Property taxes are only 30-40 yrs old in this country?
Do you know who owned what is now Arlington National Cemetary before the Feds owned it and how they came into possession of it?
(It was taken from Gen. Robert E Lee for failure to pay taxes).
Most of the states made an organized effort to pass draconian tax lien forfeiture laws in the last 30-40 years. You used to be able to flip them off until you died in a lot of states, then they'd take the money out of the estate.
No longer. I think in my state, it's like 18 months before they smack you with the BIG penalty, and the forfeiture letter.
LOL! The story is a FANTASTIC example of government rapine and pillage.
They got it back, BTW - after the government got its peepee whacked over its thieving. But they sold it to .gov for a nice chunk of change...
It was illegally seized and returned to Lee’s son after the Civil War. He sold it back to the government for $150,000.
wiki
Property taxes in the United States originated during colonial times.[60] By 1796, state and local governments in fourteen of the fifteen states taxed land, but only four taxed inventory (stock in trade). Delaware did not tax property, but rather the income from it. In some states, “all property, with a few exceptions, was taxed; in others, specific objects were named. Land was taxed in one state according to quantity, in another according to quality, and in a third not at all. Responsibility for the assessment and collection of taxes in some cases attached to the state itself; in others, to the counties or townships.” Vermont and North Carolina taxed land based on quantity, while New York and Rhode Island taxed land based on value. Connecticut taxed land based on type of use. Procedures varied widely.[61]
During the period from 1796 until the Civil War, a unifying principle developed: “the taxation of all property, movable and immovable, visible and invisible, or real and personal, as we say in America, at one uniform rate.”[62] During this period, property taxes came to be assessed based on value. This was introduced as a requirement in many state constitutions.
After the Civil War, intangible property, including corporate stock, took on far greater importance. Taxing jurisdictions found it difficult to find and tax this sort of property. This trend led to the introduction of alternatives to the property tax (such as income and sales taxes) at the state level.[16] Property taxes remained a major source of government revenue below the state level.
Hard times during the Great Depression led to high delinquency rates and reduced property tax revenues.[63] Also during the 1900s, many jurisdictions began exempting certain property from taxes. Many jurisdictions exempted homes of war veterans. After World War II, some states replaced exemptions with “circuit breaker” provisions limiting increases in value for residences.
Various economic factors have led to taxpayer initiatives in various states to limit property tax. California Proposition 13 (1978) amended the California Constitution to limit aggregate property taxes to 1% of the “full cash value of such property.” It also limited the increase in assessed value of real property to an inflation factor that was limited to 2% per year.