4 ms·

Property taxes: even if you own your land, you don't actually own it.

• snidane 7y ago
  Income taxes: even if you own yourself and your labor, you actually don't.
• rcpt 7y ago
  You seem to be confusing the fee simple notion of land ownership that we have in the United States with allodial title which doesn't happen anywhere because it's a terrible way to run a society https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_simple https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_simple https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title
  • tomrod 7y ago
    I doubt there is confusion. Land ownership in the US requires taxes else some level of government claims ownership. This means you do not truly own the land, just merely rent it with a complex social contract. I agree with some forms of property taxation, for the record, but think that single family owner-occupied homes should be tax free.
    • samhain 7y ago
      Exactly, there is an effective rent for owning a home, even if it's entirely paid off. The taxes you must pay, the insurance on the property, and the upkeep for maintenance (amortized roofing expenses/AC units etc). I have family members that are ecstatic when their property value increases, because they love the idea of being people who live in a very valuable home. But this is the only home that they have. And then their taxes go up. In order to cash out their "investment" they have to move. Which means, if they don't rent, buying back into the same over-inflated market. It's a wash, and the only thing that changes is the amount of money they are paying in taxes.