The way the US taxes physical property based on its current market value is pretty unusual these days, and I'm not sure it's a good idea. It seems to have all k

The way the US taxes physical property based on its current market value is pretty unusual these days, and I'm not sure it's a good idea. It seems to have all kinds of weird distortive effects on the market like encouraging train companies to rip up serviceable track to reduce their tax, incentivizing manufacturers to keep the bare minimum supply of components and materials in stock, and either causing increases in paper wealth due to a house price boom to mean people can no longer afford to keep a roof over their heads or leading to Proposition 13-like measures to prevent this that have their own negative effects. Everyone ultimately seems to pay the price for all these consequences of the US tax structure.