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From a pragmatic standpoint, property tax _is_ rent. I make this comparison because the consequences of not paying taxes is the same as not paying rent. If the
by all2 7y ago
From a pragmatic standpoint, property tax _is_ rent. I make this comparison because the consequences of not paying taxes is the same as not paying rent.
If there is property tax, only the government owns the property and rents it to citizens.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoProperty tax "rent" in reinvested in the community. Real rent goes into a portfolio.
- novok 7y agoSo the scope of the investment is the difference then?
- smallnamespace 7y agoWe're mixing up the senses of 'investment'. Taxes are redistributed (they end up back in taxpayers' pockets), rents accumulate to property owners.
- all2 7y ago> Taxes are redistributed ... No. Taxes are spent on goods an services, the same as any property owner spends rent income. The outcomes of expenditures on each part is different (sometimes a plate tax is actually applied to road maintenance). But the concept of a slush-fund and no (or few) legal guardrails for expenditures means your tax dollars probably land in a pet project somewhere, or are consumed in the financial friction of government bureaucracy.
- scythe 7y agoIf you make your philosophy austere and instrumentalist enough, there is no ownership, only physical control. And under any Weberian government there is only one legitimate owner of anything. Luckily most governments and societies today respect a sort of legal Platonism where the law as an ideal both constrains the government and the owners of property even though the government is tasked with implementing it. It might not be empiricist enough for some people but it seems to play nicely with human psychology’s inclination towards the mystical. And of all the cultural fantasies we might share, we could definitely do a lot worse than human rights and the rule of law.