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Abolish the Property Tax

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What do you think about property tax?
Abolish it! 33%  33%  [ 4 ]
Keep it the way it is! 17%  17%  [ 2 ]
Keep it and raise the rates! 33%  33%  [ 4 ]
Keep it but lower the rates! 8%  8%  [ 1 ]
Other (please specify) 8%  8%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 12

Chronos
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22 Oct 2010, 10:48 pm

If there was only one tax a government imposed on it's citizens, it should be property tax.

Perhaps it needs to be reformed, but it's certainly justified.



DW_a_mom
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22 Oct 2010, 11:12 pm

Cyanide wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
How do you propose that municipal services such as police be paid for? Or should all services be sold as free market goods provided by private vendors, much the same as food is sold in grocery stores and super-markets?

ruveyn

When Jesse Ventura was governor of Minnesota, he changed it so that schools were funded by the state's general fund, rather than local property taxes. Also, municipal sales taxes and income taxes aren't unheard of. Actually, a lot of bigger cities have a city sales tax... So it's not like the world would stop working if we didn't have property taxes.

North Dakota almost had a measure put on their ballots this year that would have completely eliminated property taxes, and had everything be funded by the state.


While there are benefits to having schools paid through state tax collections instead of property taxes, it also subjects school funding far too much to the political process. Here in CA schools are funded through property taxes routed through the state ... a good idea until politics got into it. Which is basically what happens to many things.

In most areas property taxes fund the local services. You would have to substantially change that structure first, then consider eliminating them second.

Here there is nothing arbitrary about the rates: it is all set by what you paid for your home on the day you bought it. Proposition 13 had many things about it I've found problematic over the years, but it did simplify the calculation, and remove most of the subjectivity.

I personally believe a variety of taxes are appropriate to make sure everyone pays their fair share. There is, after all, no tax shelter effective against the property tax ;)


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22 Oct 2010, 11:15 pm

MeshGearFox wrote:
I also dispute the assumption a reduction in property taxes will lead to lower rents. I really don't mind justifying the cost of rent going to property taxes because then I can rationalize that I'm paying for local services rather than just making my landlord rich.


Having had many landlords as clients over the years, I can say with certainty that lowering property taxes will not reduce rents. Rents are set by the what the market will bear, not by costs.


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DW_a_mom
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22 Oct 2010, 11:19 pm

Chronos wrote:
If there was only one tax a government imposed on it's citizens, it should be property tax.

Perhaps it needs to be reformed, but it's certainly justified.


I would disagree with that first sentence, for it puts on unfair burden on capital intensive business. That is actually how the taxes were for thousands of years, before the income tax was created. But if you were a farmer owning a lot of land but not making any money, you were fairly well done in by that method; the Romans might have seized your daughter; other tax collectors might seize all your farm equipment, and so on.


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Chronos
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22 Oct 2010, 11:32 pm

DW_a_mom wrote:
Chronos wrote:
If there was only one tax a government imposed on it's citizens, it should be property tax.

Perhaps it needs to be reformed, but it's certainly justified.


I would disagree with that first sentence, for it puts on unfair burden on capital intensive business. That is actually how the taxes were for thousands of years, before the income tax was created. But if you were a farmer owning a lot of land but not making any money, you were fairly well done in by that method; the Romans might have seized your daughter; other tax collectors might seize all your farm equipment, and so on.


I think farming might fall under certain taxing schemes that other businesses and residences do not. Or farmers qualify for certain government aid in the case of severe crop failures.

I'm not very well versed on that matter.

My reasoning that property should be taxed is based on the fact that the government must defend your right to use that land.