Oddbean new post about login | logout Property taxes are actually one of the least objectionable taxes. Before you rage away in my replies, hear me out: There are no federal property taxes. You pay property taxes to your county, and they kick some up to the state. It makes sense that your support for public services in your community be relative to how much of the community you own.
Nope. They are more onerous. If you don't work above board, you don't pay income taxes. You can never not pay property taxes, and unless something major changes, you must pay them in fiat, so you're always on the hook for fiat. That is worse, IMO, especially since I don't want to be coerced to pay for stuff like schools (in many places your property taxes are tired to stupid schools) or police departments.
Agreed - but mostly if it's a land value tax (LVT). Assessments of posessions and personal non-RE related property is a rabbit hole likely worse than the general income tax.
Property tax is a wealth tax
Property tax is based on home value, which is not exactly correlated to the % of the community you own. In fact, home value and therefore property tax has been inflated by everything Bitcoin fixes, debt expansion and fiat inflation. So yeah, let’s fix the money first and then have that property tax discussion.
You're not wrong, but that points to a broader problem with democracy. It's the reason why at the republic's inception not everyone had a vote.