3 ms·

There's the obvious aspect of you having to pay for the associated infrastructure that makes it possible for you to live in the property you own. Streets, fire

There's the obvious aspect of you having to pay for the associated infrastructure that makes it possible for you to live in the property you own. Streets, fire department, police, electrical grid, water/sewer. Those costs aren't related to the purchase price of the house/property you own.

dataflow 3y ago
That wasn't my question. I wasn't asking "why are property taxes necessary". I was asking: how is that inherently better than taxing income? As to to the question you answered, I could understand land value taxes, or some other forms of taxes that are actually based on the infrastructure cost for supporting your home. (And you could add exemptions/tiers for people who can't afford it, that's beside my point.) But property taxes seem nonsensical for exactly the reason you mention: that they depend on the value of the home (at whatever point) rather than on the cost of the infrastructure itself. Whether my home sells for $1 or $1M, my pipes and wires are going to act the same. And neither of those tells you anything about my means for payment - I could easily lose more money on a more expensive home.
- ip26 3y ago
  Your zip code is better correlated to the public spending you benefit from than your salary.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    Then tax based on ZIP codes instead of property sale value? But again: why not just try to do something that's more computed from the public expenditures for that location rather than based on the location itself?
    - ip26 3y ago
      You’re basically arguing for land value tax. I don’t spend much time worrying about LVT because it isn’t widely used in the USA. StrongTowns likes to talk about it: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-isnt-it-being-implemented https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax...
    - mcny 3y ago
      I think we are saying the same thing. I am not calling for California to end its state income tax either. I am suggesting that prop 13 was a disaster. Hot take: One possible compromise is limit prop 13 to a single property maybe two bed two baths for the owner and each adult state resident also gets this "credit"? I mean what the owner and every adult living in the household can help keep the property tax low but only for their own primary residence. but beyond that raise the property tax every year based on property value.
      - VincentEvans 3y ago
        Not californian, but my interest was piqued by this “idea”. So what you are saying is - if my property values double - so do my taxes? Is the goal here to force me out of my home?
        dataflow 3y ago
        > Not californian, but my interest was piqued by this “idea”. So what you are saying is - if my property values double - so do my taxes? Is the goal here to force me out of my home? In the comment you just replied to, weren't they specifically saying this wouldn't apply to your primary residence?
        VincentEvans 3y ago
        I see, indeed, I misread the sentence.
      - dataflow 3y ago
        I don't think we're saying the same thing, but rather speaking past each other. I think I need to dissect these two parts of your original comment: > What worries me is California refuses to raise property taxes Sure, if you're trying to increase taxes somehow, then the proposal in your reply could be one way to do it, and it sounds less painful than increasing everybody's property taxes. That logic isn't what I have issues with, since you're just comparing different ways to do property taxes regarding primary residences. (This isn't to say I agree or disagree with it.) > Raise property taxes because without it, your income tax will have no upper bound. This is the part I took issue with. It appeared you were trying to motivate property tax increases by arguing income taxes are an obviously worse way to make up for them, but... why? I didn't understand the logic behind that, and that's what I was asking about. If I'm a policymaker trying to choose between increasing income and property taxes, why should I choose property taxes to be the one to increase?
  - throwaway8877 3y ago
    [flagged]

dataflow 3y ago

That wasn't my question. I wasn't asking "why are property taxes necessary". I was asking: how is that inherently better than taxing income? As to to the question you answered, I could understand land value taxes, or some other forms of taxes that are actually based on the infrastructure cost for supporting your home. (And you could add exemptions/tiers for people who can't afford it, that's beside my point.) But property taxes seem nonsensical for exactly the reason you mention: that they depend on the value of the home (at whatever point) rather than on the cost of the infrastructure itself. Whether my home sells for $1 or $1M, my pipes and wires are going to act the same. And neither of those tells you anything about my means for payment - I could easily lose more money on a more expensive home.

ip26 3y ago
Your zip code is better correlated to the public spending you benefit from than your salary.
- dataflow 3y ago
  Then tax based on ZIP codes instead of property sale value? But again: why not just try to do something that's more computed from the public expenditures for that location rather than based on the location itself?
  - ip26 3y ago
    You’re basically arguing for land value tax. I don’t spend much time worrying about LVT because it isn’t widely used in the USA. StrongTowns likes to talk about it: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-isnt-it-being-implemented https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax...
  - mcny 3y ago
    I think we are saying the same thing. I am not calling for California to end its state income tax either. I am suggesting that prop 13 was a disaster. Hot take: One possible compromise is limit prop 13 to a single property maybe two bed two baths for the owner and each adult state resident also gets this "credit"? I mean what the owner and every adult living in the household can help keep the property tax low but only for their own primary residence. but beyond that raise the property tax every year based on property value.
    - VincentEvans 3y ago
      Not californian, but my interest was piqued by this “idea”. So what you are saying is - if my property values double - so do my taxes? Is the goal here to force me out of my home?
      - dataflow 3y ago
        > Not californian, but my interest was piqued by this “idea”. So what you are saying is - if my property values double - so do my taxes? Is the goal here to force me out of my home? In the comment you just replied to, weren't they specifically saying this wouldn't apply to your primary residence?
        VincentEvans 3y ago
        I see, indeed, I misread the sentence.
    - dataflow 3y ago
      I don't think we're saying the same thing, but rather speaking past each other. I think I need to dissect these two parts of your original comment: > What worries me is California refuses to raise property taxes Sure, if you're trying to increase taxes somehow, then the proposal in your reply could be one way to do it, and it sounds less painful than increasing everybody's property taxes. That logic isn't what I have issues with, since you're just comparing different ways to do property taxes regarding primary residences. (This isn't to say I agree or disagree with it.) > Raise property taxes because without it, your income tax will have no upper bound. This is the part I took issue with. It appeared you were trying to motivate property tax increases by arguing income taxes are an obviously worse way to make up for them, but... why? I didn't understand the logic behind that, and that's what I was asking about. If I'm a policymaker trying to choose between increasing income and property taxes, why should I choose property taxes to be the one to increase?
- throwaway8877 3y ago
  [flagged]