North Dakota to vote on ending property tax

[Roy L]

If by working harder they are using services provided more, you do. It is called accountability.

Nope. You are already paying landowners full market value for every benefit you get from government services and infrastructure. That is very much the point. Why do you want to pay for all those benefits twice, so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for doing nothing?

I work hard driving a truck around all day, you bet I should pay for my wear and tear on the roads. And that is just one example.

You already pay landowners for your wear and tear on the roads. Why do you want to pay for it twice, so that landowners can pocket one of your payments in return for nothing?

I find it remarkable that stupid, lying anti-LVT sacks of $#!+ shriek to high heaven about paying even one cent to government for the benefit of the services and infrastructure it provides, and then turn around and shriek even louder that everyone god damn well has to pay landowners full market value for access to the same government-provided services and infrastructure, even though it is government, not landowners, that is providing them.

Can you explain that to me? Of course you can't. It's self-evidently evil and insane.

 

[Roy L]

An inability to pay property taxes has resulted in the confiscation and sale of one's assets.

OK, so you admit that the "home stolen and put out into the street" claim is a total lie.

This is not hard to find, as state and county websites have the information there about what steps they take when an individual is unable to pay their property taxes.

As I knew would be the case, you cannot provide even a single documented example for your claim.

Some of the methods are such things called tax liens and tax deeds. Some states do not engage in selling tax deed certificate's, but will freeze assets and confiscate an individuals property, to later auction it off anyway.
- - - - -A seizure and sale is an action we may take if all other attempts to collect your tax debt have failed. A tax warrant must be filed before we seize and sell your real and personal property.

How to avoid seizure - The best way to avoid seizure of your property is to pay your debt as soon as possible. If you have difficulty paying, make an immediate and continuing effort to voluntarily work with us on a mutually agreeable solution to your problem.

How the process works

your assets are seized
if prior to the sale we reach a mutually agreeable solution, we will return your property
we will notify you of the intended sale date
your property will be sold at public aution for at least fair market value
we send you an accounting of the sale
if the proceeds exceed your debt and the department's expenses, we will return the remainder to you ---- This is from NY state.

So yes, an inability to pay property taxes to the state can result in the confiscation of the property you own.

OK, so you again admit that the "elderly widow's home stolen and her put out into the street" claim is a total lie, and has never actually happened. Good.

 

[Roy L]

I thought for a moment about responding to each of your "refutations" but since they are all so full of holes, I'm not even going to bother; it isn't worth my time. It is easy to see why with 1,374 posts you have a red mark for your rep. It is apparent that you either are delusional or just like to stir the pot. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is the latter!

I have comprehensively and conclusively refuted you, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

 

[Roy L]

Keith, what do you think about NH putting a constitutional Amendment like this forward? Possible at some point in the future?

They are far too honest, intelligent, freedom-loving and justice-loving to do anything so stupid, dishonest and evil. That is why NH has the highest or nearly the highest property tax rates in the country (depending on how you calculate them), and the smallest state government. You just have to refuse to know all such facts.

 

[Roy L]

I don't know if you are an outright liar or just ignorant.

Whereas I suffer no such doubts regarding you.

I can speak for NY/NJ because I am a native and most of my family and friends are there.

Sorry, that doesn't make you an expert, and it sure as hell doesn't make you honest.

NJ got fucking HAMMERED.

Where are the statistics to support this claim? It did not appear in the list of five worst-hit states.

In 1987 I bought a salt box in Monmouth Battlefield state park, somewhat over priced at 170K. It sold just prior to the bubble for 660K! It is now worth about 1/3 of that, the buyer having eaten a huge loss.

I do not believe you. Post the data, with source.

In the wealthy town of Freehold the McMansions are for sale literally by the hundreds to this very day. Some of them have been vacant 3+ years. Their real estate markets crashed most spectacularly - my mother's house had appraised upward of $700K and is now around 250 or less.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Your assertion is unvarnished baloney.

It is a fact of economics.

You are trying to establish a causal connection between tax rates and housing bubbles. One would think that if you were going to attempt to convince people of this nonsense that you would at least have given it a reasonably convincing try instead of this... I don't even know what to call it, though "pathetic" is perhaps the best adjective I could attach to "effort". Ultra-fail.

<yawn> It is clearly implied by the Net Present Value Equation.

As for Prop 13, I was a CA resident when that was passed and it has NOTHING to do with CA's fiscal troubles.

Such claims are self-evidently idiotic. Everyone in CA who has any knowledge of state or local budgeting (i.e., doesn't include you) knows that Prop 13 is the straitjacket that prevents any resolution of the crisis, as it requires the state to give large, growing, and unsustainable welfare subsidies to landowners.

That states woeful condition stems entirely from the rapacious spending on "social" programs.

Garbage. CA's social programs are in line with those of other liberal states of similar income level.

If the CA state government pulled back its operations to those justifiable functions, that state's looming fiscal death would vanish into thin air.

It can't: the immense welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners required by Prop 13 -- a far bigger cost than "social" programs -- creates too many refractory social and economic problems.

As for your other idiotic assertion that the "authorities" will not take away your property if you fail to pay your real estate taxes, that is yet another steaming pile.

Stop lying about what I have plainly written.

But don't take my word for it. Go to your local tax office and ask them what the procedure is and they will tell you.

Find one that says it will steal grannie's house and put her out into the street, or admit you are lying.

I absolutely guarantee that the ultimate disposition will be confiscation. Have you never heard of a tax lien? Have you never heard of a tax lien sale? Thousands of homes are confiscated on tax liens every year all over the USA. Tax liens can be very profitable for those with the stomach to buy them and then boot the occupants. This is done EVERY DAY of EVERY YEAR. I doubt that a single day has passed in the past 40 years where someone has not been evicted from their home by a sheriff for not having paid their taxes.

Find ONE DOCUMENTED CASE where an elderly widow's home was STOLEN (not "confiscated" or repossessed), and she was put out into the street. ONE DOCUMENTED CASE.

 

[Roy L]

Speaking of babble...you do realize that the city can arbitrarily raise property taxes based on nothing more than bullshit?

Lie.

I'm trying to sell a house that's "valued" and taxed by the city for their bullshit value of $111,500--I'm selling for far less than that and can't get an offer.

Many jurisdictions stint on assessments, meaning they are usually far out of date. That just means it is over-valued now, but was even more undervalued during the bubble.

Now if I was a widow who wasn't trying to sell the house, how in the fuck would I prove that the house is worth less? I couldn't, and I'd have to pay their higher rates...which will go higher and higher.

Property tax rates have been declining for nearly 100 years.

They raise the taxes on homes in a depressed housing market. Does that seem reasonable?

They were probably equally slow to raise them during the bubble. It's not reasonable, but at least it's consistent.

What assets should a widower sell? Her refrigerator? The copper plumbing? The washer and dryer? Her chair or bed? What planet are you living on where these widows have a Van Gogh hanging over the mantle in a $100,000 house?

Sell the house, pay the back taxes, and buy (or rent) in a neighborhood better suited to her needs and means. Calling such a transaction "stealing her home and putting her out in the street" is just a stupid lie.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Prop 13 is the straitjacket that prevents any resolution of the crisis, as it requires the state to give large, growing, and unsustainable welfare subsidies to landowners.

...the immense welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners...

Get used to seeing that - where something "not taken" equates to something "given" away - subsidized. For that to make any sense whatsoever, you have to first contort your brian into a de facto state landownership mindset, and swallow lots of Roy's Koolaid, with the presumption that land rents "rightfully" belong to the state (aka the collectivized/socialized "people"). Thus, your mere exclusive existence on a piece of land represents a deprivation of liberty to others which, if uncompensated to "others", represents theft on the part of the landholder, or "giveaway" or "landowner subsidy" on the part of the "true" owners of the land (the Borg Community Collective, from whence all value springs forth).

Find ONE DOCUMENTED CASE where an elderly widow's home was STOLEN (not "confiscated" or repossessed)...

I was going to warn you about this one, osan. You're at play in the imagined landmine fields of a fool's mind. Much of slippery Roy's Roy-centric rationale is framed from his own peculiar mindset, with arguments that are based conveniently on his own preferred definitions of words, narrowed and confined to only those that suit his purposes. If no LVT-friendly definition is available, Roy will substitute his own LVT-centric interpretations. In all of this Roy stands as the lone arbiter.

Thus, Roy doesn't see a repossessing or confiscation due to non-payment of a property tax as stealing, or theft. As a result, you won't be able to produce a single "documented case" (by virtue of his word game) of what ROY ALONE views as theft. That is not based on the fact that property taxes are legislated and codified as "legal", and that's where Roy's nasty, intellectually dishonest double standard kicks in. This is because anyone who opposes LVT, or is "a lying apologist for landowner privilege" (even though they ownership is codified as a right), any landowners who acts within the law, but does not want to pay LVT (read=give back what Roy feels "rightfully" belongs to "the community"), that person is automatically viewed by Roy, not just as a thief, but a MURDERER OF MILLIONS EVERY YEAR!

Again, all you have to do for everything to make perfect sense is contort your mind to match with whatever Roy thinks or believes. Then the World According To Roy is as right as rain, and nothing short of "indisputable facts of Roy's objective reality".

 

[redbluepill]

However, many who are poor, are poor not because of external forces draining away their labor. Instead, they are poor because they make unwise decisions with the little wealth that they do have or they have limited earning potential (not the sharpest pencils in the drawer). However, if they own their own property free and clear and mere ownership doesn't have a price, (maybe they inherited their parents' house?) then that greatly reduces their living expenses. If we toss a tax on top of their expenses, they become more poor. If they rent, they become more poor.

People who live in 3rd world countries are not dumb, yet the conditions are much worse. The video explains why. Flawed government policies coupled with land monopolization has led to these conditions. Laziness has very little to do with it and is more a symptom rather than a cause of poverty.
"There is a cause for this poverty; and, if you trace it down, you will find its root in a primary injustice. Look over the world today — poverty everywhere. The cause must be a common one. You cannot attribute it to the tariff, or to the form of government, or to this thing or to that in which nations differ; because, as deep poverty is common to them all the cause that produces it must be a common cause. What is that common cause? There is one sufficient cause that is common to all nations; and that is the appropriation as the property of some of that natural element on which and from which all must live. ..." ~ Henry George, The Crime of Poverty
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Poverty's_causes.html

And Georgists want to eliminate all taxes save for the LVT, so your argument that such a policy would lead to more poverty is bunk. The LVT is the only 'tax' that encourages productivity. The current system encourages speculation. Land is held idle until prices as high enough to sell. The landlord profits without lifting a finger. With the LVT and landlord will actually do something productive with the land so he can make an honest profits. There will be a demand for workers. As competition for workers increases, wages will naturally increase as well. The LVT is a great complement to a truly free market.

Far better that a person who wants property of their own be able to own and retain it and be independent than be beholden to some landlord.

Remove land taxes and that is exactly what you'd have. That was demonstrated clear as day in the video. You haven't refuted anything the video stated.

Many have called landlords parasites, but who are they to place more value on labor than on knowledge or ownership? Who are they to say that holding land idle is bad? It isn't bad at all; it is part of good stewardship of the land; it allows nature to exist unmolested.

Actually, if you are concerned about the state of nature the LVT is the way to go. LVT discourages urban sprawl. So those old rundown areas you see in the cities will be restored. Virgin land will be more likely left untouched.

 

[redbluepill]

If by working harder they are using services provided more, you do. It is called accountability. I work hard driving a truck around all day, you bet I should pay for my wear and tear on the roads. And that is just one example.

Roads ought to be paid for through user fees (tolls in this case). What if I walk to work?

 

[EcoWarrier]

They don't have an answer for that because those are details they don't give a fuck about one way or the other.

Assessing the value of land is easy. It is done all the time.

 

[EcoWarrier]

No, I'm not. There's nothing deliberate that the widower does that makes the city raise her property taxes.

Prices rise all the time. How do people cope now? If I live in a big house and retire and my income is now far less and I have a large house to pay for, then I consider moving to a house that I can afford. That is how it works now and always will. Why should we insulate anyone who can't pay their way and wipe out a debt they have run up? That is what you are wanting.

Current property taxes do not take into account your ability to pay. With LVT, if you can't pay then you move, like what happens now. But with LVT you can move to an internal tax haven by relocating to a lower LVT rated district or town/area. With Income tax it stays the same level of extraction wherever you move. LVT can be deferred until sale of land or death. There are exemptions as well. Winston Churchill described your points as the Old Widow Bogey. The Old Widow Bogey has been debunked continually over the past 100 years. I find it amusing when it is wheeled out to justify free-loading.

And WTF are you talking about with a $4m mortgage? The widower has paid her home off, there is no mortgage.

You are wanted the state to ignore people who get into debt and do not pay.

 

[EcoWarrier]

In 1987 I bought a salt box in Monmouth Battlefield state park, somewhat over priced at 170K. It sold just prior to the bubble for 660K! It is now worth about 1/3 of that, the buyer having eaten a huge loss.
...
...
Your assertion is unvarnished baloney. You are trying to establish a causal connection between tax rates and housing bubbles.

LVT, as the Single tax, a tax on only the values of land, no income tax, etc, will eliminate the bubbles. It will prevent boom & busts giving stability. Why we have these bubbles is because of speculators. Get them away, and LVT frightens them off, then no wild fluctuation in land hence house prices. Surplus money is then put into enterprise activities, not into land and its resources, which is commonwealth.

The Dot Com bubble was benign and only those who went into it got burnt. When it burst it never affected the wider economy. When a land bubble burts the whole world goes down like dominoes.

"Inelastic" land is very different to anything you can ever buy. It reacts differently to the markets. Land is fixed to that location.

In what sense were we richer three or four years ago, when the exact same housing stock sold for about twice as much? In what sense are we poorer now? Land is special because, as Realtors like to remind us, they are not making any more of it. This means that you can get rich owning land without doing anything productive with it. You can lay on he beach, lounge around. The natural increase in population will do the trick.

 

[EcoWarrier]

The forbidden knowledge in economics is the land market. There is nothing magical about this. Data about the western European economy, tells us that trends repeat every 18 years without fail. Looking at the land market you can see how the health of the economy is progressing. From this information the turning points in the business cycle can be pinpointed.

The boom-bust cycle is programmed into the politics. It used to be a monarchical system, aristocracies economy now it is semi-democratic. The underlying factors are still the same. The best gains are out of LAND, not the stock market, not out of anything else. Over the business cycle the highest capital gains are out of LAND. That is the secret.

The way the market is structured at the present time we definitely get a boom after 15years into the cycle and then a bust because debt is created to over exploit that market and the economy has to dip. It has happened every 18 years for the past 200 to 300 years.

Socialized LAND and Privatized WAGES.

The socialisation of LAND is recovering for the community the value we collectively create. Changing the taxes by abolishing taxes on earnings and the profits from the investments from our savings. Privatise the wealth that we create. Let people keep what they produce. Collect from the public sector that shared revenue that is chrysalises in the land market as land values, we use that to pay for public services. That's resocialising what used to be the public revenue and privatising people's wages.

Political Problem

It is a political problem. They found that when the British Liberal government introduced a land value based tax 100 years ago the House of Lords simply rejected any attempt at reform.

That culture of making money out of nothing, just by occupying a little bit of land, has seeded through into the democratic system. There hasn't been the political or moral strength of our statesmen for 100 years to change that corrupt method of distributing income.

All Become Richer When Taxes Are Raised From Land Values

In the USA they would be collectively better off by $100s billions per year to share out amongst the population if they made the tax shift from taxing wages and raising revenue from land values. That becomes an incentive. Everyone becomes richer. Wages would be higher. It takes moral courage by the stewards of our system of government. The people would listen and once informed they would want to make the change.

Taxing Land Values Give Sustainable Economics

If we want a sustainable and stable system of economics and want to be able to compete with the Far East on an equal footing over the next business cycle, the only option is to shift taxes off wages and onto the "values" of land. What that would mean? It would mean is that the factory gate products of western Europe would become more affordable in global markets. Without this tax shift, our goods will continually to be undercut by cheap labour produced goods in the Far East.

This future is not sustainable. This what the G20 economies have driven Europe and North America into. A situation of crisis were we will be able to compete is to change the cost structure. The only we can do that is to implement this tax shift.

Governments have been abysmal in looking after the interests of the advanced countries. They have exposed Europe and North America to a Far Eastern economy that is going to gobble up most of us. We may be in the doldrums for the next 20 years, because our governments have tried to inflate us out of this depression by the very mechanism that brought us into it in the first place. Debt was the way to maintain living standards, not by producing goods that are of any value but by borrowing and spending secured on land.

That is exactly what governments are still doing, piling debt on debt. They have socialised the private debt of land speculators, putting the burden onto future tax payers. What does that mean to the rest of the business cycle? It means the European and North American economies are not fit for purpose. The G20 economies have failed abysmally to take care of their nations.

Doldrums Will Continue

The economy will be in the doldrums for about 10 years, as the Japanese economy in the 1990s and European and North American in the 1930s. Some will make money by latching onto the forbidden knowledge that predicts the trends, but for the rest of us there will be a decline in living standards and lot of unemployment.

 

[Steven Douglas]

"There is a cause for this poverty; and, if you trace it down, you will find its root in...the appropriation as the property of some of that natural element on which and from which all must live. ..." ~ Henry George

Interestingly enough, what is Henry George's solution to what he sees as the root cause of all poverty? The appropriation as the property of [the state ALL] of that natural element on which and from which all must live.

This won't be anything like Marx' seeing the problem of evil, labor-exploiting capital in the hands of the few, with the solution being the entire appropriation of all capital into the hands of the benevolent state. No way, no siree Bob. Under a Georgist regime, Capital and Labor - two of the basic factors of production - requirements for productivity and wealth creation, would remain in private hands where they rightly belong. No, just give the state ultimate ownership and control of Land, the one remaining factor of production. Just transfer that one basic requirement for life itself, and not just productivity or wealth creation, to the state. Nothing need change, as all will be well once nobody is a landowner, as everyone is a perpetual renter.

From there, of course, land scarcity, and therefore its value, can be artificially determined in large part, by whatever percentage of total land the state determines may be allowed for private use (assuming Roy's not in charge, he wouldn't stand for that). Whatever lands are indeed restricted and withheld from private use of any kind might as well not exist (like 95% of Hong Kong - raw, undeveloped, unavailable-for-leasing-or-use land). Throw zoning laws into the mix, and the artificial scarcity of land can further increase according to its limited usage (i.e., 100% of commercially or industrially zoned land might as well not exist or be counted along with residential land, as it's not part of that market's available supply).

Once all that's in place, we can really "roll up our sleeves and do more good for the community and humanity" by following the Greens' recommendations, as we appropriate to the state and capture economic rents on virtually anything and everything nature "provides". And then, oh what a loverly world it will be.

 

[EcoWarrier]

However, many who are poor, are poor not because of external forces draining away their labor. Instead, they are poor because they make unwise decisions with the little wealth that they do have or they have limited earning potential (not the sharpest pencils in the drawer). However, if they own their own property free and clear and mere ownership doesn't have a price, (maybe they inherited their parents' house?) then that greatly reduces their living expenses. If we toss a tax on top of their expenses, they become more poor. If they rent, they become more poor.

With the Single Tax, only LVT, they will not be poor if they rent. They keep all of their income.

If they own their property, and pay no taxes on the ownership,

LVT does not tax ownership. LVT taxes the value of the land annually. If the value drops so does the tax. LVT reclaims community created value.

LVT does not burden anyone. They freer to make a living as they choose and not have their labor (wages) taken from them.

Many have called landlords parasites, but who are they to place more value on labor than on knowledge or ownership? Who are they to say that holding land idle is bad? It isn't bad at all; it is part of good stewardship of the land; it allows nature to exist unmolested.

You are confused. Understadn this...Martin Wolf Chief economist of the Financial Times...

The essential point is quite simple: the value of resources is created by the economic activity of other factors of production. The owners of these resources can become hugely wealthy and are often untaxed on that increase in wealth: the Duke of Westminster is the richest Englishman simply because he owns a large amount of land in a valuable part of London. So why should he have command over the labour of so many other people?

That wealth is, in the strictest sense, unearned. If that rise in wealth were taxed away, other taxes - those on labour, capital and entrepreneurship - could fall. This would be both efficient (because taxes on rent do not create distortions, as Ricardo showed) and also just, because the wealth was unearned. Now, surprisingly, the UK allows foreign landowners to enjoy the increase in value created by the British economy, entirely tax-free. This is utterly crazy.

Let me add four other points.

1. First, throughout history, the main source of wealth was land-ownership. The parasitic landowner became wealthy on the efforts of others - peasants, tenants and even developers. Sometimes the parasite was also a farmer or developer, but that does not change the fact that these are two distinct economic roles. The parasite built fine castles and palaces and often sponsored music and culture. But he was still a parasite. The beauty of capitalism is that many of the wealthiest are no longer parasites. This is good. But many of the wealthy still are parasites. Moreover, now everybody wants to get rich by being a mini-landowner. That is a huge diversion of effort.
   
   
2. Second, the financial system's ills are the result of unchecked credit-creation. Yes. But unchecked credit-creation would be impossible without collateral. Land is always the principal form of collateral (buildings are a depreciating asset). That is why financial bubbles that do not create credit booms (like the dotcom bubble) are economically benign, while property bubbles are potentially catastrophic. When the value of collateral collapses, the financial system implodes.
   
   
3. Third, there is really nothing new about this understanding of the role of resource rents. They were central to the classical system, from which modern economics, in its various forms, derives. Ricardo's analysis of rent remains intellectually impeccable.
   
   
4. Finally, as Herman Daly has noted, today economically valuable resources are much more than just land (and what lies below it). They include all the services of the biosphere - those that are appropriated, those that are appropriable and those that are non-appropriable. If we do not think seriously and intelligently about how to price resources, we are likely to go seriously adrift, perhaps even into disaster. Here land is the least of our problems - it is appropriable and, by and large, appropriated. So, at least, the price mechanism works, even though the distribution of the gain is grossly unjust. But, in other cases, no appropriation is possible, or at least it is not easy. Nobody can appropriate the atmosphere. It is nigh on impossible to appropriate the oceans. How do you own species diversity? These are serious challenges.

So, I conclude where I started: resources matter. It was a great mistake to exclude them from the canonical neo-classical model. It is also a great mistake not to tax their owners to the hilt.​

 

[EcoWarrier]

Interestingly enough, what is Henry George's solution to what he sees as the root cause of all poverty? The appropriation as the property of [the state ALL] of that natural element on which and from which all must live.

I have concluded you are some sort of obsessed nut. You have been repeatedly told, with backup from eminent economists, etc, that what you view is wrong, yet you keep reciting the same mantra.

George DID NOT advocate state appropriation of all land title at all. He said if people want to hold title to land then fine. The state leaves them alone. He based his theories on Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Mills, etc. That was to reclaim community created wealth that soaks into the land to pay for community services, leaving the wealth of private individuals alone. The mechanism is Land Valuation Taxation. An annual charge on the value of land. It is auto regulating to the economy.

It is just a tax shift - nothing else. Everything else stays the same.

 

[Kluge]

Prices rise all the time. How do people cope now? If I live in a big house and retire and my income is now far less and I have a large house to pay for, then I consider moving to a house that I can afford. That is how it works now and always will. Why should we insulate anyone who can't pay their way and wipe out a debt they have run up? That is what you are wanting.

Current property taxes do not take into account your ability to pay. With LVT, if you can't pay then you move, like what happens now. But with LVT you can move to an internal tax haven by relocating to a lower LVT rated district or town/area. With Income tax it stays the same level of extraction wherever you move. LVT can be deferred until sale of land or death. There are exemptions as well. Winston Churchill described your points as the Old Widow Bogey. The Old Widow Bogey has been debunked continually over the past 100 years. I find it amusing when it is wheeled out to justify free-loading.



You are wanted the state to ignore people who get into debt and do not pay.

You can't answer the question. Yes, prices do rise all the time, if there's a price to be risen. How do people cope? Some people grow their own food, produce their own electricity, rely on the charity of others.

Find another source to suck people dry. This one is unethical, and if you don't know that, your ethics are quite off.

 

[EcoWarrier]

You can't answer the question. Yes, prices do rise all the time, if there's a price to be risen. How do people cope? Some people grow their own food, produce their own electricity, rely on the charity of others.

Find another source to suck people dry. This one is unethical, and if you don't know that, your ethics are quite off.

You are very confused. I fully addressed your points. You want the state to support free-loaders. People who can't manage have to make alternative arrangements. That is the case now, and has always been the case.

We are being sucked dry right now. The more we work the more they take from our labors in Income Tax and Sales Tax, etc, etc. A form of slavery.

Let us go back to this Widow. She is in a 5 bedroom large house. Her family have moved of and her husband passed away. The House now is far too large for her requirements. The house/land value is considerable. Moving to a smaller suitable house and cashing in on the value under her feet to keep her comfortable in her latter years is the ideal solution. It also releases a house for a family to use.

The likes of you is wanting us to ensure she stays in the over-large house and wipe out her debts when they come along. Amazing.

Under the Single Tax her LVT payments can be deferred until the sale of the house, a House suitable for her needs, or death. The state takes the house to pay the debts and gives the remaining money to the relatives. No problem. Perfect solution.

 

[Kluge]

You are very confused. I fully addressed your points. You want the state to support free-loaders. People who can't manage have to make alternative arrangements. That is the case now, and has always been the case.

We are being sucked dry right now. The more we work the more they take from our labors in Income Tax and Sales Tax, etc, etc. A form of slavery.

Let us go back to this Widow. She is in a 5 bedroom large house. Her family have moved of and her husband passed away. The House now is far too large for her requirements. The house/land value is considerable. Moving to a smaller suitable house and cashing in on the value under her feet to keep her comfortable in her latter years is the ideal solution. It also releases a house for a family to use.

The likes of you is wanting us to ensure she stays in the over-large house and wipe out her debts when they come along. Amazing.

Under the Single Tax her LVT payments can be deferred until the sale of the house, a House suitable for her needs, or death. The state takes the house to pay the debts and gives the remaining money to the relatives. No problem. Perfect solution.

Someone who's worked their whole life to buy a home is NOT a freeloader. The freeloader is the state who confiscates property after having done ZERO work to purchase it and has done ZERO work to maintain it. Who are you to determine when someone has a home that is "far too large for her requirements?" If she chooses to do something like that, that's different. But having a government who forces that "choice" on you directly or indirectly is bullshit.

The Paul's just bought a large home because they have lots of children and grandchildren. Should your ideal government force them to a smaller house and seize their assets because they arbitrarily decided that taxes on the big house are now $500,000/year? Ridiculous situation, eh? Not really when you look at what gov'ts do to force people out of their homes when they want to.

And here's the thing about Income/Sales tax--yes, both forms of slavery (as the property tax is), but both are forms of taxation that are, at the very least, more easily avoided without becoming homeless.

You, sir, are the one who is quite confused--and you are the one who's advocating for some sort of weird socialism. The old lady's lost her "usefulness" to society, so we need to "free up" her home so more "productive" people can use it, and you advocate government force to do so. She's not taking anything from you, she's just not contributing via that method to your socialist paradise.

And you call that a "perfect solution."

 

[teacherone]

As much as I hate Roy's arguments, I love his snark. Good snark like his is pretty rare.