I am writing in response to a letter published on June 14, written by Lois Doran of Belgrade.

While I generally agree with her about taxes being evenly distributed, I must take exception to her second paragraph.

In this paragraph, she speculates that the legislators are renters, so they do not have to pay property tax. I am a long-term renter. I wonder where she thinks my landlord gets the money to pay his property taxes on the rental property?

I can tell you that it is part of my and other renters’ rent. It is part of the landlord’s business expense. When the property taxes go up, so does our rent.

We just pay it indirectly instead of directly, but we get none of the tax breaks that a homeowner gets, such as the homestead deduction, veteran’s deduction (I am one) and mortgage deduction.

The property equity we build belongs to the landlord.

I do admit that I rent because of the convenience of living in town and having the day-to-day operations of where I live taken care of by my landlord, but I do pay for it. Oh, by the way, if the rare occurrence of the property tax going down happens, the rent does not.

I also agree with her that it is disappointing when legislators believe enough in a bill to vote for it lose their belief as soon as the governor vetoes it. Why did they vote for it in the first place?

James P. Wood

Augusta