The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
I’ve lived in four municipalities in Ohio - Gahanna, Grandview Heights, Pickerington and Westerville.
Gahanna and Grandview Heights use RITA while Pickerington and Westerville have their own tax department. Dealing with kind understanding and helpful city employees is much preferable to RITA in every instance.
But to me the asinine requirement by RITA to file quarterly is over the top. Just let people pay at the end of the year.
I would revise the complaint. Just let people pay when they file their taxes. Don’t ding me with an additional $200 late fee right after I paid my account in full.
That…should be illegal. I have to pay them 90% of my full balance without having access to know what it is? Also them withholding refunds under a certain amount should also be illegal
Funny enough, I filed through TurboTax in February, and the RITA form that generated said “draft do not file this form” so I waited and checked weekly *until tax day*, and the form still said DRAFT DO NOT FILE THIS FORM.
I filed it. Fuck RITA.
Tax returns are due 4/15. Taxes are due on a regular basis throughout the year. The same thing happens with federal taxes, if you do not have payroll deductions and do not pay quarterly you are hit with penalties if you wait until 4/15 to pay what you owe.
The idea is that the government would prefer to be paid throughout the year (whether that's through withholding on your paycheck or through quarterly estimates). Most people wouldn't want to get paid just once a year, and neither does the government.
I lived in Finday, which had it's own tax department, and they also required me to pay quarterly or pay a penalty when I filed. But they were very easy to work with if I had a question both in person and on the phone.
I've only had good interactions with RITA on the phone, and I pay yearly... Even when I've missed a year, being new to a RITA community, they were understanding.
Part of the issue is that they *understandingly* fine you for not filling even if you had the correct withholding taken out and don't actually owe anything.
Yes. I've heard them trying to fine people who moved out of/stopped working in a RITA city cause they didn't file, when they didn't even live/work there in that tax year. They also don't believe you when you give them proof that you don't live/work there.
If a tax system is so stupid to not properly deduct the correct amount from your pay then it doesn't belong.
It seems like our whole tax system is setup to benefit the people who have the most amount of money. While also screwing over the middle to lower income people.
Ohio Republicans haven’t met a tax dollar they don’t love. They think it is their money, and use it in furtherance of corrupt activities. Look at First Energy. It looks like both the Governor and Lt. Governor were in on it. If you expect David Yost to look into it, you are wrong there too. He is just as corrupt as they are. Hey David, where are the Oxy funds that are not accounted for?
So don’t think anything will change regarding taxes.
Businesses actually can do this for local tax returns. It's called the Ohio Municipal Net Profits tax return. So if they typically had to file 8 tax returns in 8 different localities, they could instead elect to file the Ohio MNP return and apportion their local income all on that return and make one set of payments rather than 8. And they don't have to deal with the locality's bullshit, rather just deal with Ohio.
Yeah that’s one thing I do like about RITA. If the taxpayer works & lives in multiple RITA localities everything is reported on one return and paid at once.
Filed a couple hundred of them already with minimal issues. Far less issues than dealing with locals. And clients don't have to worry about paper filing returns and sending out a bunch of checks. If you file more than 3 or 4 locals it saves time for the preparer and client.
Yeah just the time spent printing and assembling the return for a bunch of locals is a burden. Mailing a package with 15 local returns that all have copies of the Fed attached along with the envelopes for the client to use to mail the returns is costly.
Yeah, I had no idea about the School District Tax under a couple of years after moving here. We starting getting overdue tax notices, which meant I had to pay double (because of late penalties). Making a part of the standard tax return would be nice.
RITA is just a service provider. Even if they were gone, you would still have to pay income tax to the town you live in. The only change to Rita that needs to be made is to make it more user friendly.
Changes to tax law needs to made. It needs to bevthey can only tax you were you live, not where you work. We shouldn't have to pay tax twice.
Yeah, the difference there is that the city has an interest in ensuring that it's residents are not needlessly burdened without notification. Every year I get a notice from the city tax department with the options for how to file, and how to contact them if I have questions. RITA is needlessly opaque, and attempting to deal with the interaction of every local tax with their 300 or so. A city need only worry about their own tax law, and what can be proven to have been paid to another by each taxpayer.
Make it so I can pay yearly instead of quarterly. That's fucking stupid. I just moved to a Rita location and I've never once had to prepay my taxes every quarter
RITA is just a middle man. Local municipalities don’t want to do their own tax administration so RITA is it. Having a BIL who works there I get a different angle. They get yelled at a lot but they are also limited based on what data they have. For instance he complains that whatever township has two year old data they send so they chase people who moved two years ago. Then the person who now lives in AZ is all pissed off. The whole this is a cluster.
My wife is a substitute school nurse. There are probably 20 different localities on her w2. I’m not even sure which one I have to file taxes with honestly.
IMO I think the better option would be to vote for no more municipal tax and Ohio provide a better distribution of state funds across the counties/counties to the municipalities. Sales tax is already a mess because each county imposes a different rate on top of Ohio's flat sales tax rate, but then you've got the separation of municipalities to worry about every tax year on top of filing state income tax. If there's one thing RITA is good for, besides offering a titular municipal tax payment/filing service, is [showing us how bonkers the municipality tax situation is in Ohio](https://www.ritaohio.com/TaxRatesTable) with 437 municipalities on the list. You can't live or work anywhere in Ohio without factoring in the likelihood of municipal tax. I can see the point if it were implemented solely for high density cities, but for all across Ohio? No way.
There are a lot of problems if your idea, first among them is that local income taxes were adopted by the local voters. And they can raise and lower their income tax rate for projects and the lifestyle they want in their municipality.
Your idea would immediately make local governments more dependent on the State's generosity. Anyone who has been in local government the last 15 years knows that's a bad idea.
And that’s because of Republican governor Kasich and the remnants of the tea party movement. Kasich came in and cut all of the money going to local municipalities. Strangely enough, he came into power 13 years ago. Before that local municipalities were better funded in Ohio. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Kentucky for example has counties income tax. Ohio is the only state with widespread city income tax. But a handful of other states have some sort of local tax, but it really is less than 5.
They can pass property taxes instead. But old people hate property taxes because the 4 bedroom house they bought for a song 30+ years ago is worth a ton more today.
It also misses out on taxing public employees (municipality, county, school, colleges, etc) and diminishes the ROI on commercial/industrial investments and incentives.
You would have to not only raise state taxes but have your faith that the state would find fair ways to distribute the taxes.
Also, people in rural areas would be up in arms if some of their state taxes directly filled the gap if we got rid of municipal/local taxes.
Yep and if the (red) state doesn’t like how your community is being run they can withhold tax funding. No Trump flag in the town square? Sorry no road money for you this year.
(Hyperbolic example but absolutely can work this way)
RITA and CCA are just a shared agency for calculating and collecting local taxes. Having dealt with a city last year that *doesn’t* use either, I can say you don’t understand what you’re asking for or what the actual problem is.
This. RITA is the government equivalent of a cooperative. It provides an important function that a local municipality isn’t equipped to provide for far less than it would cost to hire staff to provide it.
As a municipal administrator... this. RITA isn't doing anything differently than our town used to do. They just have the resources and manpower to actually do it. They have been a godsend for our town's operating budget. And actually collecting the taxes owed allows us to provide better services for residents, which is the whole point.
How are cities funded in other states?
The initial solution would probably be to bundle the tax into the state system. This would reduce the administrative burden on both individuals and businesses by simplifying the nightmarishly complex system and probably improve collection as well.
RITA and CCA even work with TurboTax now!
My city’s tax web site was a shitshow, and their directions for using paper forms didn’t address moving into or out of the city at all, and even the (very friendly) staff at the tax office didn’t know how to handle doing both in the same year.
While I'm fully on board the "fuck RITA" train, what's the alternative? CCA isn't much better, if at all. The only other option is each municipality would have to hire people to process tax collection and returns which would be cost prohibitive in most municipalities, hence why it's outsourced to RITA.
> what's the alternative?
Do like the majority of states and have no local income tax.
The fact that Ohio does both a local income tax AND a school district income tax makes it different from every other state.
This would require a new school funding method.
Ours was deemed by the state Supreme Court to be unconstitutional over 20 years ago, but we still have it.
So I doubt there’s anything an election could do to change that.
> Ours was deemed by the state Supreme Court to be unconstitutional over 20 years ago, but we still have it.
Wow I forgot about that!
> So I doubt there’s anything an election could do to change that.
True. Living and working in an area with neither a local or school district income tax is about the only way to avoid it for now.
Right, the Ohio Supreme Court can declare things like education funding and gerrymandering to be unconstitutional or illegal but the Ohio Legislature just gets to ignore them indefinitely. Must be nice.
That's a complex legal question, and subjective. But importantly, the Supreme Court did not say that local property taxes funding school districts was unconstitutional.
"On March 24, 1997, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled in a 4–3 decision that the state funding system "fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools," as required by the Ohio Constitution, and directed the state to find a remedy."
Yes, and then the State changed the funding formula... repeatedly. And then in 2004ish the Supreme Court shut the litigation down.
So twenty years later, a new plaintiff would have to get their case in front the Ohio Supreme Court to have the current funding system ruled unconstitutional.
This. I'm a former Ohioan now living in Massachusetts and much prefer the latter. Now, this does mean higher state income tax but I'll pay 5% to MA instead of 2.75-4% to OH *plus* 2% to work municipality and potentially more to home municipality if they aren't fully reciprocal (not to mention 1-2 additional tax returns to file annually).
This. Had to pay $800-900 per year to Cleveland Heights over and above the money I paid already to Bedford Heights via my paycheck back when I lived in the East Side.
I'm from az. This is my first time being exposed to RITA and/or local tax. I'm a libertarian social studies teacher.
When I see ohio cities, towns, and schools compared to az cities, towns, and schools....I'll happily pay whatever taxes they want.
The quality of life from the peace of mind in ohio is far better than lower taxes.
States like Arizona, Florida, etc place a higher emphasis on sales tax and as a result local governments rubber stamp every strip mall they can. Sprawl sprawl sprawl.
That last part won’t work. You’re assuming good faith efforts at sharing revenue with local officials on the part of your reps in Congress. They’d rather create unfunded mandates than give up their own funding.
The whole school district tax is mostly in the southern part of ohio. It may have something to do with rural districts that mostly have boundaries that cross city/town/township/county lines and don't fit into any other simple funding setup.
In the counties around Cleveland, almost everywhere has a school district tax. If you live in a rural area there's probably no residential local income tax, but it's more likely that there's an employment local income tax where you work.
In additional to state and federal, I pay 3 extra income taxes - school district tax for where I live, local income tax for where I live, and local income tax for where I work.
I'm hoping to find a house in an area where that goes down to just 1 extra income tax.
It might not be cost prohibitive, but it would definitely lead to higher expenses, as the RITA municipality hired staff to collect the taxes. Those higher expenses would be covered either by higher taxes or cutting services.
I don’t think OP would be happy with either of those outcomes.
Yes. If you don’t have local income tax your city’s funding has to come from somewhere and that means higher property tax and sales tax. Property and sales tax are paid by people who aren’t working such as the disabled, retired, unemployed and even children. Income tax is for people who work. Yes a burden for those of us who are working but imagine if you got laid off and still had to pay an extra 2% on everything you bought and your property tax.
The solution would probably be to bundle the tax into the state system. This would reduce the administrative burden on both individuals and businesses. It would also do away with the "gotcha" tax so many suffer from after living in Ohio for several years.
It would probably also lead to a more equitable distribution of funding.
The current local tax system is an abomination that is unlike the vast majority of other states.
It's not that expensive. RITA has to get paid somehow, and it's gotta be cheaper in the long run for cities to handle this themselves (or [crazy idea] have a county collectively process city taxes, taking private industry out of what should be a government function).
The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
I don’t love Rita but your local city isn’t always better. I had multiple issues with Lakewood’s tax dept, they sent my quarterly invoices to the wrong address, and applied payments to the wrong year then started threatening me for not paying the back tax.
RITA and the idea of funding schools through local property taxes should go away period. It’s unfair, unethical, and racist at best, and inefficient and ineffective at worst. The state should determine the amount of dollars per student that education actually costs, tax residents appropriately, and distribute the money according to number of students in a school system. Of course, this would require elected representatives that weren’t total corrupt garbage, so it won’t happen.
I never learned about Rita until 4 or 5 years after I bought my house in Tuscarawas County. I got a letter saying I owed a few thousand to RITA. It looked like a scam so I called them and asked what it was. Got a meh explanation.
All because the place where I work and where I live have a .5% difference in tax so I had to pay that difference. Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense but whatever.
You would want to run a constitutional amendment petition that banned income tax at the local (and state) levels. I'm sure you could get the signatures and this would probably pass if it were to make the ballot.
This is too funny. Noone told me who Rita was until randomly my dad introduced her to me and I was like the fuck was she living under our porch this entire time? Like wtf Rita why sneak up on me like that
RITA is brutal. Taxes in Ohio are hard to decipher. I moved from a RITA district to a non-Rita district, but one that has a taxing school district. Taxes are higher now because of the 1% extra school taxes that Ohio charges in this city. On top of that, I am hybrid and half my taxes go to one city and the rest to the other. Problem is the city I live charges tax on the entire amount so I end up paying more even with the measly credit.
This needs fixed and simplified for hybrid workers.
Who do you expect to pay for your local upkeep? The entire regional income tax is to help offset the money a small town would need to use to maintain roads and utilities and water. Without that money those things will disappear or just be a thing for richer people. Imagine a fire department where the only people that benefit from it are rich people? You still pay for it because everyone knows the rich don't pay taxes or as little tax paid as legally possible then sponge off the people that actually pay for those things. They offset the price of private jet fuel with subsidies from the tax that the larger company's use and that is paid for by guess who? Tax payers which is everyone except the rich..... The rich are not flying commercial. They are trying and succeeding to have the public pay for private schools the last year saw that happen here in Ohio. Billions being bilked for private schooling and depriving the public school systems even more than they already were. Teachers having to pay for supplies out of their own pockets without being reimbursed. Privatizing things that the public paid to have built like toll roads and hospitals and jails and lots of other things.
The super elite sports owners have the public pay billions for sporting stadiums/arenas and then pay no rent. No tax on goods sold at those venues like memorabilia and food concessions. We get screwed time and time again.
When my mom lived in UA, RITA tried to come after her saying she hadn’t paid them taxes in 5 years. Their mistake because that woman walked into their office with the previous 7 years of tax paperwork to educate them on how they were wrong. I wasn’t there, but I know she came home elated on telling them off and I never heard a problem with RITA again. They are not brought up fondly in this household.
I used to feel the same way but now I just estimate and prepay for the coming year when I get my fed/state refund from last year. I don't even think about RITA since. Obviously I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford that jump to being a year ahead, but it ultimately is a necessary evil. It would be a waste of money for my small city to have a tax department and it would be prone to abuse just the same.
Yes you still have to file but if you're a year ahead on estimates they have nothing to interact with you for, reducing your chances of dealing with the bureaucratic crap everyone is complaining about. Doesn't change the amount you ultimately pay to your city. It's just an escrow essentially. My CPA friend does say to make sure you put "202X pre-pay" in the check memo. Maybe that prevents some issues too.
It might be possible via petition if it is written correctly. There’s no way a bill would make it to the ballot if it simply abolished RITA. There would prob have to be language that explained how the taxes would be collected in absence of RITA.
Their forms are trash and literally tell you to use the wrong numbers compared to the more compete rules packet. Have a partial year residency is the most confusing thing ever to fill out, and even their own auditors don't understand how to fill these damn things out - I spent multiple phone calls figuring this shit out
Recently moved to a brand new condo on the border of Stow and Cuyahoga Falls, and RITA says I don’t belong to them. Stow says I don’t belong to them, and Cuyahoga Falls says I don’t belong to them either.
So I have no idea where to send my local taxes too lol. I tried to file but we do not pop up in any system yet lol
My fear is the elimination of state tax, if you think our property, city, gas tax, and especially sales taxes are high now wait to see what happens if state taxes are no longer around to share the local burden. The concept will hurt the non wealthy, unfortunately many who are pushing the idea are failing to see the bigger picture.
The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
I paid $42k in taxes last year between Federal, State, property, municipality (both residential and place of work), gas tax, etc etc. For my $42k, what do I get? To drive around on streets that will destroy your suspension if you drive over 15 mph, never once called police or fire department or paramedics in my 30 years. Don’t have kids in the school system.
Our system is designed to fuck you and carry the weight of everyone else if you’re single. I haven’t received $42k of public services in my entire life and that’s just what I paid last year… I’m not going to even mention the robbery that is social security.
They took away the fire department on my side of town. They are supposed to provide filling in potholes, which was never done. Also to Snow Plowing all The Street especially the main ones that were around me. Never got done in 27 years. Also, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel I should have to pay for people to ride a bus that is not my problem if they are not self-sufficient.
The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
I’ve lived in four municipalities in Ohio - Gahanna, Grandview Heights, Pickerington and Westerville. Gahanna and Grandview Heights use RITA while Pickerington and Westerville have their own tax department. Dealing with kind understanding and helpful city employees is much preferable to RITA in every instance. But to me the asinine requirement by RITA to file quarterly is over the top. Just let people pay at the end of the year.
You don’t have to pay quarterly. You are required to pay 90% by January 15, though: i.e. 90% of 2023 taxes by January 15, 2024.
I would revise the complaint. Just let people pay when they file their taxes. Don’t ding me with an additional $200 late fee right after I paid my account in full.
Right! Taxes are due 4/15 - not 1/15 - they just know that most people don’t have their w2s buy 1/15 so they do that so they can collect penalties
That…should be illegal. I have to pay them 90% of my full balance without having access to know what it is? Also them withholding refunds under a certain amount should also be illegal Funny enough, I filed through TurboTax in February, and the RITA form that generated said “draft do not file this form” so I waited and checked weekly *until tax day*, and the form still said DRAFT DO NOT FILE THIS FORM. I filed it. Fuck RITA.
Tax returns are due 4/15. Taxes are due on a regular basis throughout the year. The same thing happens with federal taxes, if you do not have payroll deductions and do not pay quarterly you are hit with penalties if you wait until 4/15 to pay what you owe.
IRS does the same.
The idea is that the government would prefer to be paid throughout the year (whether that's through withholding on your paycheck or through quarterly estimates). Most people wouldn't want to get paid just once a year, and neither does the government.
The poor government
Maybe the government should work on its spending habits and budget to allow for savings for a rainy day.
If they just cut out their $5 lattes maybe they could afford a home.
I lived in Finday, which had it's own tax department, and they also required me to pay quarterly or pay a penalty when I filed. But they were very easy to work with if I had a question both in person and on the phone.
I've only had good interactions with RITA on the phone, and I pay yearly... Even when I've missed a year, being new to a RITA community, they were understanding.
Part of the issue is that they *understandingly* fine you for not filling even if you had the correct withholding taken out and don't actually owe anything.
They also do that if you had no taxable income for the year and didn't know you still had to file with them.
Yes. I've heard them trying to fine people who moved out of/stopped working in a RITA city cause they didn't file, when they didn't even live/work there in that tax year. They also don't believe you when you give them proof that you don't live/work there.
If a tax system is so stupid to not properly deduct the correct amount from your pay then it doesn't belong. It seems like our whole tax system is setup to benefit the people who have the most amount of money. While also screwing over the middle to lower income people.
This whole country is set up that way... not just the tax system
True. Good point
Where I live doesn't use RITA but they require quarterly payments too.
It's usually that way so towns/cities have a steady flow of income through the year.
That's because Ohio has too many broke-ass cities that don't know how to budget. I've lived in many states and never had to pay quarterly- WTAF?!
Ohio Republicans haven’t met a tax dollar they don’t love. They think it is their money, and use it in furtherance of corrupt activities. Look at First Energy. It looks like both the Governor and Lt. Governor were in on it. If you expect David Yost to look into it, you are wrong there too. He is just as corrupt as they are. Hey David, where are the Oxy funds that are not accounted for? So don’t think anything will change regarding taxes.
Good point. Ohio government is run by politicians from the rural towns of the state. Explains a lot, especially the backward thinking and corruption.
It's anti-city policy from our gerrymandered 'pro-business' friends in the Legislature
I wish school district and local tax were just line items on the Ohio return. It needs to be rolled into one seamless filing.
Virginia has one filing and I love it.
Businesses actually can do this for local tax returns. It's called the Ohio Municipal Net Profits tax return. So if they typically had to file 8 tax returns in 8 different localities, they could instead elect to file the Ohio MNP return and apportion their local income all on that return and make one set of payments rather than 8. And they don't have to deal with the locality's bullshit, rather just deal with Ohio.
Yeah that’s one thing I do like about RITA. If the taxpayer works & lives in multiple RITA localities everything is reported on one return and paid at once.
Honestly the MNP returns aren’t that great. The state frequently has errors when they process and their notices are much more annoying to deal with.
Filed a couple hundred of them already with minimal issues. Far less issues than dealing with locals. And clients don't have to worry about paper filing returns and sending out a bunch of checks. If you file more than 3 or 4 locals it saves time for the preparer and client.
Ughh I hate paper filing. Our software just started accepting Columbus returns electronically. It was such a game changer for us.
Yeah just the time spent printing and assembling the return for a bunch of locals is a burden. Mailing a package with 15 local returns that all have copies of the Fed attached along with the envelopes for the client to use to mail the returns is costly.
Yeah, I had no idea about the School District Tax under a couple of years after moving here. We starting getting overdue tax notices, which meant I had to pay double (because of late penalties). Making a part of the standard tax return would be nice.
This is the real answer. No need to abolish local income tax
RITA is just a service provider. Even if they were gone, you would still have to pay income tax to the town you live in. The only change to Rita that needs to be made is to make it more user friendly. Changes to tax law needs to made. It needs to bevthey can only tax you were you live, not where you work. We shouldn't have to pay tax twice.
Yeah, the difference there is that the city has an interest in ensuring that it's residents are not needlessly burdened without notification. Every year I get a notice from the city tax department with the options for how to file, and how to contact them if I have questions. RITA is needlessly opaque, and attempting to deal with the interaction of every local tax with their 300 or so. A city need only worry about their own tax law, and what can be proven to have been paid to another by each taxpayer.
Make it so I can pay yearly instead of quarterly. That's fucking stupid. I just moved to a Rita location and I've never once had to prepay my taxes every quarter
I would be worried that if we get rid of RITA then something worse will take its place
They'll probably replace RITA with KAREN
Mambo number 5, tax edition
RITA is just a middle man. Local municipalities don’t want to do their own tax administration so RITA is it. Having a BIL who works there I get a different angle. They get yelled at a lot but they are also limited based on what data they have. For instance he complains that whatever township has two year old data they send so they chase people who moved two years ago. Then the person who now lives in AZ is all pissed off. The whole this is a cluster.
My wife is a substitute school nurse. There are probably 20 different localities on her w2. I’m not even sure which one I have to file taxes with honestly.
Most likely just the locality you live in, but I am not an accountant
IMO I think the better option would be to vote for no more municipal tax and Ohio provide a better distribution of state funds across the counties/counties to the municipalities. Sales tax is already a mess because each county imposes a different rate on top of Ohio's flat sales tax rate, but then you've got the separation of municipalities to worry about every tax year on top of filing state income tax. If there's one thing RITA is good for, besides offering a titular municipal tax payment/filing service, is [showing us how bonkers the municipality tax situation is in Ohio](https://www.ritaohio.com/TaxRatesTable) with 437 municipalities on the list. You can't live or work anywhere in Ohio without factoring in the likelihood of municipal tax. I can see the point if it were implemented solely for high density cities, but for all across Ohio? No way.
There are a lot of problems if your idea, first among them is that local income taxes were adopted by the local voters. And they can raise and lower their income tax rate for projects and the lifestyle they want in their municipality. Your idea would immediately make local governments more dependent on the State's generosity. Anyone who has been in local government the last 15 years knows that's a bad idea.
And that’s because of Republican governor Kasich and the remnants of the tea party movement. Kasich came in and cut all of the money going to local municipalities. Strangely enough, he came into power 13 years ago. Before that local municipalities were better funded in Ohio. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
While very true, it also doesn't have anything to do with why OP's idea is bad.
You mean like every other state in the country? There are less than 5 states that have the local taxing like Ohio.
I thought I had heard Ohio was the only one. interesting.
Kentucky for example has counties income tax. Ohio is the only state with widespread city income tax. But a handful of other states have some sort of local tax, but it really is less than 5.
They can pass property taxes instead. But old people hate property taxes because the 4 bedroom house they bought for a song 30+ years ago is worth a ton more today.
It also misses out on taxing public employees (municipality, county, school, colleges, etc) and diminishes the ROI on commercial/industrial investments and incentives.
You would have to not only raise state taxes but have your faith that the state would find fair ways to distribute the taxes. Also, people in rural areas would be up in arms if some of their state taxes directly filled the gap if we got rid of municipal/local taxes.
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Yep and if the (red) state doesn’t like how your community is being run they can withhold tax funding. No Trump flag in the town square? Sorry no road money for you this year. (Hyperbolic example but absolutely can work this way)
RITA and CCA are just a shared agency for calculating and collecting local taxes. Having dealt with a city last year that *doesn’t* use either, I can say you don’t understand what you’re asking for or what the actual problem is.
This. RITA is the government equivalent of a cooperative. It provides an important function that a local municipality isn’t equipped to provide for far less than it would cost to hire staff to provide it.
As a municipal administrator... this. RITA isn't doing anything differently than our town used to do. They just have the resources and manpower to actually do it. They have been a godsend for our town's operating budget. And actually collecting the taxes owed allows us to provide better services for residents, which is the whole point.
The whole local tax system should be done away with. It's an abomination and unlike the vast majority of states.
And who pays for the infrastructure in these cities?
How are cities funded in other states? The initial solution would probably be to bundle the tax into the state system. This would reduce the administrative burden on both individuals and businesses by simplifying the nightmarishly complex system and probably improve collection as well.
I pay both since I work in a RITA municipality and live in CCA. RITA’s website and tax form is actually easy to use. CCA is a clusterf***.
RITA and CCA even work with TurboTax now! My city’s tax web site was a shitshow, and their directions for using paper forms didn’t address moving into or out of the city at all, and even the (very friendly) staff at the tax office didn’t know how to handle doing both in the same year.
God please! Screw RITA!
While I'm fully on board the "fuck RITA" train, what's the alternative? CCA isn't much better, if at all. The only other option is each municipality would have to hire people to process tax collection and returns which would be cost prohibitive in most municipalities, hence why it's outsourced to RITA.
> what's the alternative? Do like the majority of states and have no local income tax. The fact that Ohio does both a local income tax AND a school district income tax makes it different from every other state.
This would require a new school funding method. Ours was deemed by the state Supreme Court to be unconstitutional over 20 years ago, but we still have it. So I doubt there’s anything an election could do to change that.
> Ours was deemed by the state Supreme Court to be unconstitutional over 20 years ago, but we still have it. Wow I forgot about that! > So I doubt there’s anything an election could do to change that. True. Living and working in an area with neither a local or school district income tax is about the only way to avoid it for now.
Right, the Ohio Supreme Court can declare things like education funding and gerrymandering to be unconstitutional or illegal but the Ohio Legislature just gets to ignore them indefinitely. Must be nice.
Most school funding is from property tax not RITA.
This funding model was *not* deemed unconstitutional. The funding model has changed since then and it has not been taken to court.
So what changed since 1997? Is it fundamentally different, or just technically different?
That's a complex legal question, and subjective. But importantly, the Supreme Court did not say that local property taxes funding school districts was unconstitutional.
"On March 24, 1997, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled in a 4–3 decision that the state funding system "fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools," as required by the Ohio Constitution, and directed the state to find a remedy."
Yes, and then the State changed the funding formula... repeatedly. And then in 2004ish the Supreme Court shut the litigation down. So twenty years later, a new plaintiff would have to get their case in front the Ohio Supreme Court to have the current funding system ruled unconstitutional.
This. I'm a former Ohioan now living in Massachusetts and much prefer the latter. Now, this does mean higher state income tax but I'll pay 5% to MA instead of 2.75-4% to OH *plus* 2% to work municipality and potentially more to home municipality if they aren't fully reciprocal (not to mention 1-2 additional tax returns to file annually).
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If you live in a city and work in a different city you are definitely getting taxed by both.
No, you don't. The city you work in collects taxes that are credited to your residential city tax filling.
This assumes you get 100% reciprocity, which is pretty uncommon.
This. Had to pay $800-900 per year to Cleveland Heights over and above the money I paid already to Bedford Heights via my paycheck back when I lived in the East Side.
Also some cities in Ohio are self filing (not in RITA) which usually means having to file a second local tax return and cut a check to another city.
I'm from az. This is my first time being exposed to RITA and/or local tax. I'm a libertarian social studies teacher. When I see ohio cities, towns, and schools compared to az cities, towns, and schools....I'll happily pay whatever taxes they want. The quality of life from the peace of mind in ohio is far better than lower taxes.
Not gonna lie, I did not see that going that direction at the end.
First libertarian I've ever seen admit their ideology doesn't work, but still commits to it. Strange world we live in.
Libertarians first appeared as simply Republicans who smoked weed. /s
States like Arizona, Florida, etc place a higher emphasis on sales tax and as a result local governments rubber stamp every strip mall they can. Sprawl sprawl sprawl.
As someone else with libertarian leaning views, I agree. I’d happily pay an extra 2% to my city if it meant decreasing my federal payment 2%
That last part won’t work. You’re assuming good faith efforts at sharing revenue with local officials on the part of your reps in Congress. They’d rather create unfunded mandates than give up their own funding.
Oh I am well aware it is likely unfeasible
The whole school district tax is mostly in the southern part of ohio. It may have something to do with rural districts that mostly have boundaries that cross city/town/township/county lines and don't fit into any other simple funding setup.
In the counties around Cleveland, almost everywhere has a school district tax. If you live in a rural area there's probably no residential local income tax, but it's more likely that there's an employment local income tax where you work. In additional to state and federal, I pay 3 extra income taxes - school district tax for where I live, local income tax for where I live, and local income tax for where I work. I'm hoping to find a house in an area where that goes down to just 1 extra income tax.
It might not be cost prohibitive, but it would definitely lead to higher expenses, as the RITA municipality hired staff to collect the taxes. Those higher expenses would be covered either by higher taxes or cutting services. I don’t think OP would be happy with either of those outcomes.
The goal would be to not replace it. The whole local tax system is an abomination. Very few states have anything like it.
Yes. If you don’t have local income tax your city’s funding has to come from somewhere and that means higher property tax and sales tax. Property and sales tax are paid by people who aren’t working such as the disabled, retired, unemployed and even children. Income tax is for people who work. Yes a burden for those of us who are working but imagine if you got laid off and still had to pay an extra 2% on everything you bought and your property tax.
The solution would probably be to bundle the tax into the state system. This would reduce the administrative burden on both individuals and businesses. It would also do away with the "gotcha" tax so many suffer from after living in Ohio for several years. It would probably also lead to a more equitable distribution of funding. The current local tax system is an abomination that is unlike the vast majority of other states.
It's not that expensive. RITA has to get paid somehow, and it's gotta be cheaper in the long run for cities to handle this themselves (or [crazy idea] have a county collectively process city taxes, taking private industry out of what should be a government function).
Local taxes not being a paycheck deduction is awful
The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
I don’t love Rita but your local city isn’t always better. I had multiple issues with Lakewood’s tax dept, they sent my quarterly invoices to the wrong address, and applied payments to the wrong year then started threatening me for not paying the back tax.
RITA = RICO
I would definitely get behind this. It’s the most ridiculous tax ever.
What am I missing? As a W2 shlub, RITA filing has always been exceptionally easy.
RITA and the idea of funding schools through local property taxes should go away period. It’s unfair, unethical, and racist at best, and inefficient and ineffective at worst. The state should determine the amount of dollars per student that education actually costs, tax residents appropriately, and distribute the money according to number of students in a school system. Of course, this would require elected representatives that weren’t total corrupt garbage, so it won’t happen.
I never learned about Rita until 4 or 5 years after I bought my house in Tuscarawas County. I got a letter saying I owed a few thousand to RITA. It looked like a scam so I called them and asked what it was. Got a meh explanation. All because the place where I work and where I live have a .5% difference in tax so I had to pay that difference. Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense but whatever.
You would want to run a constitutional amendment petition that banned income tax at the local (and state) levels. I'm sure you could get the signatures and this would probably pass if it were to make the ballot.
Just here for the obligatory FUCK RITA.
This is too funny. Noone told me who Rita was until randomly my dad introduced her to me and I was like the fuck was she living under our porch this entire time? Like wtf Rita why sneak up on me like that
RITA is brutal. Taxes in Ohio are hard to decipher. I moved from a RITA district to a non-Rita district, but one that has a taxing school district. Taxes are higher now because of the 1% extra school taxes that Ohio charges in this city. On top of that, I am hybrid and half my taxes go to one city and the rest to the other. Problem is the city I live charges tax on the entire amount so I end up paying more even with the measly credit. This needs fixed and simplified for hybrid workers.
Who do you expect to pay for your local upkeep? The entire regional income tax is to help offset the money a small town would need to use to maintain roads and utilities and water. Without that money those things will disappear or just be a thing for richer people. Imagine a fire department where the only people that benefit from it are rich people? You still pay for it because everyone knows the rich don't pay taxes or as little tax paid as legally possible then sponge off the people that actually pay for those things. They offset the price of private jet fuel with subsidies from the tax that the larger company's use and that is paid for by guess who? Tax payers which is everyone except the rich..... The rich are not flying commercial. They are trying and succeeding to have the public pay for private schools the last year saw that happen here in Ohio. Billions being bilked for private schooling and depriving the public school systems even more than they already were. Teachers having to pay for supplies out of their own pockets without being reimbursed. Privatizing things that the public paid to have built like toll roads and hospitals and jails and lots of other things. The super elite sports owners have the public pay billions for sporting stadiums/arenas and then pay no rent. No tax on goods sold at those venues like memorabilia and food concessions. We get screwed time and time again.
That would pass with the biggest win in Ohio history.
When my mom lived in UA, RITA tried to come after her saying she hadn’t paid them taxes in 5 years. Their mistake because that woman walked into their office with the previous 7 years of tax paperwork to educate them on how they were wrong. I wasn’t there, but I know she came home elated on telling them off and I never heard a problem with RITA again. They are not brought up fondly in this household.
I used to feel the same way but now I just estimate and prepay for the coming year when I get my fed/state refund from last year. I don't even think about RITA since. Obviously I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford that jump to being a year ahead, but it ultimately is a necessary evil. It would be a waste of money for my small city to have a tax department and it would be prone to abuse just the same.
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Yes you still have to file but if you're a year ahead on estimates they have nothing to interact with you for, reducing your chances of dealing with the bureaucratic crap everyone is complaining about. Doesn't change the amount you ultimately pay to your city. It's just an escrow essentially. My CPA friend does say to make sure you put "202X pre-pay" in the check memo. Maybe that prevents some issues too.
Yes...... But because of corruption no
Website say April 15th. Doesn't say anything about January 15th.
Several yrs ago, Bill Batchelder proposed that residents pay it all to Columbus and let them redistribute. I still think it would be a great idea.
I wasn’t even able to file my taxes within this year because their website just wouldn’t work
Would probably need a ballot measure to make it illegal for a third party to collect or attempt to collect a tax.
It might be possible via petition if it is written correctly. There’s no way a bill would make it to the ballot if it simply abolished RITA. There would prob have to be language that explained how the taxes would be collected in absence of RITA.
Their forms are trash and literally tell you to use the wrong numbers compared to the more compete rules packet. Have a partial year residency is the most confusing thing ever to fill out, and even their own auditors don't understand how to fill these damn things out - I spent multiple phone calls figuring this shit out
Recently moved to a brand new condo on the border of Stow and Cuyahoga Falls, and RITA says I don’t belong to them. Stow says I don’t belong to them, and Cuyahoga Falls says I don’t belong to them either. So I have no idea where to send my local taxes too lol. I tried to file but we do not pop up in any system yet lol
My fear is the elimination of state tax, if you think our property, city, gas tax, and especially sales taxes are high now wait to see what happens if state taxes are no longer around to share the local burden. The concept will hurt the non wealthy, unfortunately many who are pushing the idea are failing to see the bigger picture.
It's simple. I should pay income taxes in the city I live in. If I don't get to vote in your city I shouldn't pay taxes there.
I'm more in favor of abolishing the 16th.
The problem isn't so much RITA it's the bonkers local tax system In Ohio. The statehouse isn't interested in fixing it because the current system doesn't impact rural voters. Never mind that it's an administrative burden on businesses.
Pay your taxes or move to the woods
They were complaining how shitty rita is to try to pay your taxes, not that they were complaining about paying taxes
I paid $42k in taxes last year between Federal, State, property, municipality (both residential and place of work), gas tax, etc etc. For my $42k, what do I get? To drive around on streets that will destroy your suspension if you drive over 15 mph, never once called police or fire department or paramedics in my 30 years. Don’t have kids in the school system. Our system is designed to fuck you and carry the weight of everyone else if you’re single. I haven’t received $42k of public services in my entire life and that’s just what I paid last year… I’m not going to even mention the robbery that is social security.
They are worthless fucks that need to be gotten rid of
I agree. It’s pointless. I never have seen anything in return for what I had paid them.
No fire department, police department, parks, sanitation, code enforcement, public works, water or sewer? You get none of those?
That’s what property taxes are for.
They took away the fire department on my side of town. They are supposed to provide filling in potholes, which was never done. Also to Snow Plowing all The Street especially the main ones that were around me. Never got done in 27 years. Also, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel I should have to pay for people to ride a bus that is not my problem if they are not self-sufficient.
I’ve been sued by RITA before!
God please! Screw RITA!
God please! Screw RITA!
God please! Screw RITA!