North Dakota to vote on ending property tax

[furface]

“When,” Ms. Beehler asked, “did we come to believe that government should get rich and we should get poor?”

I think that about says it all.

However, I think getting rid of the property tax entirely is too drastic. I don't think there should be individual owner-occupied property taxes for houses and small businesses. Larger entities & rentals should pay, though.

If you want certain services like fire protection, police enforcement, and schools you should pay for them at a market driven rate.

 

[ctiger2]

Very disappointed to read the morons in ND couldn't figure it out. If you're paying yearly taxes/fees on something you "own" you don't "own" anything.

 

[furface]

Very disappointed to read the morons in ND couldn't figure it out. If you're paying yearly taxes/fees on something you "own" you don't "own" anything.

I tend agree with you. However, it's not quite that simple. There are costs associated with protecting property from trespass and theft. It's legitimate to ask people to pay these costs. In that vein there should be taxes on all personal possessions including assets like stocks & currency. Before categorically disagreeing with this point of view, consider why government should protect you against theft for any piece of property and what are the costs of that protection. I think modern property taxes go far beyond the pure cost of protection, though.

Enforcing a greater social purpose using property taxes is completely off the wall. Things like government schools, police, fire, and welfare systems are better dealt with either privately or with consensual collectives.

 

[redbluepill]

If I own the land and not the government then nothing "rightfully belongs to the community". It is mine.

From the perspective of a Georgist and most classical liberals you do not own it, you're merely renting it. The LVT is payment for the government-enforced privilege of having exclusive access to a piece of land.

If the property belongs to the community and they get credit for "adding value" to my land- then perhaps they should be the ones paying any taxes on that "added value".

That makes no sense. Why should productive people pay more in taxes?

If I improve my land and you wish to tax me on improvements I make, can you justify taxing me over and over and over forever into the future for any improvements I make this year? Say I add a house worth $100,000. Or should any improvements simply be taxed when the improvement is made and not again every following year? If I made no improvements to my land this year, I should owe zero in improvement taxes (doing nothing did not add any value to the land- it is still as it was last year). If you want to encourge good use of the land and to have people improve it this is not the way to do it. It discourages improvements.

For the hundredth time, LVT does not make you pay more for improvements you make on the land. Under the LVT, the owner of a plot of land with a skyscraper would pay the same as the owner of the plot with a parking lot next door.

This is sounding more like a co-op where everybody shares everything.

If you did the research you would know thats false. Everything you create belongs to you and should be untaxed.

 

[redbluepill]

I would much rather tax optional activity and reenact homesteading than tax mandatory activity and allow for the unlawful gluttony of land ownership.

You don't need to own land to be free.

 

[redbluepill]

Homesteading is a important part of libertarian philosophy that promotes that only the improvement of land warrants land ownership. If you deface property you obviously do not own it. All the founders including Jefferson and Franklin agree with this.

Actually many of the Founding Fathers including Jefferson and Franklin liked the idea of a land tax.

"Thomas Jefferson also saw that land monopoly made
ordinary Europeans poor, while cheap land made Americans
rich. He also proposed taxes on real estate to prevent land
grabbers from driving land prices up."
http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/whyfounders.pdf


They even had a land tax under the Articles of Confederation. But the landlords were too powerful to keep it alive under the Constitution.

Ben Franklin complained, “Our legislators are all
landholders, and they are not yet persuaded that all taxes are
finally paid by the land… Therefore, we have been forced into
the mode of indirect taxes.”
http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/whyfounders.pdf

 

[redbluepill]

Only a Communist would be in favor on denying a persons ability to own private property outright.

Communists believe in collective property. We're talking about common property, no different than the air you breathe and the water you drink. Let's make sure we're on the same page here.

Those posting in favor off property taxes are the biggest threat to true freedom in my life time.

Those who believe in government-enforced privilege are the biggest threats to true freedom.

It is bad enough now seeing people whom paid their entire lives for their homes only to lose it with one missed tax payment. Senior citizens especially who their entire lives paid for and own their property are being put out in the street due to the scumbags that support property taxes.

"Most home owners pay less
Dozens of studies in dozens of cities have shown that most home owners pay less under land value tax than under property tax, and much less than under income taxes. The only exceptions we have seen are where only a small minority of residents can afford home ownership or where businesses have been so overtaxed that demand for business properties has been discouraged."
http://www.savingcommunities.org/issues/taxes/landvalue/

 

[redbluepill]

One can own land like one can own everything else.

Like slaves.

 

[redbluepill]

But I have one question to any LVT-supporter: Why is it that only US citizens collectively own all the land of the US?

No one is talking about supporting collectivization here.

If nature created all land and it's value

Who said anything about nature creating value?

and homesteading is not a viable way to gain property why do people living in California have a right to benefit from wealth creation on New York's soil but people living in Ottawa, New Mexico and Paris don't? It's nice to see that LVT-people are nationalists who don't care for individualism. Or do you favour a world government that collects LVT on the whole planet and distributes the revenue?

First of all, I believe in decentralized government. I have even flirted with anarchist/geoanarchist ideals. Having local governments collects LVT makes sense. I live in Chicago. All those millions of acres Ted Turner owns in the western US does not affect me nearly as much as it affects people in, say, New Mexico.

 

[speciallyblend]

Very disappointed to read the morons in ND couldn't figure it out. If you're paying yearly taxes/fees on something you "own" you don't "own" anything.

it really is that simple, no one owns anything in this country, unless you produce your own energy, even a tv will not run. You never own land or a house or a car. you have to pay a tax or fee to use it legally. Or they eventually arrest you or take it. bottom line we are tax slaves and own nothing. We are slaves. We just have no pyramids to show for it. Most americans will eventually lose their property or houses or cars due to fees or taxes before they die. gov knows exactly how to make everyone slaves.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Very disappointed to read the morons in ND couldn't figure it out. If you're paying yearly taxes/fees on something you "own" you don't "own" anything.

You own your wages. You worked hard for them. You are taxed on them. How stupid.

 

[Steven Douglas]

You own your wages. You worked hard for them. You are taxed on them. How stupid.

Which is just another way of saying that you don't own your own wages. You don't own your own wealth -- the fruits of your labors, in the case of wages.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Which is just another way of saying that you don't own your own wages.

1. You do own all of your own wages Until the state steals a part of your private income - your wages.
2. The state has no moral right to appropriate private wealth when social wealth is there to be used for state expenditures - social wealth which is ignored.
3. Social wealth which is privatized.
4. Private individuals and organizations have no moral right to appropriate social wealth.

The state is totally wrong doing what it does.

 

[Roy L]

The premise of the video is wrong because it assumes that if only people had a chance, they would not be poor. That somehow, if we could only get them out from under this evil monopolist, they would cease to be poor. That is just plain false.

It is fact, and the video is correct.

While some people might be less likely to be poor, others would be MORE likely to be poor.

Evidence for this claim? Of course not.

So far none of these posts have convinced me that tax on land is "just".

Then you either haven't read, don't understand, or refuse to understand them.

To the extent that government spending on services and infrastructure is not just wasted or stolen by corruption, it is taken by landowners. It is self-evident and indisputable that recovering what they take to pay for what they take is just.

Suppose I want to live a self-sufficient lifestyle out in the boondocks somewhere, not interested in participating in society. Why should I have to pay any tax at all?

You probably wouldn't; but if you are depriving someone else of opportunity, why wouldn't you expect to compensate them for what you are taking?

Next!

I want nothing to do with anyone and wouldn't care if there was water service, garbage service, roads or any of the rest of the "benefits" of society. Why should I be penalized for merely existing and owning something?

You aren't. But you are forcibly depriving others of opportunity they would otherwise be at liberty to use, and you owe them for what you are taking from them.

Why should other people be able to steal from me in order to pay for "benefits" that THEY want?

You are the one who is stealing from them, when you deprive them of access to benefits their taxes paid for.

What is "just" about that?

Certainly not your description of LVT.

Shouldn't payment of a tax be based upon receiving a desired service?

No. You pay for a loaf of bread when you take it out of the store, not when you eat it. If you let it go moldy, it does not mean you don't have to pay for it. Therefore, the fact that you are depriving others of desired services suffices to establish that you owe compensation for them, whether you desire them or not.

If I want to drive on roads, I should pay a tax to pay for their construction/maintenance, etc.

Why, when you are already paying landowners full market value for access to them? Why should you pay for them twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for doing nothing?

Indirect benefits can be paid for through costs that include what someone had to pay to receive a benefit.

Like land rent....?

e.g. if I want to buy a product that gets brought to me via truck, included in the cost of that product is tax that the trucker had to pay for the road.

Doubled, because he also had to pay landowners full market value for access to the road.

 

[Roy L]

“When,” Ms. Beehler asked, “did we come to believe that government should get rich and we should get poor?”

I think that about says it all.

Well, it does prove that Ms Beehler is a stupid, greedy, evil, lying sack of $#!+.

Which government is getting rich?

Blank out.

Which landowner is getting poor?

Blank out.

Evil, lying filth.

If you want certain services like fire protection, police enforcement, and schools you should pay for them at a market driven rate.

You have to pay landowners full market value for them anyway.

 

[MozoVote]

If I lived in North Dakota, I could imagine voting no on the referendum. The state government would find some other way to fund itself, and my fear would be a boost in the income tax to compensate.

Income taxes are almost always progressive. At least property taxes are ad-valorem and you can decide how much property you want to own and how much tax you will tolerate.

 

[Roy L]

Very disappointed to read the morons in ND couldn't figure it out. If you're paying yearly taxes/fees on something you "own" you don't "own" anything.

Such claims are just stupid, fatuous garbage. Does your condo maintenance fee mean you don't own your condo?

Stop spewing such stupid, fatuous garbage.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

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

 

[EcoWarrier]

I would like to be able to know that my home, no matter what happens to my income or my life, is not going to be taken away from me because I can’t pay a tax,” said Susan Beehler, one in a group of North Dakotans who have pressed for an amendment to the state’s Constitution to end the property tax.

If you do not pay your mortgage you lose your home. If you do not pay a host of other taxes you lose your home. Why is this property tax so different to other due monies not paid?

 

[MozoVote]

If you do not pay your mortgage you lose your home. If you do not pay a host of other taxes you lose your home. Why is this property tax so different to other due monies not paid?

If you own real property, failure to pay ANYONE could cause a judgement to be attached to your name. The judgement owner can then demand payment or have the court order your property sold to pay the debt if you won't comply. Real property is the *easiest* thing to discover and has very clear case law in how creditors can seize it.