Posted on 11/20/2022 4:22:14 AM PST by ExGeeEye
You say tax is theft. I say libertarianusm is utopian nonsense.
Regarding uncontrolled increases in property tax, some areas had to resort to capping tax and assessed value increases by way of state constitutional amendments. Property values were rising so fast that retired individuals on fixed income were losing their properties because of the value increases. So they forced through, over bureaucrat objections, limits on how much if at all a property could rise in tax value. So the bureaucrats figured out a loophole and began increasing the tax rates. A second amendment was needed to block that.
Where I Live property assessments can only increase 2.5% per year maximum in owner occupied homes. We have not gotten around to stopping the tax rate increases unfortunately.
No matter how much money the beast has, it always needs more. Every bureaucrat is a deputy Sheriff of Nottingham these days.
Also as a former business owner, the government forced me to be their **unpaid**tax collector. Hm?...**Unpaid**...**Forced** worker? Isn’t that the definition of SLAVE!
( Yes, I am shouting!)
I actually didn’t say “tax is theft.”
And I agree with your second part.
Thanks for participating.
I'm curious as to what you would do differently with the house if there were no RE taxes on it.
Why, you greedy vulture, you!
j/k
That is a myth with no basis in reality.
The government has the legal responsibility to levy taxes.
I don’t like property taxes, either. If government needs the money so badly, they can add another penny to the sales tax and repeal the property tax.
There are different options which mostly relate to personal situations of various relatives, probably not a good scenario from which to draw any advice or conclusions.
Just paid my NJ quarterly property tax of $4,072. Yes that’s over $16,000 a year. Bought the house in 83 for $275,000 and paid it off in 2003. Sales estimate today is $600,000. New generation can’t afford to live here.
My property taxes cost more than all my other expenses combined.
I would have liked to retire to my family home but the parents died too soon.
Eleven years into orphanhood, I’m still nine years from retirement.
I have to settle for having as much of the contents of that home as I can fit, in my home.
Keep a sharp eye out. It may well come up for sale 10 years down the road.
As I wrote, we vote on it around here. If by “acquiescence” you meant we agree to abide by the vote that’s one thing. But if you meant we submit to local government demands when we had no opportunity to make an input, that’s different.
“Also as a former business owner, the government forced me to be their **unpaid**tax collector. Hm?...**Unpaid**...**Forced** worker? Isn’t that the definition of SLAVE!”
I have been there as a businessman also. They don’t even care how much revenue you are actually collecting for them either. If you don’t they would rather put you out of business and get none at all from you than give you even the smallest break so you can keep collecting for them.
Our public school systems are ripe for a similar disruption.
The current annual cost of public schooling per student averaged around $20,000. The average annual salary of a school teacher is around $50,000. What we get in return is a very poor product and generations of mostly uneducated children.
This is all based on an antiquated business model of shoving 30 or so (mostly unruly) kids into a classroom with harried, underpaid teachers and out of date textbooks.
There is really no need for all that infrastructure and overhead in public education. Cut all of that out and go to virtual schooling, where children can get a customized lesson plan scaled to their abilities. There's no reason why many children cannot graduate "high school" when they are still 12 or 13 years old. The slower learners can continue up until they are 18, then they are on their own.
Public school buildings? Who needs them? Sell them and convert them to condos. Principals, vice-principals, and other non-teaching faculty? Who needs them? They can become virtual teachers.
Virtual teachers can now be paid much more, in fact, they can be paid incentive bonuses for every student that they are able to accelerate to a high school diploma ahead of schedule. Students will get one-on-one sessions with their teachers but mostly they will be given challenging assignments that they can complete on their own and at their own speed. Their teachers are now more or less guiding them through their personal learning journey.
This will bring the cost per child way, way down.
Kids can still play sports and socialize with each other. Only it will be done outside the school system. "Little League" sports will thrive, as will social clubs such as scouting.
The above is only an outline of what can be done but my point is that public schools as we know them today are antiquated and obsolete dinosarus.
In the old days a tax collector would come by, look over your possessions and assess a “personal tax” - why people were hiding their cars and other things.
It got to be too cumbersome so taxes were just upped all over and have been ever since.
I too have thought that my paid-off house is not owned by me, and could be easily repossessed if I don’t pay my property taxes.
Not sure if this is true or not, it isn't in my own family - all of us have paid for our kids' educations (whether worth it or not, some yes, some no).
I was able to use my home as leverage for the loans, which were better than student loans at that time - all paid off as quickly as possible.
My son does tell me, though, that he is the only one among his friends (all of them work in tech) who isn't burdened with huge student loans. My daughter's best friend is about to graduate from medical school with at least $400,000 worth of loans.
Even with a doctor's salary, that will be very difficult to get out from under.
+1000
Plus 4% tax /s
Sign me up. Just got my property tax bill. It is abut the same amount as what I paid for my Son’s car.
The complexity of IRS is unnecessary. Myriad of laws, a gigantic bureaucracy, penalties, and power to confiscate if you don’t pay. I don’t think our founding fathers had this in mind...
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