Posted on 02/13/2021 7:48:55 AM PST by Brian Griffin
Currently residential real estate is predominantly taxed based on its estimated market value.
Ad valorum taxation stems from the colonial era when an acre of land far from the Atlantic Ocean was worth less than an acre of land near the Atlantic Ocean. Ad valorum taxation made sense when getting agricultural goods from the hinterlands to coastal city markets was very difficult and expensive.
In 2021, ad valorum taxation creates a great incentive for local governments and others to make residential real estate very expensive. This is clearest in California, where it may cost $700,000 to add a new apartment to the housing stock in San Francisco. When housing becomes prohibitively expensive, massive homeless problems result. Ad valorum taxation creates a lot of misery.
What I propose is to tax residential property primarily based on the square root of its enclosed space in square feet.
A 700 square foot apartment would be assessed at 26.45 tax units, a 1,400 square foot split-level house at 37.42 tax units and a 3,500 square foot mansion at 59.16 tax units.
I feel that the taxation of a residential property should be roughly proportional to the governmental costs of the services, such as public schooling, likely to be provided to its residents.
The square footage would be measured based on the ground level foundation/slab perimeter of the structure or their building plans for ease of tax assessor access and calculation.
A 4,000 square foot Capitol Hill townhouse having a 1,000 square foot basement apartment and 3,000 square foot owners' space would be taxed based on each housing unit, 31.62 tax units and 54.77 tax units, respectively.
A 12,000 square foot apartment building with 12 apartments of various sizes would be taxed on its average unit size, i.e. at 12x31.62 tax units.
Balconies and partially enclosed areas such as carports would basically be taxed based on one-fourth of their square footage and other unheated/unfinished enclosed areas such as garages and cellars based on one-half their square footage, which may be calculated from building plans. More specifically, enclosed areas would be measured/calculated internally and 75% and 50% reductions subtracted from the total square footage.
The public road-fronting footage of the property would be taxed as well at .02 tax units per linear foot, doubled on the first 100. If the property within a subdivision/condo development doesn't front on a public road, the public road frontage shall be apportioned to all the properties in the subdivision/condo development.
To greatly reduce the contestation of assessments, the calculations of a tax assessor accurate to within 2% or one tax unit overall shall be definitive.
When your property is taxed (by any method), you no longer own that property. You are just renting it. And the rent is the tax goes to the government.
I’d much rather see property taxes abolished, and replaced by some sort of sales tax.
A. Define a ‘tax unit’.
B. I have no kids-—never did have any.
I have paid out over 80 years of school taxes in property taxes on homes I have bought/inherited.
I sure would like a refund...........
Schools make up the bulk of our property taxes.
I like this idea. Apartments do not currently pay a proportionate amount of tax per occupant versus home dwellers. They come in and raise everyone else’s tax for “social goods.”
I think a sales tax is the best form of tax.
I agree with you and with the schools closed due to COVID, we ALL should get a refund but noooo, our school taxes went up last October.
Abolish property taxes across the board. It’s an artifact of Feudalism.
If any of it is kept then it should only be on productive land - up until the 1970s the Homestead Exemption was common. It’s still there in many states but is undervalued. In California that was part of the Prop 13 deal, but it should never have been up for debate. Our homes are not a cash cow for local unemployable trash (”politicians”) to milk.
Excise and user fee taxes to pay for actually needed “services” are all that are needed. We don’t need the Teachers Union having a stranglehold on the places we live.
So it’s “ad valorem.” When the preposition is “ad” (to/toward), the noun that’s the direct object takes the accusative case (-em, -am, -um, for singular) like in “ad hominem.” The ending “-orum” is plural possessive, like in “sanctum sanctorum” (holy of holies).
You pay tax to keep your home. Stop paying and the government takes your home away, then subsidies you. It makes no sense.
Nonstarter: low-income housing that accommodates young families, with however many number of parents present, by far woyld be the most costly based on your principle.
I have to pay over 4 grand in property taxes this year for my OLD 1952 home. Ridiculous.
“a 1,400 square foot split-level house at 37.42 tax units”
Assume 100 linear feet of public road frontage too, which would have 4 tax units.
The total tax units for the property would be 41.42.
Let’s assume the tax rate is $50/tax unit for property tax year 2022.
The property tax for property tax year 2022 would be $50*41.42 or $2,071.
Here’s a better idea. No “taxation” of property.
The property “tax” is an incremental confiscation of the supposed value of your property. At a rate of 3%, the government has taken the full value of your house after 33 years, ignoring inflation. This is understandable, since the statists don’t want you to own anything, but they can’t seize it just yet, so they slice off a piece each year.
This confiscation is cleverly disguised with the use of the term “Mill rate.” The public doesn’t know what a mill is, and so never realizes the actual percentage of their property they are giving to the government.
Their end goal is for you to own nothing, and for the state to own everything. They don’t dare grab your house just yet, but they’re working on it. When they do it, it’ll sound something like “racial equity” or some such nonsense.
You are right, irishjuggler, it’s not “ad valorum” it’s “ad valorem”.
The square root of stupidity is still stupidity.
Words from an Ohio auditor to state. “I stand by my values as submitted and have no plans to submit a third tentative abstract raising county wide residential values to 20%.” Ohio F’n Republicans. This guy was looking for a 14% increase, wasn’t enough for the state.
Pardon my mistake.
Ad valorem taxation is the true culprit.
Exactly. I’m paying hundreds of dollars per month in rent on property that I own, most of which goes to a failed public school/indoctrination system. It’s despicable.
My suggestion would be to put a reasonable lifetime cap on all property taxes. $30k would be about right.
I’ll trade tax bills with you.
In NYS it’s schools andedicaid since NYS cost shares Medicaid with counties.
The problem with taxation.
Toll
Tariff
Taxation
Are all the same. It’s declaring that others owe just for the luxury of having access to that which they are being charged a fee to use.
The question of , can we tax or should we tax are long past and now it’s only a question of what and how to tax next.
If we can’t escape the slavery of taxation, it should be tied to the economy in a way that provides instant feed back to the legislators regarding their affect on the economy. The tax should be a fixed rate and only on sales of new , non-essential goods and materials. Every level from the city to the fed should be limited to collect for sales that cross their borders, much like a tariff. That way, their tax schemes will directly reflect the effect they have with in their local economy.
There should be no taxation on transaction within the jurisdictional borders of a city, county, state or Federal Gov. Cities only tax transaction that cross their city limits. The county, state and US Gov would do the same. This would limit Government to only collect taxes on import/export transactions and not US citizens.
Anyway, that’s my opinion.
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