Recipe for disaster BY AL DIAMON

"Come quickly, Dr. Franken-person-of-no-particular-racial-or-religious-background-because-I-wouldn’t-want-to-even-hint-at-the-repulsive-idea-that-people of-some-particular-ethnicity-are-predisposed-to-grow-up-to-be-mad-scientists."

"Igor, you idiot, just call me Doctor."

"All right, Doctor. But you must come quickly. The peasants are marching on your castle with torches and pitchforks."

"But Igor, what have I done to inflame the local populace? Was it digging up the graves of their ancestors for body parts?"

"No, Doctor, that’s not it."

"Was it my attempt to play God by creating life?"

"Nope, that doesn’t seem to bother them."

"Was it kidnapping the most beautiful young virgin in the village, chaining her to a dungeon wall and torturing her mercilessly, while planning to wed her to the monster I’m creating?"

"Actually, nobody’s too upset about that, either."

"Well then, Igor, what act have I committed to enrage these simple folk?"

"It’s your property taxes, Doctor."

"My property taxes?"

"Yes, Doctor. Ever since you petitioned the Legislature to have your castle taxed based on its current use as a laboratory, chamber of horrors, and set for creepy movies, rather than at its highest and best use as luxury housing for creepy yuppies, your taxes have gone down. But the villagers have had to pay more to make up for that lost revenue. Even worse, other large property owners — like Count Dracula, Freddy Krueger, and Martha Stewart — are doing the same thing you did, which means the village will lose even more money in the future. And, because this type of tax break discourages new development, ever-increasing tax rates are forecast for years to come."

"Igor, I don’t understand how this happened."

"Me neither, Doc, but maybe the guy who writes this column can explain it."

Actually, the guy who writes this column was hoping the Doctor and Igor would blather on, making it unnecessary for him to show up at all this week. But since that doesn’t seem to be happening, I suppose he’ll have to pull himself together (just one more stitch on the neck, Doc) and point out why those clunkheads who support taxing property based on its current use are wrong.

Let’s say you own an acre of waterfront land, which you use for a bait shack, a fish pier, and a place to stack your lobster traps. Your neighbor on one side, a recent transplant from New York, also owns an acre on the ocean and uses his property as the site for his million-dollar dream home. The abutter on the other side, a contractor from Boston, covers his acre with expensive condos. When it comes time for the town to revalue all property, you discover your weed-covered lot strewn with fish entrails is valued at a zillion times what you paid for it. And your tax bill is going up accordingly.

That’s because Maine’s constitution requires all property to be taxed at the same rate, regardless of how developed it is. If the lots on either side of you are worth big money, so, for tax purposes, is yours. If the only way you can pay your tax bill is to sell your land at an enormous profit, that’s the way the fishing industry crumbles.

As a result of this seeming inequity, the aforementioned clunkheads in the Legislature have proposed a constitutional amendment, which will appear on the November ballot, allowing property employed for commercial fishing to be taxed based on how it’s currently used, rather than on its potential for development.

If that amendment passes, it’s only a matter of time before other special interests — homeowners in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, small businesses threatened by competition from big-box stores, mad scientists in crumbling castles — will all want a piece of the action. As each of these groups wins its own exemption from the rules, remaining property owners will have to shoulder more and more of the municipal fiscal burden. That’s because taxing based on current use isn’t tax reform. It’s just tax shifting.

It’s also a formula for ensuring financial — and physical — decay. If a bait shack is worthy of a tax break, wouldn’t tearing the shack down merit an even bigger reduction? If a modest home surrounded by restored townhouses qualifies for a smaller bill for municipal services than its neighbors, wouldn’t it make sense for the owners to put a junk car up on blocks in the front yard, let the paint peel off the clapboards, and refuse to mow the lawn, thereby cutting their taxes down to nothing? Wouldn’t expanding a small business prove an unattractive option, since that move might trigger a tax hike? Wouldn’t starting a company be prohibitively expensive, because the new arrival might be taxed at a higher rate than existing operations?

That current-use idea is a monster. This November, grab your pitchforks and torches, march to the polls, and drive the beast back into its lair once and for all.

Then institute a tax on lairs.

Get me a brain, Igor. Or the comments of brainy readers. Have them email me at ishmaelia@gwi.net