You "own" what you own because the government protects it from the hoards of barbarians constantly trying to take it from you. In exchange for this protection,

You "own" what you own because the government protects it from the hoards of barbarians constantly trying to take it from you. In exchange for this protection, you pay taxes. Yes, it's a classic protection racket. If you don't like it, there are various places in the world where you're welcome to grab a gun, stake your claim, and pay nobody any taxes at all. You can enforce your own "property rights." But this has been done before, and inevitably people got tired of fending off the barbarians all day and decided they'd rather do other stuff, like read books or fix cars or whatever it is they like doing MORE than worrying about getting killed every day, so they form governments and pay their god damn taxes. Also, a 1% "I'm rich enough to buy property in a really expensive place and not live there" tax is fairly minuscule.