Could a state survive without property taxes?

[jllundqu]

There's a lot of talk about the free state project and the like, but if you have to pay property taxes, you are never really free!

There's a huge billboard in my state that says "IF YOU OWN PROPERTY, YOU OWE TAXES!" http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/057048-2009-09-08-if-you-own-property-you-owe-taxes.htm

Can you imagine the influx of business and residents if a state decided to eliminate state, city, county, (ALL) property taxes?

A person could have a farm, pay it off entirely, and literally "be free"

Is such a thing possible?

 

[Expatriate]

If there was a place in the contiguous U.S. where I could reliably buy land with no property taxes, I would move there in a heartbeat. Just the possibility of being able to withdraw self-sufficiently to my own property and stop contributing anything to murdering governments would make it worthwhile to me. You could actually stop using money entirely and barter for goods with your neighbors instead.

 

[erowe1]

If you're talking about some revenue-neutral scheme where you just replace property taxes with higher sales taxes or income taxes, then I'd be against it.

 

[ctiger2]

Income and property taxes should be banned in this country. It's theft. All govt functions should be paid for via sales tax. That way when the consumer stops spending the govt is forced to tighten their belt as well. I'd ban govt borrowing as well.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Allodial title is a real theory. It has even been used in a modified form in the US, for example, in NV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title#United_States

In NH, as in parts of AK, there are areas without property taxes. People live in these areas. However, the areas are usually owned by larger agricultural or mining interests. For example, in NH, the people living on the land tend to be either working for timber companies or leasing their home from timber companies. These areas almost never have children in government schools living at home, as that is the main expensive when it comes to property taxes.

As for NH, there is a government charter school which is an online school. Students from around the state attend it by sitting at a computer in their bedroom. You might be able to find a low property tax town in NH with few children and widespread high speed internet use. If you could convince all of the parents to either send their children to a private school, an online charter school or homeschool, you could eliminate the majority of the already low property taxes. Then, if the town currently has police (some NH towns don't), you could have the town create a couple unpaid constable positions and contract with the state police for serious crime. Actions like those might lower the average property tax bill from $1,500 a year per family to $500 a year per family.

There are other communities in NH which pay almost no property taxes but residents in those communities contract with private companies or near-by local government for services and are in private developments which charge fees for road maintenance, water, maintaining the golf course and so on.

As for no property taxes being possible. In theory, it could be possible. A large tract of land could be developed into a private community. When people buy the land, the expensive of the land might by 20 times what similar land normally costs in the area. The extra expense could be invested. The proceeds from the investments could be processed by the developer and used to pay the area property taxes. As long as the investments were successful, the home owners may never have to personally pay property taxes.

 

[oyarde]

Is it possible , yes , could you sell enough people on it ? doubt it.

 

[donnay]

 

[Expatriate]

I'd like to see a group of people move to the same area, become self-sufficient, individually secede and stop paying property taxes. If they backed each other up it would take a military operation to remove them, and it would be hard to get the public to swallow that if the individuals in question were clearly peaceful and had an online presence that dispelled any lies put forth by govt. propaganda.

I've heard of people doing this on their own, one guy in particular in the US. If I can find the article I'll post it.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Is it possible , yes , could you sell enough people on it ? doubt it.

Totally. For example, ND gets tons of federal welfare because of farming. It also gets tons of money from oil/gas. ND could eliminate property taxes if you could convince the people to do so. The property taxes would likely need to come back after the oil/gas cycle ends. However, in the mean time, ND could double business taxes, cut spending and eliminate property taxes.

Of course, the people of ND recently overwhelming rejected ending property taxes.

 

[foxtrotterz]

I'd like to see a group of people move to the same area, become self-sufficient, individually secede and stop paying property taxes. If they backed each other up it would take a military operation to remove them, and it would be hard to get the public to swallow that if the individuals in question were clearly peaceful and had an online presence that dispelled any lies put forth by govt. propaganda.

I've heard of people doing this on their own, one guy in particular in the US. If I can find the article I'll post it.

Unfortunately, they would be labeled terrorist and the Mericans would throw a parade for the statist who used force to overthrow a peaceful group of people.

 

[Expatriate]

Unfortunately, they would be labeled terrorist and the Mericans would throw a parade for the statist who used force to overthrow a peaceful group of people.

I don't think so, not if the peaceful group of people was well-connected online and had a reputation of charitable acts and other feel-good stuff. Too much bad PR to just stomp on people in the Information Age when the person has a prior established good reputation. I know a few people who could pull it off right now if they wanted. The trick would be getting a bunch of these people together.

 

[Czolgosz]

I've heard of people doing this on their own, one guy in particular in the US. If I can find the article I'll post it.

Please do. Always interested in secession at an individual or community level. Even here, there are only a handful of people who would consider this option.

 

[Expatriate]

Please do. Always interested in secession at an individual or community level. Even here, there are only a handful of people who would consider this option.

I can't find the article at the moment but I'll keep looking. What I remember is that this guy somewhere in the US issued a declaration of independence, which was not taken seriously at first, but he stopped paying all his taxes and the state/feds weren't willing to kill him over it (probably because of the bad press that would result). He was in a conflict with the local government where they kept installing a power line or something on his property and he kept removing it.

 

[idiom]

Governments that are funded by Sovereign wealth funds are apparently verboten from discussions around here.

But yeah, tax free governments have been done.

 

[Expatriate]

Governments that are funded by Sovereign wealth funds are apparently verboten from discussions around here.

But yeah, tax free governments have been done.

Is there an example somewhere on the web of this having taken place? I mean, totally tax-free?

What I remember is that this guy somewhere in the US issued a declaration of independence, which was not taken seriously at first, but he stopped paying all his taxes and the state/feds weren't willing to kill him over it (probably because of the bad press that would result). He was in a conflict with the local government where they kept installing a power line or something on his property and he kept removing it.

Does anyone remember this story? It was like 6 or 7 years back and I think the guy was a veteran. My search-fu fails me right now. If anyone knows what I'm talking about can you please let me know?

 

[PierzStyx]

Income and property taxes should be banned in this country. It's theft. All govt functions should be paid for via sales tax. That way when the consumer stops spending the govt is forced to tighten their belt as well. I'd ban govt borrowing as well.

They were at one time. The US government used to be run entirely of sales taxes and import/export duties.

 

[Vanilluxe]

They were at one time. The US government used to be run entirely of sales taxes and import/export duties.

Free trade means import/export duty free.

 

[XTreat]

Unfortunately, they would be labeled terrorist and the Mericans would throw a parade for the statist who used force to overthrow a peaceful group of people.

Waco? Ruby Ridge?

 

[Expatriate]

Waco? Ruby Ridge?

Those both happened before the Internet became a common source of information for everyone, it would be a lot harder to demonize someone now that the mainstream media has competition.

And you have to admit, it wasn't exactly the hardest thing for the media to demonize Weaver and Koresh, since they were isolated from the public. If an individual or a group had an online presence and they appeared to be good people to the public, it would be next to impossible to wipe them out without a serious case of appearing to be the bad guys.

Also, this guy hasn't been taken out yet, why is that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joe_Gray

 

[idiom]

Is there an example somewhere on the web of this having taken place? I mean, totally tax-free?

Pretty much any Oil state could run that way. A lot of governments could if they knew how to keep to a budget. They could operate entirely on dividends and interest payments and user fees. If they had a group of investment funds operating in different sectors it could be pretty stable.

Extant examples are region limited to zero tax zones designed to attract foreign companies. I am not familiar with how oil states run, I don't know if any live purely on royalties. No good reason why they couldn't though.