I'm not disgreeing that there can be valid benefits of higher property taxes. The problem with it though is that it is a very regressive tax, especially in sta

I'm not disgreeing that there can be valid benefits of higher property taxes. The problem with it though is that it is a very regressive tax, especially in states that get the majority of their income from property tax as compared to income taxes (I'm looking at you Texas). > They can be adjusted annually based off the needs of a local market Or, in the case of Texas, a very large portion of property taxes in urban centers ends up as recapture and goes into a state-controlled slush fund. These portions (school taxes) are not actually adjusted at all. > the money collected from property taxes doesn't evaporate from a local area See above statement again. This may be true for city-level property taxes though. > Retirees and low income individuals are often able to make cases to reduce their tax burden I would disagree with this. There are exceptions written into the law that provide exemptions for some of these groups (which are often abused and disincentivise "good" use), but overall lower-end properties have many more comparables to set value based off of, and tends to be much closer to "market". These residents also don't tend to have the funds to many these arguments, and commission-based tax-appealers don't stand to make much money taking on these cases (the absolute dollar value is relatively low). Further, high-value properties without many comparables are the easiest ones to argue for lower tax burden on. Finally, when property values actually do decrease (due to central bank action on interest rates, etc) it can be difficult to get the assessed value lowered without an actual sale. Tldr, the current implementation of property taxes in many locations is extremely regressive.