Letters: Readers discuss Lucas’ voting, cruise ship taxes and JoCo property values
In two names
Mayor Q (or L), I feel your pain. I, too, have been figuratively transposed at airline counters and registration queues of all kinds. (March 11, 1A, “Kansas City mayor turned away from polls trying to vote”) We share the two-first-names curse, and unfortunately, in our data-driven world, you, Lucas Quinton, just like me, Thomas Richard, sometimes end up in the wrong slot in the alphabetized database.
But didn’t you, or the poll attendant, think to query the computer system for both Quinton and Lucas? You don’t have to be a database analyst to do that. It’s kind of commonsensical, don’t you think? It’s always worked for me.
It’s certainly not much of a news story, unless it’s made to be.
- Richard Thomas, Kansas City
No solutions
The administration has offered a tax cut as a way of handling the COVID-19 crisis. (March 11, 1A, “Trump calls for tax cut as part of coronavirus response”) Seriously, how can a tax cut stop a disease? This would only help businesses continue to take advantage of the undereducated and poor while lining their pockets with our tax dollars.
A proposed stipend for affected low-wage workers to help them cope if they get sick is noteworthy, but that wouldn’t solve the problem or stop the disease — and it would add to our national debt.
Also discussed was a bailout of the cruise ship companies. The major cruise lines are exempt from U.S. income taxes because they are registered in foreign countries. So why should we bail out companies that do not contribute to our tax base?
This is all just more reason to question the leadership — or lack thereof — coming from the Oval Office.
- Bob Miller, Overland Park
Real values
Sarah Ritter did a great job explaining the home appraisal problem in Monday’s front-page story, “Rising taxes price older residents out of Johnson County.” The appraisal offices in Johnson and Jackson counties can’t afford enough staff to accurately assess all residential properties.
Buying and selling of real estate has always been based on supply and demand, but property tax rates should not be. In theory, homeowners pay fair market value when they find the right home, and property taxes are paid on that amount to support libraries, schools, government functions and so on. The county knows the price when a home is sold or a permit is pulled for major improvements, and this should be used for the basis of reappraised property value.
Homeowners are already paying for upkeep and replacement of their roofs, furnaces, foundations, driveways, yards and more. They should not be penalized because a rehabber, builder or speculator decides to help reshape a community.
Assigning an almost-random percentage to assessed value of residential property is not right. No one should be taxed out of their own home.
- Terence P. O’Rourke, Leawood
Off the tax hook
When you look at the amount of federal income taxes you owe by April 15, consider this: Some 60 companies in the Fortune 500 paid no federal income taxes in 2018, and some got rebates. These include such giants as Amazon, Starbucks and John Deere. Special tax breaks and loopholes not closed or newly opened by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 make this possible.
I pay more federal taxes on my teacher retirement than is paid by Amazon. What’s wrong with this picture?
- Carole Kennedy, Columbia, Missouri
Easy questions
A leader of an organization who uses his position for personal gain and is fixated on getting the answers he wants is not only ethically deficient. He is destructive to the organization, especially in the long run. You know this.
If the CEO of your corporation fires a vice president for reporting on a competitor’s attacks on your information technology infrastructure because the CEO thinks it would make him look bad and because it is not what he wanted to hear …
If your minister dismisses board members because they’ve reported attendance is not what they had hoped …
If your chief of police fires a deputy because he reports a new drug is infiltrating your neighborhoods …
If leaders start defining what is good for the organization as whatever is good for the leaders, lining their own pockets and maybe even trying to make it impossible for them to be removed from power … well, then you have to start looking not only at the leaders but at anyone supporting them.
When did you stop caring about what’s best for the organization? At what point did you dismiss obvious principles of honesty and integrity?
What all have you forgotten, and why have you forgotten it?
- Tom Hall, Rea, Missouri
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.