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@Bruce: As I seem to be one of the few who has read the report through, including the appendix, I want to offer a few responses to your arguments:

1. They assume that people in VA own very late model expensive cards, maximizing the amount of car tax. **car models, years, and values were taken directly from the most recent DC CFO tax comparison report** (p14)

2. They assume someone in VA will live in a house just as expensive as DC resident does – ignoring the very real difference in price between a similar sized houses in say Fairfax and NW DC. **there actually are price differentials factored in, based on ACS data by income group** (p13)

3. The ‘random’ selection of properties they use to determine DC taxes are heavily weighted on home that are assessed for taxes much, much lower that their cost. (this is due to the tax cap) **this seems a strange thing to question. i don't think even jack evans accuses this group of cooking the books. plus, the universal homestead deduction does decrease assessment value for everybody in dc-- not to even mention the tax cap, which affects homeowners more the longer they own a home**

4. They ignore renters with high incomes. **is it unreasonable to assume that the average resident earning $100 and $200 owns a home rather than renting?**

5. How many household in the DC area with income of 100K have a 500K home? This choice of house price is made to inflate the VA taxes and deflate the DC taxes. **this is the same point as #2 above. the choice of house price was made using Census ACS data by neighborhood group**

by BP on Feb 22, 2011 11:05 pm • link • report