You may be able to escape out to the country but, if you own property, you can't escape property taxes.

I live on the South Shore and have appealed my property taxes three times at the first level and twice to the second level, the NSURB. I have won two times.

The property tax system is computerized and your taxes are calculated by a machine, not a human. You are not allowed to know the formula because the Property Valuation Services Corporation claims that information is proprietary. This is what is known as Black Box Taxation. In simple terms, a machine makes calculations and you pay the result.

Though Nova Scotia taxpayers pay for the database, they do not have the same access to it as the PVSC taxers. This is unfair and puts the taxpayer at a disadvantage but that is OK with the Government. That's the way they want it. They do not want citizens questioning unfair and unreasonable tax bills, particulary when those bills fill the pockets of the pols' friends, families, cronies and political contributors.

Imagine going to a stupormarket and filling your cart with food that has no prices on it and then on the way out the whole cart is scanned and you are given the bill. That is Black Box Calculation.

I had my appeal hearing yesterday and the adjudicator admitted that it was a Black Box System but that it worked really good in the city but not so well in the boondocks. He also admitted that the PVSC assessor present did not really know the value of my property!

You can learn a lot about how Government and these big corporations feed on each other and also the attitudes of the .governors who run these systems when you challenge them. By dealing with them, I am even further resolved to limit my transactions with them. If you have children, have them help you prepare your appeal and let them attend the hearing. Much more educational than by rote school. Your children will have to deal with these folk eventually one way or the other.

One of the reasons they can run this tax scam is the usual one: people put up with it and they do not challenge the system.

Anyone here appealed their property tax assessment?