Star Tax Program Repealed

I just recieved this from Thomas and Judith Santopietro:

>This is an important matter that we were asked to forward.

Subject: STAR program
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:42:07 -0500

Pass this one on!!

In case you are not yet aware. Governor Paterson abolished the STAR tax rebate program.

Please take 30 seconds to sign the petition link (also below).

Pass this on to all your NYS friends!! We need to get our STAR program back!!

Star property rebate program

Hi Everyone: The New York State star rebate program was abolished in the last NY State budget. Below is a link to sign a petition to re-instate it. Please take a few minutes to sign this petition and forward this to all your friends in the state. thanks!

http://www.tax.state.ny.us/star/2008/

My response to Tom:

http://www.urbanelephants.com/index.php/component/content/article/64/918-democrats-repeal-patakis-star-school-tax-relief-program-senior-citizens-hardest-hit.html


Tom--I'm not sure of the answer here but the above blog says that Star may actually increase waste in the public schools because the taxes reduced by Star are increasing the income taxes and Star reduces voter resistance to school waste. I'm not sure that's true but I'm not sure that it's not. The Manhattan Institute that the author quotes tends to be pro-corporation rather than purely tax reduction oriented. Of course, if school prices go up and school taxes go down then the difference has to be made up by someone. So Star can't be reducing taxes overall, just shifting them from homeowners to renters and corporate tax payers.