Property taxes are extremely regressive. Probably the first or second most regressive tax you can conceive.
I, a lowly middle class worker buy a house in Cheapville. I can afford it, and the property tax, so I am happy. 20 years later I own my house and hundreds of thousands of immigrants from TechVille come buy up all the property. Great! There's no houses really on the market so the value sky rockets! Problem... my house value goes up, but so does my property tax. In fact, it's so expensive now I can no longer afford to live in the house. I have to sell MY PROPERTY because the STATE has imposed a tax specifically designed to destroy the idea of property as an owned right. In some circles this would be considered theft-by-taxation which is probably the only correct interpretation of this scenario. My house has to be sold because I can't afford it, it's bought (read: stolen) by some rich tech bozo with more money than sense, and I have to move. Probably to a different state where then I contribute to the very same problem there. The problem is the regressive property tax enabled this. The only solution is to not have them for residential non-commercial property. If property is not producing tangible value it should not be taxed. Taxes are collected at the sale of the home - this is enough. If it isn't, congress needs to tighten the purse strings.
Property taxes are regressive, prevent you from ever truly owning your own plot, and disproportionately reduce the wealth of the people who spend most of their lives creating it for other people. They are probably the most distilled form of evil the financiers of a state or country can create because they are totally unavoidable and because of the way percentages and property value are calculated can very quickly go way out of hand. The only people that benefit are the rich house flippers and people with so much money their property taxes are a rounding error. It puts property in only the hands of the wealthiest. How is this a good thing?
> Property taxes are regressive, prevent you from ever truly owning your own plot, and disproportionately reduce the wealth of the people who spend most of their lives creating it for other people.
Property taxes are a form of wealth tax. The more wealth you own in the form of property, the more you pay in tax. Many people who work for a living don't own any property at all - about 35% of households in the US are renters. They don't have this problem of "wow my house is worth $1.2 million so I've got to sell it and move" - they've got bigger problems.
Really? I thought the purpose was to create a new landed gentry, with hereditary title to land.
200 years from now, your descendants can pay their annual peppercorn to the state each year (after inflation and the statutory maximum annual increase have their expected effect) while the plebs toil in labor to pay you rent.
It really is such a shame that the founders of our country were so short-sighted that they explicitly prohibited that in the constitution. Maybe we should think about amending that.
I, a lowly middle class worker buy a house in Cheapville. I can afford it, and the property tax, so I am happy. 20 years later I own my house and hundreds of thousands of immigrants from TechVille come buy up all the property. Great! There's no houses really on the market so the value sky rockets! Problem... my house value goes up, but so does my property tax. In fact, it's so expensive now I can no longer afford to live in the house. I have to sell MY PROPERTY because the STATE has imposed a tax specifically designed to destroy the idea of property as an owned right. In some circles this would be considered theft-by-taxation which is probably the only correct interpretation of this scenario. My house has to be sold because I can't afford it, it's bought (read: stolen) by some rich tech bozo with more money than sense, and I have to move. Probably to a different state where then I contribute to the very same problem there. The problem is the regressive property tax enabled this. The only solution is to not have them for residential non-commercial property. If property is not producing tangible value it should not be taxed. Taxes are collected at the sale of the home - this is enough. If it isn't, congress needs to tighten the purse strings.
Property taxes are regressive, prevent you from ever truly owning your own plot, and disproportionately reduce the wealth of the people who spend most of their lives creating it for other people. They are probably the most distilled form of evil the financiers of a state or country can create because they are totally unavoidable and because of the way percentages and property value are calculated can very quickly go way out of hand. The only people that benefit are the rich house flippers and people with so much money their property taxes are a rounding error. It puts property in only the hands of the wealthiest. How is this a good thing?