Montgomery County Council proposes property tax hike

4.8% tax increase

planned

The Montgomery County Council, contrary to fake news headlines, is planning to raise your property taxes this year. A required legal announcement published by the Council confirms the planned tax hike in black and white, despite County officials' false claims of no increase.

"Notice of a proposed real property tax increase," the legal notice proclaims. "The County Council of Montgomery County proposes to increase real property taxes," it states. Despite annual false claims of "holding the line on property taxes," MoCo property taxes automatically increase due to rising assessments. The only way the Council could fulfill a promise of "holding the line," or "no tax increase," would be to lower the tax rate by the amount required to offset that automatic increase.

According to the Council's required legal statement, the Council "is considering not reducing its real property tax rate enough to fully offset increasing assessments." Instead, the Council is proposing to hike property taxes by 4.8%.

But while the Council is required by law to disclose their planned tax hike in the legal announcement, County officials and their friends in the media have been falsely claiming no tax increase is proposed. "No tax increases in Montgomery County proposed budget," blared a fake headline on WTOP.com. "It’s what residents don’t see in Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich’s proposed 2020 budget that might impress them the most: no tax increases," the article falsely announced.

The Washington Post's Jennifer Barrios, who never wrote a single article covering the general election County Council At-Large race in 2018 (and unprofessionally didn't even respond to emails during the campaign), tells an even bigger whopper of a lie this morning on the Post website by claiming a tax cut. All three local media statements are entirely false, as these photographs of the actual legal tax hike announcement clearly show.

Fact Check: Because County elected officials and the County cartel-controlled media have told this lie annually for many years, Post fact-checking standards require me to award them the new "Bottomless Pinocchio" rating for those who "repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.”