By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – Whether looking at the individual taxpayer, or the business taxpayer, St. John Assessor Whitney Joseph wants only one thing.

“Fairness, we need to have laws that treat everyone the same way,” he said in a recent address to the LaPlace Rotary Club.

Joseph seems most upset with the fact there are different laws affecting large and small businesses, as well as similar inequities that affect individuals when they are paying taxes on their home.

“Personally, I think the most unfair thing in the world is the homestead exemption,” he said. “Everyone should pay something. The system is not fair when it says that you don’t have to pay any taxes on your home just because it is valued at less than $75,000.”

Joseph even cited his own family as getting what he thought was an unfair advantage when he was in school.

“My mom sent me and my brother to public school, but we didn’t pay a cent of taxes,” he said. “That wasn’t fair. Everyone should pay something, even if you are 65 or older.”

Joseph was pointing out the fact that the Louisiana homestead exemption says if your home is valued at $75,000 or less, you don’t pay any taxes. Then your taxes only begin from that $75,000 range. Additionally, there is a senior citizen law which freezes your taxes at the time you make 65, if you earn less than $66,000 a year.

“I just think we need to make the tax system fair for everyone. We all should pay something to pay our share for schools and any government services,” he said.

He also looked at the huge tax breaks given to large industry, and sees problems with that, since there are many small businesses that desperately need some kind of help.

“If you are going to give tax breaks to business, you need to do it for small businesses just the same,” he explained. “Small business gets no tax exemption, but a big company like Marathon gets a 10 year tax exemption just because they are bringing in 500 jobs with their new expansion.”

Whitney noted that all the small businesses in the parish hire far more than 500 people during that same time period, but do so by not getting the tax breaks that a large corporation gets. Marathon is currently in the midst of a $3.3 billion expansion of their refinery in Garyville.

“I’ve seen hundreds of small businesses go under since I’ve been here as assessor,” he added. “And those small businesses could use some help with their taxes in the early years when they are trying to get established. But they don’t get any.”

Joseph, always one with the quick wit and tongue, also had a few choice words for the parish government, which will be getting millions of dollars of added sales tax money from Marathon during the next two years of construction on their expansion project.

“There might be as much as $46 million coming from Marathon in the next two years and the parish needs to use that money very wisely, like for a big project that they otherwise might take bonds out for,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for us to do something great for the parish with this extra money and we need to use it wisely.

“That’s just a better way to finance some of the projects that the parish is looking at needing to do,” he said.

Joseph gave an update on the state of the parish, especially in light of the sluggish real estate market.

“I’m here to tell you that St. John Parish is doing just fine. Even though home sales have slowed down, we are currently closing about 10 homes a week. It’s a slower pace, but homes are still selling,” he said.

Finally, Joseph said that he most wants to encourage the general public to get involved with government, and make sure the parish leaders know what the people want before they make decisions.

“It’s a misconception that we just set our own millages for everything,” he said. “But it’s you, the voters, who determine what millages will be. You vote on them, and you need to get involved in government before they change millages. You need to make public officials accountable because once something passes, you have no voice to speak out anymore,” he noted.