the mayor's alleged friend named Nick accountable for the demolition fees associated with his now-demolished Madison Ave. property. If Mr. Anderson or anyone else from City Hall is confused about how to find Nick, please feel free to PM me.

[Bridget Conant]

Anderson admits in the letter that the Finance Department can find out who filed Ohio returns using Lakewood addresses. What more do they need?

This is a tax on landlords and rental property owners. Like Mike Deneen noted, this is the beginning of the nickel and diming that we will be in for now - no vote needed.

[Lori Allen _]

Remember when Summers lied while campaigning and said that keeping the hospital would raise taxes? Trust me, the tax increase is coming soon, probably in 2018, just to make it look good.

Another interesting thing to note: The building department will have to find the rental properties first. They appear to be lost. Remember my previous posts about how delinquent the city is in inspecting rental properties? I posted several that had not been inspected since 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2005, etc..

If something should happen to these properties due to the the city's delinquent inspections, such as faulty wiring, structural damage, mold, water leaks, etc., would the city be in any way liable for personal or property damages?

Mr. Anderson, how about you worry about the inspections being done properly and up to date, instead of finding ways to nickel and dime we tax payers.

Just because you and your other council cronies agreed to go along with Summers immoral and illegal dealings does not mean you can make up your losses with our money.

How do you all sleep at night?

[Bridget Conant]

So worried about a few Grand from people not knowing about city tax and yet Jennifer Pae assured us we could easily weather the loss of over 1 million per year from income tax paid by hospital employees.

SMH!

[Kate McCarthy]

I can't recall specifically where, but I do recall Councilperson Anderson extolling how Lakewood's income tax rate was very low, relatively speaking, so I am not surprised he is going here. No doubt this will be the panacea to make up for the immediate loss of lease payments and income tax revenue into the city's coffers due to the closure of the hospital.

[Brian Essi]

I don't know about the method, but trying to make sure renters pay their income tax is a good idea. I've known lots of people who rent here and don't file/pay their city taxes and they never get called on it because their name is not attached to a house in the city. I, personally, don't mind making land lords work a little harder. I actually would be in favor of a higher property tax rate to be assessed to rental property (if it is not already). Or at least I would support studies to find out what percentage of rental properties in the city have school age children in them vs what percentage of owner-occupiede single family homes have school age children in them. A lot of folks rent in lakewood so they can go to lakewood schools (along with our very safe neighborhoods, despite what Lori claims about the crime here). If it's found that the rental units have a disproportionate amount of children consuming school resources, then it would make sense to me to assess rental property at a higher rate.

Am I nuts?

Mr. Vainisi,

I agree that everyone should pay their share of income taxes and that city officials should act to collect them in a reasonable manner. Mr. Anderson's proposal might actually increase net revenue after all is said and done--he is just trying to force about 1,500 additional homeowners to get licenses with the stated purpose of helping the taxman collect (2,600 single, double and triple owners are already subjected to the licensure requirement).

As for trying to assess more property taxes or other taxes on folks that use the schools, I strongly disagree.

Taxes in our cities, state and country are not intended to be "equitable" in the sense that what one puts in, one gets out. Rather, taxes are largely redistribution of wealth/social inequality/social equality concepts. Our schools help society as a whole regardless of whether those who pay for them attend. For example, I pay nearly $16K a year in real estate taxes and my kids have never attended Lakewood Public Schools--I could gripe and moan about how efficiently our money is spent on this or that, but conceptually, I have no problem that those that can afford to pay and support the public schools should be taxed.

Just imagine what our city could have done with the $100M+ that the leaders pissed away on the "sale" of the hospital. I fully supported having $150M of public assets committed to generating $7M in charity work and $2M+ in taxes and rent. Much of that charity work went to renters and "those people" who came across 117th Street for free healthcare (Summers' words "those people"). It is truly ironic that our city leaders make empty proclamations about refugees from foreign worlds yet they don't give a damn about underserved folks in Lakewood and across the border in Cleveland. May I suggest that kind of hypocrisy is why Trump sits in the Whitehouse during the weekdays.

Mr. Anderson may have been scratching his head over his proposal for years, but his timing in presenting it coincides with the loss of revenue from the hospital.