Failure to pay property tax is about the one time that I could see a asset forfeiture being justified. The crime has already been committed, and they're not seizing the house because the house did something wrong, like the absurd way they justify the other forfeitures of unrelated goods; they're going to sell the house to get money you already owe them. I do think there should be some safeguards even then. They can't take it until the taxes have been late for a couple years running, so it can't just be a situation where the bill or the payment got lost in the mail. And there should be an independent assessment, with the surplus amount over the tax lien returned to the owner. Then there's no incentive to run a fake "auction" where your brother-in-law buys the place for $5,000 or something, unless the place really is a heap only worth $5,000.
What crime? Refusing to pay a yearly rent on property one already owns?
My family owned two nice farms free and clear. They owned all of land, the machinery and implements, everything free and clear. Corporate farming interests came into the area and decided that those two farms would make nice additions to their holdings. My family refused to sell the farms that had been in our family since the 19th century, several generations by this time (early 1970s). So, their legal suits got together with the local government types and decided to raise the taxes and unfairly assess the value of everything on the farms. Eventually, the taxes were more than our family could afford to pay and the properties were seized, then auctioned off to pay the "taxes." Guess who bought those farms? Cargill owns those beautiful farms now. Tell me exactly how that was right and how people should be assessed a yearly tax to use the property they already own.
Property siezure for back taxes is simply immoral.
It proves that there is no such thing as Private Property, that all property *belongs* to the government and if you don’t pay them the proper royalties they will take the property from you.
Total absolute BS.
Our Founders should be ashamed of us.