People that complain about taxes. I’ll agree you don’t pay taxes. But you don’t use any roads to travel. Ever again.
Or fire services.
I work with one of those people. He’s a dipshit. He thinks time is controlled by satellites and clouds are made by cloud machines. Also, the earth is flat and no one has left it because of the dome.
Mine him for Sci-fi stories.
Oh. There’s also this guy called the World Judge who controls all of the funding for all police stations in the world. He has ultimate authority and seems to be like Judge Dred where he is tge judge, jury, and executioner.
I think you’ve found the world another Karl Pilkington.
If I were Netflix I’d record everything that falls out of this guy’s mouth.
That’s the only issue with the opt-in taxes idea. But seriously, why should the rest of us be punished because they don’t want taxes? Just have the destructive people who say taxation is theft, well…live with no government services, 100% dependent on corporations. Taxes should be opt-in. And that means, those who opt out will have no medical service, no public sewage system, no disability or welfare. We can let them have the roads as gratis, just to keep the peace. They will quickly realize how stupid and evil their system really is, when they are the only ones suffering from it.
This sounds nice but in practice will backfire. You need the systems to be universal, so that everyone, including the richest, have a stake in wanting to see them improved. Otherwise you’ll get a two tiered system where the public versions are trash because they’re underfunded and the private versions (what the rich use) are great but also expensive af.
You want things to work like insurance, where everyone pays in but only the people who need them use it. I want Musk to pay a fuckton into Social Security, not nothing at all because he doesn’t use it. Even now there’s a problem with Social Security in particular because, even though everyone has to pay it, it puts a cap/limit on how much you pay, so Musk currently ends up paying his share in the first day of the year, and his contribution amounts to the same as a teacher or something.
Universal programs with progressive taxation, that’s the way. Low taxes at the bottom, high taxes at the top.
It would only work if all the privateers get sent to one specific state like Texas and the two systems are kept completely separate.
Let everyone move to Texas and pay no taxes, but every hospital visit or doctors visit is paid out of pocket or by insurance companies, no one has social security or welfare, every road is a toll road, you pay a private fire fighter company a monthly fee to be on their protective detail, police are private security firms you also need to pay a fee for protection or to investigate any thefts from your property, there’s no mayor or other elected representative for their town because where does the money come from to pay them, the army is also a private security company, the list goes on
Scariest possibility is they use their private army to just conquer us…
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So property tax I am ok with, in theory. The people with property in a city should pay for services like fire, schools, police, road maintenance… What gets me is when the city wants more and more for stupid shit like iPads for all students… Every 3 years due to forced upgrades or just old style deprecation over 3 years.
The amount my taxes go up each year is more than any raise I get. Then add on insurance which has gone insane. I paid off my house to avoid a 20k female flood insurance bill because a 1 foot piece of concrete touched a high risk flood zone. A technicality because if I took down a screen patio, then I wouldn’t have to pay.
It’s insane how expensive owning a house has become
I paid off my house to avoid a 20k female flood insurance bill
Female flood sounds interesting
Did they mean FEMA, and autocorrect “completed” it?
Somehow autocorrect made it funnier too
Dont forget increased pay for public servants who more and more act like they dont work for the public
It doesn’t make sense that cities need to increase property taxes every year though
Property tax revenue should be increasing every year by default without changing the rate simply because houses and properties increase in value every year typically
If property tax is 5% and the town makes $100,000,000, the next year if property value increases by 5% then their revenue goes up 5% as well to $105,000,000 automatically. Why do they need to also increase the tax to 6%?
Every 3 years due to forced upgrades or just old style deprecation over 3 years.
iPads don’t deprecate in 3 years, nor require forced upgrades. They get nowhere near as much support as a regular Linux laptop (which is what schools SHOULD be using) and even less than Windows laptops pre-11, but if they’re being replaced every 3 years, that’s just policy, not an actual need. Currently the oldest supported iPad is going to hit 8 years since release in a month. The newest unsupported one is going to hit 9 in a month. So yes there’s forced upgrades, but that’s in like 8 years.
I work as a software engineer and most companies have had a minimum 3 year lifetime policy for company laptops. Reasoning being, after 3 years there’s a higher chance of failure, and there have been enough advancements in hardware that upgrading might save SOME dev time. If it fails before 3 years, you get a new one. If you want to keep it longer, you can keep it. But if you want a new one, it should be 3 years old first. I don’t get why school iPads need to be replaced this often, but I reckon there might be a lot more wear and tear and THAT could be the reason for a 3 year replacement policy. It’s simpler than just replacing individual units every now and then.
I have taught math for 4 years in my local school. The iPads were used by the 3rd and 4th grade students. And they never left the classrooms and were well supervised during use.
Starting in 5th grade, they were issued Chromebooks. Google Classroom was used for assignments and other communications. And since Mommy and Daddy had to pay for them IF they were damaged, they held up quite well. The IBM Education model is very robust. Not fast, but robust.
This isn’t a discussion on property tax, it’s more about social security. There is no reason we cannot scale taxes/fines to income. Many countries pull this off…
bUt tHeN nO oNe wOuLd bE iNcEnTiViSeD tO wOrK oR bEcOmE wEaLtHy
We would need to make sure all loopholes are closed for wealthy people just using investments to harvest losses… Trump only needed to pay $750 in taxes on his “taxable” income one year.
My dad literally went to the city and argued against them raising the book value of his home, which would cause him to have to pay more in property tax.
He won too.
That loon.
You certainly can argue about your property taxes and win concessions if you have a good reason. It’s not hard to do. You just need to get off your ass and attend the annual tax assessment meeting.
It’s why that annual meeting exists.
I had no idea that was a thing… Mainly because it’s never been relevant to me… At least, until recently.
Thanks for the info.
Did he go to city council chambers, or did he just vaguely go into the city itself and start arguing with people?
I was not provided details as to what he did to argue it, or who he spoke to.
… That being said, I don’t think it was the latter example you gave
While I do think there should be some relief for some people as far as property taxes are concerned… living in a town or city gives a person access to many local government subsided services. Firefighters, and ambulances are some simple ones that everyone uses. Roads as well. And the cost of that does increase over time. Basing a person’s contributions to paying for that based on the value of thier property is just easier for local governments, and more stable. But it doesn’t really corelate with the use of those services. Nor with income or ability to pay.
Life necessities really shouldn’t be taxed at most levels. Food, shelter, water, heat, medical care. Most already aren’t. But housing still is. Investment properties should be taxed of course, but an average primary residence really shouldn’t be.Looking at my electrical bill is depressing. It’s always power used x and then taxes that are the same as x plus fees. So using $100 in electricity means I pay $220 with over half being taxes and extra fees
Yeah, and property taxes result in more low density housing, as that increases the amount of tax revenue per person. High density housing means less revenue per person but the costs of services per person is still about the same. Sure theoretically, public transit is cheaper per person with high density housing, but realistically it isn’t because nobody gives a shit about public transit in the suburbs.
Of course there’s more costs overall because more suburbs mean governments are pressured to spend insane amounts of money on building and expanding highways. But it’s usually a different level of government that builds the highways, so doesn’t factor in the decisions to create more low density housing.
I’ve read otherwise on the costs of services per person and density. A fire station can only reasonably cover a certain amount of space. So low density housing means you need more fire stations for the same amount of people. And of course you need more road per person in general.
Property tax is the big thing that forces people to engage with capitalism against their will.
Without property tax, you could live off-grid for eternity. But with property tax, you always have to earn money, and the people that control that money therefore control you.
Outside of fantasy no that is just nonsense
You’d have to earn the money to purchase your off-grid setup in the first place.
They dangle the carrot of “home ownership” as if anyone ever owns a home that can be taken away for not paying taxes.
TBH, property taxes could be a necessary evil, like only imposing them above a certain number of owned homes, to curb some companies buying up homes en masse to control the rent market, but I have a weird feeling they might not be the ones paying these taxes.
Lots of countries have property taxes that are more reasonable because they focus on city services like trash pickup and stuff. The problem is property taxes are tied to education in the US and in many states the higher the property taxes the better the schools, the more exclusive the neighborhood, etc.
Agreed with # of homes owned as well as square footage/meters. A mansion should be hit hard by taxes.
I don’t think taxes negate ownership.
If you rent you need permission for every modification, every pet, even for something like planting a garden.
Ownership can be conditional; you can own a domain, but if you don’t pay the renewal fee it can be taken away; you can own a car, but if you drive it without paying your registration it can be impounded; you can own a business, but if you don’t pay your license renewal it can be revoked.
Owning something doesn’t mean it can never be taken away or that you don’t need to do anything to keep it.
Property taxes also aren’t egregious if you don’t live in an expensive house in an expensive area.
The problem is that most of ya’ll have been conditioned to think “that’s not good enough for you” even when you can’t afford more. Then entitlement kicks in where you think you deserve more before others who have less and before you know it, Bernie loses the nomination and we’re stuck with a trump presidency.
your interpretation of the concept of ownership practically renders the word meaningless.
to most people it does in fact mean that it can’t normally be taken away, even though such a thing might be physically or legally possible.
You could take the interpretation of “ownership” to many ridiculous conclusions, from “all ownership is theft” to “nothing is owned” to “all governent is crime” to “all taxation is theft” etc…
From a practical standpoint, “ownership” is an arbitrary threshold of exclusivity that is generally respected by society under appropriate conditions. Where that threshold and what the conditions are will vary by the type of property and general social sensibilities.
It’s not meaningless, it’s about who controls a thing. What makes you think ownership must not have conditions?
If you own something, and someone takes it from you, its called theft. If its not theft when they take it from you, then you didn’t own it.
That would mean all taxes are theft.
You’re welcome to have that perspective, but it doesn’t map well onto any modern legal framework for ownership.
Exchange for goods and services no! Give goods and services yes!
Comparing property taxes now in 2025 dollars to unadjusted original cost in 1950 dollars is nonsensical. The two numbers bear no relation nor should they.
The average social security check is $1,978 a month or $23,736 per annum. Half of that is $11,868. Lets suppose he lives in CA where the annual rate for owner occupied is 0.74%. His house would be worth approx 1.6 million dollars. To to be clear he is whining about paying the appropriate and legal tax on his fully owned 1.6M cash hoard. This is a great problem to have.
If its that burdensome he can cash out and even with rent payments for the rest of his life live great even if he has no other savings of any sort.
Looks like about $5800 a month gradually increasing with inflation for at least 25 years.
If he has another $400,000 which seems super likely since I don’t think he’s actually living in his 1.6M house on $12,000 a year it could be more than 7500 a month.
If we add a little realism and only include another 15 years he could probably actually withdraw about 11,000 a month.
https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/social-security/average-monthly-social-security-check https://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/property-tax-by-state
I think it’s the moral issue of having to cash out your own property to afford to live in something you built and already own
Property tax funds important things like schools, emergenct services, etc.
if he was destitute otherwise would already have sold it. You are arguing in favor of a tax break for some rich prick probably worth north of 3 million not paying the taxes that pay for your kid to get a decent education because basically feels.
Its no more immoral than you giving up your income.
I argue that we should replace property taxes with income taxes because property taxes lead to disparities in outcomes between different jurisdictions. Then an old man can be secure in his own property without depriving the public of funds.
And I disagree with your premise that property taxes pay for a decent education. We don’t have decent education in the United States and I truly believe that no amount of money will fix that
The wealthy often have near zero or net negative income. It’s one reason why income taxes are optional for them but property taxes ultimately aren’t.
Property taxes on your first house should not be steep. On your other houses on the other hand…
There is no way you can convince me that gentrification is actually good for kids. Property tax funding education does nothing but punish poor families.
Property taxes funding education, in a state like Texas where school districts are seized by the state and systematically dismantled by private equity interests operating in state-appointed positions, is a fucking joke.
This isn’t strictly an issue of taxation. Its an issue of (un)representative governance forcing people into a privatized model by leveraging the pain caused through dysfunctional public services. “Oh oh! Crimes up! We need even more cops! Oh oh! Schools are failing! So we need more… checks notes football stadiums and administrative offices.”
It’s deliberate mismanagement intended to destroy confidence in public institutions.
For those who want more info on this, here’s the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
1.6M cash hoard
Cash is liquid, the theoretical home in question is not.
It trivially is in any hot market
Seconded. This is inaccessible net worth. It is useless to someone who cannot take advantage of it. Sale would incur capital gains, which would be significant, and finding another property to live in would be just as unaffordable.
No. Capital gains taxes are not taken from your residence.
…does anyone in this thread actually own a residence or at least conduct a basic level of research before forming strong opinions?
Capital gains absolutely apply to primary home sales. You’re just allowed to exclude the first $250k of gains, or $500k if married filing joint.
Lets suppose he lives in CA where the annual rate for owner occupied is 0.74%. His house would be worth approx 1.6 million dollars.
That’s largely due to the property inflation from the tech sector and not consistent across the state. You could be in San Fransisco and see your land 10x in value as the city explodes around you or you could be at the ass end of Oakland or the rural east end and still live in a slum.
This guy could also be from Texas - in the exurbs of Austin, Dallas, Houston, or El Paso - and be looking at closer to 1.5-2% annual rates. Very possible he acquired some dirt cheap land in Beaumont or Bexar County only to see his $5k plot balloon to $100-200k over the course of 20 years.
Either way for California he wouldn’t be affected because Californiamnproperty taxes are effectively snapshotted at time of purchase and grandfathered for people like him. If he truly bought or built 50 years ago and ows it outright then prop 13 has long capped what he pays decades ago.
People like him, in California, are subsidized by the modern generation who don’t get capped by prop 13. And when he sells that house it’s value gets assessed at current market value and full taxes are due from the buyer.
Put shortly, his story is likely bullshit if he’s from California. And people without houses and salty about it need to do some research.
If this was so it wouldn’t be half his ss in property taxes. Average ss is 1900 a month
And this is why in most civilized countries, progressive income taxes make up the majority of the government budget. Basing taxes on non income/investment related metrics screws over the poor + lower middle class. It’s a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
This doesn’t fit the narrative, but a lot of American states have lower effective property tax rates than European nations. There exceptions on both ends of this of course (like TX which is making up for a lack of income taxes).
People should look them up and compare European nations to major us cities and states. Europe ends up with not only higher income taxes, but also higher property taxes overall. And a completely insane financing method like having adjustable rate mortgages being normal, locked only for a period of 3 to 5 years before basically being forced to refinance. Little wonder that property ownership rates are generally so far below american ownership rates.
No system is perfect and people with means tend to find every flaw in them (and plant those flaws if they are wealthy enough). But people really need to remember that the grass is always greener because of all the manure.
And that man clearly does not live in such a state, nor did I (or anyone else I think) claim that his circumstances apply to the entire usa. You’re wrong in assuming that other people are not aware that different places have varying laws and tax systems.
Your whataboutism defence of regressive tax systems is also very strange to me. That other places have unfair practices in place, is no excuse to put up with an unfair system in any one place. Call them all out on their brokeness, but if you do call them out, you’ll have to be more specific in your example(s), state things that are actually verifiable instead of some vague whataboutism.
Ps, while I did not think your whataboutism defence was relevant, this “Little wonder that property ownership rates are generally so far below american ownership rates.” was easy to verify and it turned out to be false. Home ownership rates are on average slightly higher in Europe than in the usa, here’s statistics: https://www.statista.com/statistics/246355/home-ownership-rate-in-europe/ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
you could have progressive taxes on wealth as well. there’s a difference between having one house worth 500k and having 500 million in shares
True, you just need to make sure you start high enough up, or exempt the value of a primary residence (maybe limit the exemption to a non-opulent value of a house so the richest don’t start building castles to bind their money tax free)
UK has property taxes too and its pretty shit tbh. Council tax, there are bands based on what your house was worth in the 90s (yes really…) and generally the poor will pay a higher % of their income. I have a pretty small bungalow, 60m². One of the lowest bands and pay £1600 a year on a house that cost £230k. The most you can have to pay is £4200, beyond that point regardless of how much more expensive your house is the tax rate doesn’t increase.
The original plan of the tax was a fixed rate per person. This among other things is why many people were keen on the idea of digging a hole so deep that we could hand Thatcher over to Satan personally.
That has to be the most regressive tax I’ve heard of in western Europe. Absolutely excessive and I’m sorry it’s happening to you.
Belgium has a home value tax as well, based on fictional rental income + a very convoluted calculation + different % surcharges per council. I find back that it’s on average about 700 to 800 euros per Flemish adult person, but it has large variations. It causes a lot of grumbling, but for most people it’s not considered excessive.
I would be more okay with property tax, IF once you reached a certain age (or disabled), you were not required to pay property tax.
Yes, we can cover the resulting tax shortfall by increasing the tax on single mothers, first-generation low-income homebuyers, and renters.
Look at the result of California’s tax policy (which was designed with aims similar to yours): an entire generation of young people will never be able to afford a home in the place they grew up in, while millionaire retirees get a huge tax break while making thousands renting out spare rooms in their massive houses on AirBnB.
These kinds of special tax carve outs sound nice in theory, because it seems like you are just “not taking money from old and disabled people”, but that tax burden falls on everyone else, as does the massive distortion of the market. You are in fact taking more money from other people, who may be hurting even more.
And don’t tell me, “We’ll fund it by a tax on the rich”. If that’s your proposal, get that tax on the rich passed, and dole out the proceeds to elderly at risk of homelessness. Have it officially be budgeted, so that we can decide if keeping an elderly person in their $2.1m 5 bedroom home is worth cuts elsewhere. As of now, such policies are mostly robbing middle class young people blind.
Solution build excess housing at a loss, intentionally until real estate prices go down.
I like that idea, but it’d have to come with some mechanism to prevent parasites from buying a bunch of them up and renting them out.
fuck if I know what such a mechanism would look like though…
Severely impede sale of all houses purchased by people who cannot strongly demonstrate they intend to live in them.
Government Owned Social Housing Program
Tax homes based on how many you own, and how many are vacant. Allow two homes at a regular rate; Enough for a summer and winter home. Then ratchet tax rates up as the person buys more.
And if the third, fourth, fifth, etc home sits vacant for more than a few months out of the year? The tax rate goes up even more, so giant corporations can’t just buy entire neighborhoods and sit on them to remove them from the market and increase property values for the other homes they own across town. Because that’s what’s happening now; Giant corps are buying homes and letting them sit vacant, just to remove them from the market so they can charge higher rates elsewhere. Allow a few months of grace for renovations and finding tenants… But after a ~3 month grace period, that tax rate skyrockets.
And then take the revenue from these increased taxes, and use them to fund First Time Homebuyer programs, so home ownership becomes more available to the people who are renting. Incentivize the corporations to actually flip the houses and resell or rent them, instead of just sitting on them.
I propose exempting high-density apartment and condo buildings from the taxes. Developers may be building those residences for their own cynical profit motives, but it does happen to greatly benefit society.
Nobody needs a summer and winter home tax the living shit out of rich fuckers with 2
Alternate take: If we actually implemented my above plan, you wouldn’t need to be stupidly rich to own two homes. Home prices would be reasonable, because there wouldn’t be giant corporations hoarding all of the real estate.
We have over two vacant houses for every single homeless person in the country. We could give every single homeless person a house, and still have plenty to act as summer cabins. And that’s before you even factor in the fact that the market would be flooded with houses (at least in the short term) from corporations trying to avoid the increased taxes.
Rent control tied to bottom quintile income. Everyone should be able to afford a home. If construction companies can’t afford to build homes at that cost, look at their material and labor costs; in China they invest in education and have state-run steel and concrete companies to keep the private ones competitive. It costs them avg ~50K to make a 900 sqft 2bd house or apartment in the major cities. Much less elsewhere.
I’m gonna have to agree with you here.
There’s a better special tax carve out: Don’t require tax for the primary residence. The owner MUST be registered as living at that address. Not a family member. The owner.
Okay if you have family you can have a few more homes, but realistically, if you own 10 or 20 homes, how many people can you REALLY trust to have full ownership of them instead of you? You’re going to have to start paying tax at some point.
at the primary residence up to .25 acres. Anything more than that should be taxed as normal. Credits should be non transferrable, as in if you’re renting your landlord shouldn’t be able to claim you for tax exempt status.
Farms & ranches would have to be exempt. There are some cases where it’s legit important to have a large land area.
If you’re retired or disabled, you’re not working a farm.
If you are working a farm, then you should be paying taxes anyway.
Yeah but not the same level of taxes as some rich dude with a country estate. Farms serve an important function.
Land is land. We don’t get any more. Some land is inherently more valuable than other. We should be disincentivizing ownership of land unless it’s being cultivated or contributing in some way.
By saying that farms don’t pay property tax, we’re creating an avenue for billionaires to create “farms” and skirt taxes.
Instead what we should be doing is guaranteeing that crops will sell. Pay the property tax, use the land, and if your harvest fails at market, then the government covers the gap. But not before. I’m even cool with the government buying the seed and feed. That’s all renewable and contributes to a bountiful harvest. Having taxes to pay on the value of the land encourages it’s use, and pushes the wealthy billionaires away from wanting to own it just cuz. They’ll naturally look for the least valuable land if they just want a big ass estate. Who cares if they build a mansion on a pile of worthless rock?
Instead what we should be doing is guaranteeing that crops will sell. Pay the property tax, use the land, and if your harvest fails at market, then the government covers the gap.
That’s literally how it already works.
.25 acres? Can we up that to at least an acre. I need a place for my chickens to roam and to plant my gardens, and I prefer to have a fire pit with outdoor patio furniture and a grill. Many places an acre is the standard plot size. Not good for everyone, but preferred by many
Yes, at least an acre. .25 is nothing.
If that was satire, it was incredibly well done. If it’s red sincere, it’s a great example of why property taxes should still apply at a certain point, and that point should be very narrow.
I don’t understand inflation, so as an old landowner I think I shouldn’t have to pay taxes.
Property taxes do hit retired people differently though. Taxing based on what the government says your land is worth instead of your income is absolutely meant to create opportunities for real estate agents and developers at the expense of the people living there.
Taxes based on assets tax those with assets, instead of income taxes which tax those who work.
If old man owns such a valuable piece of land, he deserves to pay his fair share for the public services he used.
It’s like saying you don’t want to pay for schools because you’re not a student.
The fact that schools are funded by the surrounding area is crap and needs to change. He’s retired with a social security income. He paid into the system his entire life already. Telling him he must sell and move out because he’s not wealthy enough is exactly what we should be working against. It’s a system by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
Of course you are looking at outliers and I feel like you’re right to the point that outliers like that should have special assessments or breaks.
Where I live, the taxes are pretty high for real estate, but if you are a senior citizen, you can get a discount where your tax rate is locked in at the value that it was when you retired.
I also have some acquaintances who inherited a house and at the time houses were very cheap but they didn’t pay the taxes and they were super upset that they were going to lose their house because they didn’t pay the taxes.
So now they’re bunking up and living in apartments and Scattered because they didn’t want to drum up the two or three thousand dollars a year in real estate taxes that they had to pay to keep an entire house.
Yeah and those laws are great for keeping people who want to age in place in their homes. Unfortunately they aren’t the norm. Usually it’s just a discount but it still goes up.
The fact that schools are funded by the surrounding area is crap and needs to change. It’s a system by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
Unless there is an article or background on the guy in the picture you’re projecting a HUGE amount of stuff you just made up on that guy.
He’s retired with a social security income.
That’s what his sign says. I take him at his word on that one.
He paid into the system his entire life already.
Well, no he didn’t. He didn’t start paying into it until he started earning money. Likely for the first 18 years of his life, he lived of what other people put into the system. Many of those people that paid for him are in the situation he’s in right now, except now he sees it as unfair.
Telling him he must sell and move out
No one is telling him to move out. He certainly isn’t saying he will be forced to move if he has to continue to pay property taxes. You just made that up.
because he’s not wealthy enough is exactly what we should be working against.
He’s not saying he is not wealthy enough. You just made that up. In fact, his sign is indicating he does have he wealth to cover the property taxes via his Social Security. He’s saying he doesn’t’ believe he should have to pay anything one something he bought decades ago while he continues to enjoy the services of the city and society the tax dollars pay for.
No, that’s how American K-12 schools are funded. That and infrastructure. Which is why poor areas have worse schools and roads; and police from outside their tax area. Which is both a great way to punish the poor in the old school protestant fashion and force them out the second the wealthy want their land.
And you know exactly what I mean by paying in his entire life.
Finally, paying half your income on property taxes is not financially sustainable. It’s ridiculous to me that you would even pretend it is.
No, that’s how American K-12 schools are funded.
Partially true, but not absolutely. K-12 in many places in the USA are funded through property taxes. I’m in the USA and my public school system is funded via income tax. No property taxes go to school.
That and infrastructure.
True in some places. False in others. Some places derive income from high property taxes. Other places choose high sales taxes. Yet others do it on income tax.
Which is why poor areas have worse schools and roads; and police from outside their tax area. Which is both a great way to punish the poor in the old school protestant fashion and force them out the second the wealthy want their land.
Again, partially true. Some states have state taxes that fund various projects at the municipal level irrespective of the wealth of the locality.
I don’t disagree that a more equitble system for funding schools should be designed and implemented, but you know know that because I’m trying to have that discussion with you in another thread and you’re weak as water on that and won’t discuss any specifics except “someone else should pay”.
And you know exactly what I mean by paying in his entire life.
I know your words on that don’t match reality, and you’re skipping a really important part of that reality. I’ll admit I was wrong one part of that. I said he likely started “paying into the system at age 18”. We know thats wrong. His sign tells us he built his house at age 25. Age 25 is when he would be first paying the property taxes he’s complaining about. So he’s spent even less time paying into the system and already wants to be except from it for the society benefits he still gets.
Finally, paying half your income on property taxes is not financially sustainable. It’s ridiculous to me that you would even pretend it is.
Again, you’re making stuff up from nothing. What are his expenses? He owns his house. He’s retired so his healthcare is covered by Medicare. If he’s living on just social security he’s likely not even paying income tax because his income is low. What are his other expenses? Food? Clothing? Electricity? Water? He might have a well and not even have that bill. Are you saying half his income can’t cover those things? Further, we have no idea what he earned in life. Did he spend it on stupid stuff? We don’t know. I’m certainly not claiming any of my assumptions of him as fact, but that isn’t stopping you from doing so.
So you’re just doubling down on what if this and that.
Gotta be one of the most dogshit takes I’ve ever seen, hope you’re evicted one day!
Its always guys that look like they extract peyote in their kitchen.
What’s wrong with that?
Edit: despite that peyote shouldn’t be just gathered on the wild, because they’re protected
To be fair this dude could have gotten his house 45 years ago for 50K. So adjusting for inflation and overall development of his area, it could make sense. Comparing current payments to cost of money 40 years ago is comparing apples to oranges.
Now all that being said…there is a serious issue with cost and availability of housing, and I am not dismissing that. I’m just saying context is needed for this ragebait post.
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Do you live in Michigan or is there somewhere else that was this idiotic too?
I think you may have it wrong on what is happening, this guy isn’t paying less tax than those around him from how i read it. Your area seems to be taxed based on the purchase price and not the assessed value of the property.
From how i read it his taxes have steadily gone up base on home prices and assessments. He pays taxes every year and they are relatively the same as those around him. The problem is that the value has gone up more than it should have due to the local gov wanting to be paid more. Most county commissioners (R/D doesn’t matter) are paid a percentage of what the property tax based on population. This means that if the price goes up then they get paid more. At times these also come from the state instead of a county. This means that they reps are paid based on the tax assessment.
If we make the math easy lets say he paid $30,000 for his house. (I know a city wont be this way but a small house in a rural area works for this also lets assume it was purchased some time ago). The current (as of today) monthly average of Social Security payments is $1976. ($23,712 yearly) This is about $70,000 every 3 years. $70,000/2 is $35,000. Again those payments are based on today and not the last few two years. Based on that math, SS 1976 x 12 (year) $23,712 divided by 2 (half my ss check) thats $11,856. He is essentially being taxed 30% of what he purchased his home for. I know this may not sound like much to some but its not about you in the city working the full time job for x an hour. This post is about a guy who built his home and purchased the lumber piece by piece and built it himself after purchasing the land.
No, the person you’re replying to likely lives in an area with annual assessment limits. This means when they move into their house, they pay taxes on the assessed amount at that time. Every year, even if the assessment shows a 50% increase in value, your tax increase will be capped at something like a 2% increase. Over the course of 30 years this adds up to huge tax savings the longer you stay in one place. The downsides are that it causes more traffic, causes homes to sell less often, and provides less local tax to fund public programs like schools.
Ohh snap I read the comments wrong. I totally missed the “the way the guy wishes they did” referring to taxes. Nice catch.
I was explaining how it must be for the guy in the pic. Not how the OP was talking about it. Thanks for the clarification on my fuck up.
This guy’s actual problem isn’t that his property taxes have gone way up. His problem is that his income, that is say social security, has not kept pace with the inflated cost of property taxes. And of course it hasn’t kept up with any of the other inflationary costs we are dealing with today as well. And this is something that has hit everyone else because the average wage has not kept up with inflation either.
His property taxes have gone up because his wealth has gone up. Sounds fair to me.
There are a lot of people suffering right now to the extent that his plight seems so frivolous.
I’ll bet hes a republican voting for deficit which results in raised taxes on people like himself and cuts for people far richer than him.
🤣 the fact that he’s lying about how much he pays in taxes to reduce taxes might be a clue.
That’s the thing about increasing home prices nobody talks about. It increases the “value” of your home, so you’re taked more.
When my parents retired, they didn’t move out to the country to get away from the city life. They did it because it saved them 40 grand a year in property taxes.
Depending on area 40k property tax means a 3-4M house. Poor rich people!
The house was about 180 when they bought it, then climbed in value over time to the point they had to move due to taxes. The combination of city, county, 2 separate MUDs, school, ESD, health district, and other taxes didn’t help either.
The school taxes alone were nearly 2% of the value of their home. When your home quaruples in valueshoppingthe area around you gets ritzy, that adds up.
Where the fuck did they live? What was the home value and tax rate? That’s insane.
It’s really not that crazy in some areas.
They had municipal taxes, county taxes, school district taxes (when massive school bonds pass every single year without fail that one can really add up), emergency service district taxes, Water District taxes, Healthcare District taxes.
That shit adds up when the value of your property doubles every 3 years like it has been doing in Texas.
No, $40k/yr in property taxes is insane unless your parents own several mansions, even for Texas where the highest property tax rates are around 2.5%. Even if you tack on millages and bonds and other things there’s no way it gets near that.
There’s a lot of bad takes and clear misinformation from disaffected people in this thread. Stuff like this should be obvious.
For the city. Then double the city rate for the school district, then add some more for the MUDs and the County and the Health district and the Emergency services district. Shit adds up fast, and when you buy a house new for 180 grand and a few years later it’s valued at 700 grand, you have to move because you can no longer afford to pay the taxes.
That’s the part that upsets me the most. If you save up the money to fix up your house, the gov charges you more for it. How aggregating. Makes me not want to “own” property.
