4 ms·
If you ask me, the whole idea of property taxes is unconscionable. In Australia the idea is brought up on occasion but the resulting media firestorm about how i
by hugh3 16y ago
If you ask me, the whole idea of property taxes is unconscionable. In Australia the idea is brought up on occasion but the resulting media firestorm about how it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out always kills the idea. I don't know why Americans put up with it.
If we must have taxes, then tax income or spending, not wealth, and especially not non-liquid wealth -- that way you can guarantee that people will always have enough money to pay their taxes, and aren't being billed $50,000 on their $30,000 income just because the cheap cottage they bought in the 1960s just happens to now be in the most expensive part of town.
- xsmasher 16y ago>it would inevitably result in little old ladies who have lived in the same house for fifty years being turfed out That's a "feature" of the property tax system - in encourages people to make the "best use" (economic, not moral) of a piece of land.
- hugh3 16y agoThough the market already "encourages" people on its own... the property tax just forces 'em. What I mean by "encourages" is that if I'm a little old retired lady living in a two-million-dollar cottage in the fanciest part of town then I already have a huge incentive to sell it off to some rich dude and go live in a half-million-dollar cottage somewhere else -- it's the $1.5 million I could pocket in that transaction.
- gaius 16y agoTell me something, it's still we, the people, right?