3 ms·

The income from renting is already taxed, yes? The income used to buy the housing is already taxed, yes? What more is there to tax?

• speedplane 8y ago
  Income used to pay interest on a home is not taxed (up to a limit). Paying interest (not principal) on a home mortgage is pretty much money down the drain (no wealth accumulation, a fee for the right to hold the debt). In this way, interest payments for housing you own are somewhat comparable to rent payments for housing you don't own. The fact that income paid to interest is not taxed, yet income paid to rent is taxed can create a significant advantage to owning versus renting.
• scotty79 8y ago
  Income tax is not the only tax. There's tax on fuel, on tobacco. You tax cheap harmful things to make them more expensive to discourage them. Hoarding property is harmful and should be discouraged. As a side note I think income tax should be 0. VAT as the main source of income seems way more just to me. Plus various taxes to make the environmental cost of activity known to the market (like CO2 tax, fuel tax) or tax on harmful things (like tobacco) to discourage them.
  • ergo14 8y ago
    So people like me would pay no VAT on invoices because I export services (so they are reverse-charge in EU). I would only pay VAT on goods that I buy personally. I think the matter is more complex.