The People’s Republic of Berkeley California is preparing a to level a tax on “affordable housing.” I am not making this up.
The Berkeley Town Council is now considering leveling a one-time $10,000 fee (plus a $450 annual fee per unit) on apartment buildings offering below market rate (a.k.a., affordable housing to lower and middle income families) housing options. The fees would be paid by the landlord who would, of course, then turn around and raise rates on the “affordable housing.”
As reported by Curbed.com, these new fees would go toward paying for additional government resources to oversee, among other things, how much property managers charge their tenants. So, landlords will either have to eat the costs of the new five-figure fee or risk getting in trouble with the Berkeley Town Council for raising rents to cover the new government fee.
The Beast must be fed. The government machine is like the boilers on the Titanic which have to be stoked and fueled in order to run the lights, freeze the ice cream, heat the bath water and move the cumbersome amalgamation of people, machinery, finery and trappings forward.
That is to say, permanent government has to be fed an endless stream of taxes in order to survive. So, the primary life force of government is searching for food. New things to tax and regulate in order to pay the bills of entrenched bureaucracy which is also expanding, endlessly, like fleas:
Sure, it’s a one-off tax assessment, pay it once and we’ll never, ever do this again.
Trust us.
That Federal “telecommunication tax” you pay every-month on your land-line or cellphone is a WW1 “temporary war tax” to be levied on “the wealthy”-only, since phones were a luxury.
Congress never gives-up a revenue-stream willingly.
What a scam! As if urban housing costs affordable or market (expensive) BS aren’t bad enough. It’s so not a good idea to live in a (big) city.
It’s been said that the purpose of college is to give the student the correct view of minorities and the means to live as far away from them as possible.
Perhaps Berkeley is trying to push out poor minorities. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time lefties have screwed those they claim to stand for.
Did anyone consider this is a plan to get ride of ‘affordable’ housing? After all, who would want those people living in Berkeley.