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As long as property tax exists (your county will seize your home if you don't pay it) the concept of real estate ownership is pretty tenuous. I accept taxation
by flavor8 10y ago
As long as property tax exists (your county will seize your home if you don't pay it) the concept of real estate ownership is pretty tenuous. I accept taxation in general but property taxes have always rubbed me the wrong way.
- schoen 10y agoThere's a movement that sees things exactly the other way, based on the ideas of Henry George: maintaining that only real property taxation is legitimate (or appropriate) and that other kinds of taxes aren't! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
- mahyarm 10y agoProperty tax is pretty essential. Huge weird distortions can happen in low property tax places. California with prop 13, the UK with it's non-existent property taxes, Vancouver, BC with it's very low property tax rates are all examples of RE gone wrong and are places with low property tax.
- flavor8 10y agoThe problem in California is the grandfathering in of rates, rather than the fact that the tax exists. If property tax was completely removed and the state made up the shortfall in some other tax (hopefully progressive) then there'd be no market distortion.
- mahyarm 10y agoYeah it's not the rate, it's the %2 increase rate. Takes 35 years for the tax to double in cost. Seattle's King County has a lower property tax rate than a chunk of the bay area for example.