Property taxes evolved from the feud - the deal between the vassals and their estate lords. You defend us, we give you one third of the crops.
Or more.
This whole protection racket had an unspoken threat: don't pay the tax, and you'll need protection from the protector.
So it's just a perpetuation of feudalism, and the reign of the thugs over the productive.
Which brings up another point: property taxes were never meant to be a tax on principle residence. They were supposed to be a tax on production - and since pretty much everyone made their living off the land up till about 100 years ago, the only way you got income was from your property.
Most states have a homestead deduction on their property tax bill. This is a remnant of that concept: property tax didn't apply to the farmhouse, but rather the production of the farm.
The idea of losing your house to the tax man was anathema to free people. Thus the deduction.
So end the property tax. We have excise taxes and income taxes. We should end the latter of those too, but it's at least only exacted when you make money, not simply because you have a place to sleep.
The place to start is privatizing education, elimination of public sector parasite unions as a result, and the abolishment of the Dept. of Ed.
Then we can worry about cutting property taxes starting, well everywhere.
Solution? I really don't see property taxes going away any time soon. However, I would like to see credits issued for property taxes paid that could be sold in the open market. For example, if I paid $2000 in property taxes, I'd have a piece of paper I could sell to someone who has kids in school which they could use to pay their kids “tuition” for public schooling. Further, the credit could be used for private schools, too. This would force public schools to get their act together or fade away.
In CA this would quickly be invalidated by the courts...even before it was voted on.
property taxes are a crime....i watch my wifes grandparents lose their little cottage on a lake (prior to michigans headlee amendment) people started buying up the little cottages and building very large mansion type homes on the lake.. their taxes shot up so much they could no longer afford to live in their PAID FOR retirement home... property taxes are a crime..
Do away with all taxes or... if people can't handle not paying taxes let there be, at most, a 10-15% usury tax. Unions and government have put many small businesses out of business. I guarantee that business owners will have no problems finding non-union and non-government employees to plow snow.
YES! There are some 33 other major taxes the State gets revenue from (ND), and a Billion dollar surplus. Time to quit paying the government rent.
I recently read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. When he became involved in civic matters - by this time in Boston, I think - city-wide property tax was assessed per person or head-of-household, only to pay for firefighter services initially. Franklin argued that it wasn’t fair to charge the poor widow in a hovel the same amount of protection money as a wealthy landowner with extensive acreage - and so was born a system of property evaluation.
While it fixed the first problem, now the government got to snoop into what everybody owned and improvements thereto.
I’ll leave it to others to figure out how else a community is to fund emergency svcs like fire/police, but the government intrusion of property tax assessment is offensive on its face. The reason you seldom hear of assessors demanding entry into one’s home is that they know they’d be ridden out of town on a rail - if they’re lucky! - and the manner of their employment wouldn’t even exist. But by law, they can do so.
sfl
PROPERTY TAXES ARE RENT TO THE GOVERNMENT!!!
WE ARE A NATION OF RENTERS! THE GOVERNMENT IS THE LANDLORD!!!!
Yes! Indeed! I am jumping up and down and shouting! I am exasperated that so few of my fellow citizens understand this basic concept.
The majority of property taxes go to pay for the GODLESS and SOCIALIST-ENTITLEMENT government schools that teach a godless cultural, political, and religious worldview that is a First Amendment and freedom of conscience ABOMINATION and in complete contradiction of every value that I hold.
Also....With business property taxes ( building, land, and personal property such as tools, equipment, and computers) these taxes are **hidden** and passed on to the taxpayer in the price of everything with use and buy.
The only alternative to be considered should be the cutting of spending. I wish the whole country would do away with property taxes, they are against freedom in every way possible. No one should have to pay the government for the right to live in homes they own or are buying.
As said, as long as there are property taxes you never actually own what you have earned and acquired. It is clear that you can be taxed out of you home and “possessions”.
Here in Texas the assessment boards have lost touch and simply don’t care about right or wrong. It is all about generating revenue from on of the only sources they have since there is no state income tax.
How can it possibly be right, reasonable or good for a person with no income or diminished income to owe taxes on property that is bought and paid for that he can’t afford to pay? How is it right to say that he must sell and move down scale? Sounds like confiscation to me.
Oklahoma, think twice about eliminating state income tax.. the money for services has to come from somewhere. The real question should be what is really needed?
One of the real evils is baseline budgeting with automatic inflation increases. Bureaucrats forget that they don’t run their homes that way.
I believe most property related taxes have an element of direct benefit supported by the property owner for services to be rendered and an element of feely-goody taxes promoted by citizen gad-flies who believe it is their societal if not God’s desire that all people no matter how deserving must be supported, in or out of government. Taxes are a creation of people.
In late February, I got a notice from Lansing that I owed $326 more for an error on my 2008 state income tax. Instead of spending more than that retrieving records, having the accountant fight it, etc., I sent the money. The next day, I got a demand for all the tax returns I supposedly hadn't filed for the years 2008 - 2010! So, I had made a mistake on a return that I didn't file!
This is on top of ludicrous demands the past several years that the state has made for tax deposits they didn't receive (until I gave receipts), etc.
My solution: dissolve the corporation and move, which I just completed. Loss of not many employees or taxes, but it's part of the death by 1,000 cuts.
To hell with Michigan.
I hadn't heard about this. This is completely awesome. I live in Vermont, where property taxes are 10x higher than most other states. The money goes to a million feel-good lib programs, and most of the roads are impassable and poorly maintained.
I fear for our nation in so many ways, but I'm always so happy to see that so many are trying to get things back under control.