3 ms·
Real Estate is not the same thing as stock. There is a finite amount of land. You didn't make it. Ultimately it is a shared resource and we pay a fee to society
by imgabe 5y ago
Real Estate is not the same thing as stock. There is a finite amount of land. You didn't make it. Ultimately it is a shared resource and we pay a fee to society while we are permitted the exclusive use (with some restrictions) of a small part of the planet we all share.
Anyone can start a company tomorrow and declare that they have a billion shares of stock in that company. They only become worth something because the person that started the company uses their own effort and ingenuity to make the company do something that is valuable to everyone else.
- alkonaut 5y agoYes property taxes have another dimension of “fairness” to them, but that’s not why economists favor them: it’s because they can’t easily be dodged and are easy to extract (knowledge of property ownership is pretty reliable). Taxation isn’t necessarily based on what’s fair or rational, it’s a way of financing public expenses. It might be more logical from the perspective of the people as a whole to tax wealth more and income less (for example) even though wealth is less logical and “fair” to tax than income or consumption.