Are Property Taxes Unethical?

Topic

  • Yes

    Votes: 96 92.3%
  • No

    Votes: 8 7.7%

  • Total voters
    104
Private property died with the advent of the IRS.
No one owns anything in America. At best we have "conditional privilege of use".
 
@brandon, $1,000.00 an acre? Damn, that's awful high, I'm only paying just over a thousand for my house, large shop and 11 acres now. How about 0.00-10.00 per acre.
 
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@brandon, $1,000.00 an acre? Damn, that's awful high, I'm only paying just over a thousand for my house, large shop and 11 acres now. How about 0.00-10.00 per acre.


Well true really depends on the area. Where I live an undeveloped quarter acre lot runs like $1500/year in taxes. This is suburbia though... obviously those rates wont fly in farm land.
 
Any thing taken by force or threat of force from an honest person by another person is unethical.

As for property taxes they are rent as long as the government has the power to take it away if a person stops paying the rent. A person does not get to decide to pay taxes or where its spent. At times a person gets to vote on whether or not to increase the rent never or extremely rare they get to vote for it to decrease.

To beat property taxes over the long term it must be done at a local level. I have thought of a way to start to do this. An example is a person pays property tax for 20 years and after that they no longer have to pay taxes on it and the government can no longer claim ownership on it. Once that person passes on or sells it the new owner would be required to pay taxes on it up to the 20 years. This way older persons would not lose their home in retirement or illness. Something like this could pass at the local level. It would be viewed as a person having paid "their fair share" into the system so those many local governing bodies would look bad if they spoke up against it.

It would not be perfect of course as the perfect would be no taxation. The system needs to reverse and it can not do it all at once, it has to be the same way that it got to this point a little at a time.
 
If you have any kind of property tax at all, you may as well call your country full-blown communist IMHO, because it means nobody owns property but the government. The mundanes just rent it. That $150,000 land and house package is completely paid off? No problem...miss a few government rent payments, and you will be out on your backside.

Or to make it more obvious, let's say you are genuinely disabled and can't work for whatever reason. Your parents of course let you stay with them. They manage to pay off the house and MAYBE have a few dollars stashed away in an account, but then they die. House is paid off? Who cares, you missed you last 2 rent payments to the State. Good luck finding a bridge to live under, mundane.

No, sorry, property tax is the more egregious tax because it's mere existence means nobody owns property, therefore we technically live under full-blown communism.
 
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Well true really depends on the area. Where I live an undeveloped quarter acre lot runs like $1500/year in taxes. This is suburbia though... obviously those rates wont fly in farm land.

I think we should appoint you to determine what is fair.
 
If you have any kind of property tax at all, you may as well call your country full-blown communist IMHO, because it means nobody owns property but the government. The mundanes just rent it. That $150,000 land and house package is completely paid off? No problem...miss a few government rent payments, and you will be out on your backside.

Or to make it more obvious, let's say you are genuinely disabled and can't work for whatever reason. Your parents of course let you stay with them. They manage to pay off the house and MAYBE have a few dollars stashed away in an account, but then they die. House is paid off? Who cares, you missed you last 2 rent payments to the State. Good luck finding a bridge to live under, mundane.

No, sorry, property tax is the more egregious tax because it's mere existence means nobody owns property, therefore we technically live under full-blown communism.

+ rep for logical consistency, sir.
 
I believe they are unethical. But I also believe that a municipality has the right (for lack of a better term) through their elected representatives in local government to determine which services the municipality will provide and the means by which they will collect revenues to finance those services.
 
Property taxes violates basic tax theory that you are only suppose to tax what people have. That is why income taxes are not based on your income from your financial statements.
 
It always bothered me homeowners have to pay property tax. What bothers me more is if you don't pay the property tax the government reserves the right to take your home. This downright makes it rent. Does the state/county have the right to possess your property because you won't pay a tax on it, even if you are unemployed and have no income to be taxed?

All taxation is theft, and therefore criminal.

End of story.

Next.
 
No, I voted correcly, "YES" :) I'm just saying if I'm gonna get screwed it ought to pay good (ie, ought to cost me less, don't take more from me).

I got your point; I was just applying the old G.B. Shaw story to the whole concept - once one accepts the principle of sanctioned theft, all that is left is to haggle over the price.

You and I rightfully reject the entire concept. It's sad that even, at this point, 3 people here do NOT reject it.
 
I actually think that property tax could be worse than other taxes.If I do not pay some of the others they do not confiscate my home...
 
I actually think that property tax could be worse than other taxes.If I do not pay some of the others they do not confiscate my home...

Is that true (I don't know off the top of my head)? What will they do if you don't pay income tax?
 
There should be 0% primary residence property tax.

I could see a luxury tax on non-primary residences. This would keep the people afraid of land/property hoarders at bay.
 
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