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So property taxes are an illegal way to fund schools?

• exabrial 3y ago
  Property taxes are what drive (poor) people out of their homes, or prevent them from moving into nice neighborhoods.
  • Turing_Machine 3y ago
    Yes. The occasional high-profile case aside, if you look at the actual records of people who lose their homes based on unpaid property taxes, you're going to see a vastly disproportionate number of moderate- to low-income people. Sometimes people with very low incomes (e.g. the 81-year-old woman who lost her home of 40 years due to ~$500 in unpaid taxes). I myself have some first-hand experience in this area. A now-deceased relative owned some (quite modestly valued) property in another state. It came within a hairs-breadth of being sold for $12.00 in back taxes. Yep, twelve bucks. It seems she'd neglected to pay the $4.00/year in taxes while she was busy dying of cancer. Fortunately one of the neighbors took the time to search me out and let me know about this, so I was able to save it. It was a near thing, though.
  • pnutjam 3y ago
    Certainly, this is true; but it's not really relevant to this conversation. Taxes are necessary and this is pretty solid, settled law.
• bombcar 3y ago
  All taxes are eventually income taxes because you need to pay them somehow. Removing the middleman makes it more clear. Even the history of property tax is more of an income tax because property was income generating- think back hundreds of years where taxes were things like “1/10the the produce of your fields”. Having taxes being directly against income means that when your income falters or is stopped, the expense reduces or is eliminated also.