Taxes

Just received news (not good news) from Lansing that the proposed moratorium on the pop up tax is not likely to come to be this year. We were looking at it as a short term stimulus for the housing market and were optimistic that it would have helped to motivate home buyers over the coming [...]

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Last week Larry Ruehlen from the West Bloomfield Observer-Eccentric called me to chat about the proposed moratorium on the pop-up tax, which, if passed, should help to stimulate sales of existing homes. My conversation with Larry made me think about some of the aspects of how this legislation will impact the way I sell real [...]

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Potentially good news out of Lansing for Michigan home sellers. Democrats are initiating legislation to allow home buyers to pay the same amount in taxes as the home seller was paying. Under the state’s current tax structure, the assessed taxable value of a home can rise annually by no more than 5 percent or the [...]

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It is Board of Review time again, and citizens across the state are headed in to appeal their property taxes. If they read the Freep today, the might be left with the impression that they are destined to be overtaxed. Yes, it does seem ironic that taxable values/SEV’s went up last year by 3.7%, the [...]

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This came in my email today. I searched high and low (on Google) to find the source of the article, but I cannot. I would have linked to it if I had found it. I’ve spoken before about the problems with Proposal A. As a matter of fact, I think I have ranted about it [...]

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Josh Plummer, my favorite guy at Flagstar Bank, does a great job of keeping me up on the latest in the world of mortgages. He does it without making me yawn, which is a compliment, of course. Plummer recently put me on notice about a change in the law that makes PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) [...]

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Yesterday Brian Dickerson put out a very good piece about property taxes in the Freep. Long story short, Brian is right. Proposal A needs to be shelved. The sooner the better. But I will get to my question for Brian shortly. My first order of business is to highlight the things that I think matter [...]

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Over the next week we will be putting copies of HUD’s in the mail for our clients who bought or sold a home in 2006. We are not tax advisors (duh!) but there can be taxable consequences from buying or selling a home. So be on the look out, and if your HUD does not [...]

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OK, its not the most user friendly document, but the information is all there. The 2005 millage rates for all of the property tax jurisdictions in Oakland County. The county has not published the 2006 rates on its web page yet, but when they do, we’ll get them up. Written by Maureen FrancisSKBK Sotheby’s International [...]

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First time homeowners and transferees to Michigan have lots of questions about how their property taxes will be calculated after they buy the home. We’ve posted a property tax estimator before, and it does a nifty job and crunching numbers. Today we found an excellent article on how taxes are calculated on the Oakland County [...]

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April 15th (or 17th this year) is right around the corner and taxes are on many people’s minds. Recently a client and I were discussing the tax implications of selling a primary residence. Of course, I am not a CPA, and the advice of a tax professional should be sought. But this IRS publication is [...]

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