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> Well, the council tax looks an awful lot like one, but if you insist. There's a post further down in which it's explained how CT is nothing like a property t

> Well, the council tax looks an awful lot like one, but if you insist. There's a post further down in which it's explained how CT is nothing like a property tax. It's levied on the occupier not the owner and it's not percentage based. It's ostensibly for services rendered e.g. bins taken out, roads etc. Your home and all the homes in your town could quadruple in externally assessed value and the absolute amount paid would remain static because it's formulated in such a way that it's paid based on relative home value within an area (rather than absolute). > Sounds a lot like you're asking for rent control for the wealthy. I'm pretty much baffled by what you mean here. My grandmother is not wealthy. Neither is my mother. Neither would they become wealthy if the town around them suddenly turned into an SF/London. The external valuation of their home that they live in would increase which is a completely different matter entirely. It's an injection of financialization into a situation where none exists. I won't be dragged in to that game, sorry.

simpss 8y ago
> I'm pretty much baffled by what you mean here. I think it's just a misunderstanding. You're talking about a situation where your grandmother owns the place and he/she is talking about a situation where your grandmother rents the place.
- jldugger 8y ago
  Na, the inflation index has a thing called 'rent or rent equivalent' for a reason. The parallel I'm drawing here is between rent control and prop 13, which runs along comparable lines, ie: evicting grandma because she can't afford ( rent | afford property taxes ) because $demographic wants to live nearby is an affront to people's rights to be secure in their home and life. The rhetoric is the same, just with more bootstrapping.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Ownership is distinct from renting. It sounds like some US cities have a situation more like shared ownership, in which you can't actually own a home because there's no way to pay (or set aside) the full future stream of property taxes. It seems bonkers to me because it would make settling down completely impossible, hence my comments about moving away to somewhere where homeownership exists. In the place I already live (UK) we don't have that, so I'm not calling for any change. In any case it seems that me (and people like me) moving out in this hypothetical situation of ownership being converted retroactively into rental gives you what you want anyway.
closeparen 8y ago
No. The external valuation of your house is wealth. A long-tenured homeowner in an expensive area is a millionaire and has the social obligations of any other kind of millionaire. More, even, since their wealth comes from squatting on assets rather than labor or productive investment. We wouldn’t humor a stock market investor in denial about his wealth; we shouldn’t humor a real estate investor. The preferential treatment of housing as an asset class is a big part of why it’s so inflated in the first place! If someone doesn’t want to be accountable for their house’s appreciation, they can give up the right to benefit from it at sale. Capital gains and deferred property taxes coming due at sale is probably the fairest proposal - doesn’t force anyone out, doesn’t let them free ride either.
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- esotericn 8y ago
  Calling someone who lives in a house a 'real estate investor' and 'squatting on assets' is truly odd to me. I don't mean to misquote you, and apologies if so, but you seem to have decided that homes should be rented and not owned. If that's your viewpoint, fine. I don't agree with it at all, and I'll go and live somewhere in which ownership of property is permitted. I wish you the best of luck with whatever you're trying to do in your corner of the world.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    US politicians in the postwar era were very concerned about having a proletariat on their hands, and embarked on a program of mass homeownership to make little capitalists of us all. It worked. A bit too well. Owning a house while it appreciates is less socially useful than working or investing in productive businesses, and sometimes more lucrative. Why should it be taxed at a lower rate? If it’s not an investment, what do you care about the return? I appreciate that lots of people like suburbia, and I wish them well too. Only that government policy will also allow urbanism to thrive.

simpss 8y ago

> I'm pretty much baffled by what you mean here. I think it's just a misunderstanding. You're talking about a situation where your grandmother owns the place and he/she is talking about a situation where your grandmother rents the place.

jldugger 8y ago
Na, the inflation index has a thing called 'rent or rent equivalent' for a reason. The parallel I'm drawing here is between rent control and prop 13, which runs along comparable lines, ie: evicting grandma because she can't afford ( rent | afford property taxes ) because $demographic wants to live nearby is an affront to people's rights to be secure in their home and life. The rhetoric is the same, just with more bootstrapping.
- esotericn 8y ago
  Ownership is distinct from renting. It sounds like some US cities have a situation more like shared ownership, in which you can't actually own a home because there's no way to pay (or set aside) the full future stream of property taxes. It seems bonkers to me because it would make settling down completely impossible, hence my comments about moving away to somewhere where homeownership exists. In the place I already live (UK) we don't have that, so I'm not calling for any change. In any case it seems that me (and people like me) moving out in this hypothetical situation of ownership being converted retroactively into rental gives you what you want anyway.

closeparen 8y ago

No. The external valuation of your house is wealth. A long-tenured homeowner in an expensive area is a millionaire and has the social obligations of any other kind of millionaire. More, even, since their wealth comes from squatting on assets rather than labor or productive investment. We wouldn’t humor a stock market investor in denial about his wealth; we shouldn’t humor a real estate investor. The preferential treatment of housing as an asset class is a big part of why it’s so inflated in the first place! If someone doesn’t want to be accountable for their house’s appreciation, they can give up the right to benefit from it at sale. Capital gains and deferred property taxes coming due at sale is probably the fairest proposal - doesn’t force anyone out, doesn’t let them free ride either.

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esotericn 8y ago
Calling someone who lives in a house a 'real estate investor' and 'squatting on assets' is truly odd to me. I don't mean to misquote you, and apologies if so, but you seem to have decided that homes should be rented and not owned. If that's your viewpoint, fine. I don't agree with it at all, and I'll go and live somewhere in which ownership of property is permitted. I wish you the best of luck with whatever you're trying to do in your corner of the world.
- closeparen 8y ago
  US politicians in the postwar era were very concerned about having a proletariat on their hands, and embarked on a program of mass homeownership to make little capitalists of us all. It worked. A bit too well. Owning a house while it appreciates is less socially useful than working or investing in productive businesses, and sometimes more lucrative. Why should it be taxed at a lower rate? If it’s not an investment, what do you care about the return? I appreciate that lots of people like suburbia, and I wish them well too. Only that government policy will also allow urbanism to thrive.