As we approach the day when we’re supposed to celebrate the ascension of the New Boss over the Old Boss (forget that business about no more bosses; ask Daniel Shays about that) I thought it a fine time to publicly discuss something I have been considering bringing up at a public meeting in my rural SW Virginia County, which like every other county in the country demands rent money – styled “property taxes” – from residents who are allowed the legal fiction that they own the homes they will be evicted from if they do not pay the rent. Even if they long-ago paid-off the mortgage.
This renders them dependent – on needing sufficient income (also taxed) to pay the rent. It is obnoxious enough to have to pay the rent on a home you paid for – and paid off – but far more so because it eliminates even the possibility that you will ever truly own your home and so will never have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you own your place and on account of that, cannot be evicted from it like a common deadbeat.
The question I toy with bringing up – because I think bringing it up might bring to light the cumulative outrageousness of the thing – is to ask: How much is enough? Of course, we already know the answer. It is that it is never enough. Because there are always more “needs” – according to the people who have the power to make you pay for them. It is beyond silly to expect a child given the keys to the candy store to limit himself to taking just one lollipop every now and then. It is even sillier to expect adult parasites to refrain from bleeding their host dry once they have the power to sink their fangs into him just a touch. It is like asking – expecting – Dracula to only take a little blood.
Well, how much blood have they taken? I cite my own case as an example, to make the point – both here and to them. I have lived in what isn’t really my home (because I am obliged to pay rent styled property taxes once every six months to avoid being kicked out onto the street) for more than 20 years now. The total rent paid thus far comes to around $50,000 – on a home purchased for $270,000. This amounts to a tax equivalent to 20 percent of the cost of the house. Put another way, my house has actually cost me $320,000 – and that cost continues to increase. If I live here another 20 years – and assuming the rent stays the same – I will have paid $370,000 for my home. $270,000 to the lender and $100,000 to the landlord.
A sum equivalent to about 40 percent of the cost of my home.
The objection will be raised: But your home has increased in value! This is vicious nonsense. Nonsense, because that “value” is immaterial unless I sell my home. But I did not buy my home to sell it. I bought it to live in. Yet I am expected to pay rent – styled “property taxes”- based on what are styled “assessments” of its hypothetical value were I to sell it. In other words, the rent is actually an unrealized capital gains tax. You are forced to pay ever-rising rent based upon what you might get if you were to sell. Never mind what it is costing you to live.
There is something particularly vicious in the serial raising of rent – i.e., the taxing of unrealized gains. As if somehow the fact that you hypothetically “gained” something means you “owe” something more. But that’s how these feeders on the blood money of others see it. They do not care that by extracting this blood money, they are literally forcing people out of their homes. Often, people who paid for their homes, in that they paid off the mortgage. Never mind that! By forcing the people out who can no longer pay the rent, new renters buy the home they will also never own for the much higher-now sales price, which will mean they pay much higher rent. But they can afford it, you see (for now, at any rate) and so the county is able to extract even more blood money. This cycle continues until the only people who can afford to rent homes in the county are the every affluent.
These latter are at least able to pretend to themselves that they “own” their home while everyone else is reduced to having to accept that they are just renters. This seems to be the end goal of this business of taxing most people out of their homes.
Perhaps because if average people were ever to become owners of property, they would themselves no longer be property.
And then they’d be free rather than enserfed.
. . .
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Illinois property taxes have gotten so high, in some communities, you will pay as much tax on your house in under a decade as you paid for it.
There are houses valued at about 100k that have property taxes of nearly 10k a year.
Chris Martenson has a new video/podcast on property taxes
Mitch Vexler: “Real Estate Taxes Have Become a Ponzi Scheme of Biblical Proportions”
https://rumble.com/v6vl8wr-mitch-vexler-real-estate-taxes-have-become-a-ponzi-scheme-of-biblical-propo.html
I just had an argument with a bootlicker in the YouTube comments on property taxes. These people unfortunately will never be convinced to see things as we do. They are also why I feel like we will never have a free society. I don’t mean to be pessimistic but it’s hard not to.
And to further add, I even suggested a compromise of allowing retirees to live in their home without paying these stupid taxes and he still said no. They want you paying until you are on the street or dead. Sometimes I think our population is just as bad as our insane politicians.
Examining every tax evasion option possible is the most effective solution. Having your residence reclassified to agriculture use for most of it may change your taxes. Getting a “disability” rating may change it, this is all according to (((government))) rules and regulations. I pay significantly lower taxes because of my VA Disability rating, but I also know that can be changed by a simple snap of the government’s fingers. So, like the Orange man bad says, pay the “least amount of taxes possible, because that’s what I do”. However, he has an army of lawyers to do this for him. We hoi polli have to do it ourselves. Perhaps use AI??? The possibilities are endless….
Good luck!!!
Saxon is right.
Most counties do offer personal property tax relief based on disability, age, and even income. I have a few clients that pay nothing (or very little) in real estate and property taxes depending if they meet one of the requirements above. Each county is different, but I know several that will ease the PPT burden if an individual’s only asset is their primary residence and they are surviving on Social Security and a small amount of passive income.
Note: If you have second homes (rentals or otherwise) and a significant amount of retirement/savings it is unlikely you will qualify unless the county offers an age reduction and/or military/disabled qualification.
We blame the politicians but they just follow what their constituents desire and what the vocal ones desire is free stuff and to control their neighbors vicariously.
This area had to vote twice on whether to raise the property tax cap, which has been in place for many years. The now-Democrat-Controlled borough assembly and Borough Mayor had already spent the money before voters even went to the polls. One project they were going to spend the increase on, was a ‘Pet Palace’. That is, a brand spankin’ new Animal Control Shelter. Along with funding for the black hole we call “Public Education”. Voters had to go and vote “NO” twice, because politicians are blind and deaf, and did not understand “NO” the first time. Cue the backlash: Three schools were shut down as a result and the pro-school crowd are blaming the rest of us who do not want to shell out more, to get nothing in return.
Cop enters home without a warrant, shoots family dog, gets paid vacation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe_IKup2CU8
“Heroes”…
Morning, X –
I can’t watch these dog-shooting videos first thing in the morning; they cause so much anger to percolate upward that I’m no good for work until I find a way to dissipate it, as by a long run or a couple hours at the gym.
Eric,
I know you don’t want to move, but maybe you could consider moving to the rural Panhandle of Florida. We’re what they term a “fiscally distressed” county since we don’t have many homes or landowners and the rest of the state picks up part of the tab for some county services, such as fire and the sheriff’s office.
Governor Ron DeSantis is talking about a proposal where the part of our property tax bill that goes to the county and not the school district would be paid by the state, thus taking away a lot of our liability. I would welcome lower property taxes because DeSantis agrees with you that a homeowner shouldn’t be paying rent to the government.
It’s a nice place we have down here and with the karst topography, the water is super clean, the people are friendly and EVERYONE carries here. And you’re maybe 2 hours from the best beaches and deep sea fishing in the world.
Hi Dr!
It’s a thought. And if DeSantis does nix the property tax, it’d be extremely tempting, much as I love the mountains and my place up here. I am at the point of not being able to be civil to the fraus at the tax office. I went there a month or so ago to ask about something and found myself thinking of how obnoxious it is not only to have to deal with these people but that I am paying for the privilege. Each frau probably makes (takes) more than I earn, sitting on her ass in a nice government office, shuffling papers – including probably eviction notices for people who failed to pay the rent.
Most people keep our doors unlocked because there’s nearly zero crime. We have beef and dairy cattle, plus chickens and pigs and a half-acre “garden” with a growing season that lasts most of the year.
The gall of the AGW outside our little paradise has been really getting to me lately. I’m convinced that most of the bullies in school decide to become cops. I wish cops were like our sheriff’s office, tough on real crime like outside elements breaking into your homes and vehicles, and letting people off with warnings for speeding and other offenses. They don’t even do the DWI checkpoints like our neighboring county sheriffs do as well. Our sheriff told me once that he thought they were immoral and besides, even if he wanted to do them, he doesn’t have and doesn’t need the people to man them.
X, don’t get me started on that. We take the good with the bad and DeSantis’ pandering to a certain section of South Florida’s population is disgusting in the least. But he’s got the right attitude on immigration enforcement, taxes and a lot of other issues, so we can live with that.
Sounds like DeSantis really cares about Floridians… when he isn’t at the Wailing Wall.
Property taxes are the most immoral of them all.
I got my assessment recently and the county thinks my house is worth almost 200K more than it is. Needless to say, I challenged it. Plenty of comps and a professional apraisal so I’m pretty sure I’ll knock it down. But it got me thinking about how many people just shrug their shoulders and write the check.
Yes, they are and I hope that you can get the theft at least reduced. We are taxed so much that it’s laughable and as Eric points out it is never enough for them and they still run deficits.
I can hear the local GovCo objections now, “If we get rid of the property tax we won’t be able to provide needed services.” The counter to hat should be, if you have to take away the right to own property to fund a function, that function is, be default, illegitimate.
Amen, Mark –
And if the services are needed, then wouldn’t people willingly pay for them? I sometimes need a plumber and am happy to pay the guy!
True Eric. It’s much like the “Economic Development” programs. Local GovCo sez, “We gotta recruit a company to hire the locals. We’ll fund it because it will be an economic boon for us.”
What they fail to realize is, if it could make a bunch of money, someone in the private sector would cash in on this alleged gold mine. That means GovCo only finances economically unfeasible projects. Throw in the fact that places “compete” to recruit employers and you have a municipal fiscal circular firing squad.
I’m so glad I lost all three times I ran for office.
Funny how subjective needs enable people I have no control over to reach into my bank account.
I need to be left alone. How much does that cost?
Amen, Dan –
Of course, we are “selfish” for objecting to this business of random other people’s “needs” imposing an obligation enforceable at gunpoint on us to “help” provide for them. Astounding, isn’t it? If a man claimed his “need” to empty his balls imposed an obligation on the next good-looking woman to “help” him, most people would say the man is a cretin. But the same man can say he “needs” your money to “help” pay his bills – to provide for his “needs” – and that’s okedokey..
Ahem, Big D….
In my opinion, the 3 important criteria required to
“Break Free” of the “mulcting gravitational pull” ,OF WHAT EVERYONE WHINES ABOUT ON THIS WEB SITE!…….COPS & TAXES…
consists of;
1) Learn Spanish;
2) realize there is more to see than your backyard AND there are a “shitload of alternatives” Waaaay more libertarian than the fat ass doughnut eaters radar blasting you sheeple….( In Virginia??….Yikes Dude, you don’t sound like a “short bus to school type”)
Unless you’re growing your CIA honeypot list ……then kudos to you Sir!!!
These blue boys think they are tough and boss usa ,usa types…..wearing Body armor?????
I thought the Battle of Iwo Jima ended in March 1945???
Public costumes are supposed to be used at Halloween and Mardi Gras events …
correct? or am I missing something??
3) You have a unique opportunity to “detox” from “USA, USA” stupidity by trying out the 12 step “Puerto Rico (half-way house, literally) to the “DR”.. Hispanic orientation program.
As of 2024, a most refreshing…introduction to a Caribbean Norman Rockwell experience… …..wait for it!….And the winner is….
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC….NO SHIT, ask any Haitian .
Just saying
The only pol talking about dissolving the property tax is DeSantis. If he does it, it may start a wave of other *Red-I hate this color* conservative states following suit. I guess I can hope in one hand and sh’t in the other and see which one fills up first.
Eric, it seems we as voters/taxpayers have the choice of the lesser of two evils come county election time. Party A, death by strangulation or Party B, death by a thousand cuts. Either way, the excuses offered by county board of supervisors is that WE (board of supervisors) have to and only answer to Richmond & DC. The Constitution as intended was structured political power being strongest at the local level and weakest at the Federal level. What we have now is command/control system totally contrary to what the Founders intended.
Examples of historical evidence to support this includes the “Whisky Rebellion”, Lincoln’s dictatorial actions in the War of Southern Independence, the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the 16th Admendment and 17th Amendment.
Klaus Schwab’s statement of “You will own nothing & be happy” has been in play here for well over a hundred years.
If you want to see where this all comes from, go to a local city council meeting.
Some member of the council has an idea how to improve the city, and it’ll be ideological. Recycling program, housing for the poor, “road diet” to improve safety, whatever.
Some other person will point out the city doesn’t have the budget.
So, someone will propose another property tax, or business tax. Usually, state law ties their hands, so the discussion goes into strategies how taxes could be raised, and how they can be placed on the ballot.
I’ve been several times. It goes like this every single time.
The people who reach office don’t have any notion of property rights in their brains. Zero. It’s never considered. They see the city as a place they can “improve” and they need money to do it, somehow thinking it’s the houses which provide revenue, not the people living in them.
This is it.
I can’t stand going to these meetings, because of all the whiny bitches who want the “latest and greatest” paid for by others.
Worse, the things government should in theory take care of, are ignored. Roads for instance. My city is going to raise their share of the property tax levy for the fourth year in a row for “road improvements” – something they’ve ignored for years.
It isn’t strong enough to say that I hate these people. They’re absolute leeches.
I always thought the homestead exemption should be a complete exemption from property tax for individual & family owners of their principal residences. And it probably should include family-owned businesses having a book value of $20M or less, indexed to inflation, owned strictly by individual residents of the county (or maybe state). And it should also be accompanied by a rescission of truancy laws.
Keep it loyal and local. Let the flowers bloom.
you need to quit thinking in terms of dems/repubs. not done any good in all their life.
So everybody’s sittin’ around in the divided Senate after a 24-hour-plus session, waiting on a quorum call (they aren’t very good at time management).
And the presiding officer pro tem (Senator Moreno, I believe) is sitting at his desk reading a ‘newspaper.’ Screenshot:
https://postimg.cc/75YzC2DJ
For the benefit of the iPhone generation, that’s a bedsheet-sized sheet of paper with lots of words printed on it, most of them lies.
There is only one War Party.
‘By 1796, state and local governments in fourteen of the fifteen states taxed land.’ — Wikipedia
The closest I came to avoiding property tax was on my first house in Louisiana. At that time, Louisiana had a $50,000 homestead exemption. Since my house was purchased for $55,000, property tax was due on only the residual $5,000 of its value.
That came to six dollars and change owed annually to East Baton Rouge Parish — and no, this wasn’t in the 19th century.
Unfortunately, Louisiana’s homestead exemption hasn’t kept pace with inflation — it’s only up to $75,000 now. So one can dodge property tax today only by living in a shack.
Oh, there’s a crazy little shack
Beyond the tracks
And everybody calls it
The Sugar Shack
— The Fireballs, Sugar Shack
Shacks are $240k within reasonable distance of a medium metro or larger thanks to the $8k first time buyer credit and 3% down mortgages under Obama.
$75k is not much of a house since the late 2000s.
One of the biggest expenses your property taxes pay for is police — who, according to the Supreme Court in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, are under no obligation to protect you, and cannot be held liable if they don’t.
Grok that.
Another big expense is schools. Even if you have no kids, you pay. Kids are forced by law to attend government schools to be indoctrinated. When this country was founded, if you thought your kids needed to be educated, you got together with other like-minded parents and pitched in enough money to hire a schoolteacher. If you wanted to educate your kids yourself, or you had no kids, you didn’t pay.
Freedom. Helluva thing, ain’t it?
I read last year that the Harris-Walz campaign was pushing “unrealized capital gains taxes”, which would have likely made buying a home even more unaffordable for the masses, not to mention accelerated the WEF’s wet dream for the masses of “You’ll own nothing and be happy”, meaning that BlackRock and WEF types would own EVERYTHING.
And in Oregon, its Queen and the Democrat ruled legislature was pushing a multi BILLION DOLLAR “transportation” bill that would have had all sorts of new or increased transportation related taxes for the masses, and probably had all sorts of idiotic cliiiiiiiiimate change projects too. Thankfully, due to overwhelming opposition from Oregonians and even dissension among Democrat legislators over that bill, it failed to pass, but the Queen says she may hold a special session to fund the state’s transportation department, which means she may try to shove that massive tax scheme down Oregonians’ throats by hook or by crook.
Americans just have to learn to think like Nigerians. It’s all just maff anyway.
This Nigerian bought a $52 million apartment building with 50 units renting for $2500/mo
50 Units x 2500 = $125,000 x 12 months = $1.5 Million a year
https://x.com/SteveNdukwu/status/1939370325889728602
From the comments:
“So bro now has to repay a $3m dollar loan on his existing properties and then this new $42m loan for buying this complex with around $157k/m (2500 CHF ~ 3143.9 USD) in rental income from these 50 apartments! 😬
Bruh if we assume a 2% interest rate and 30-year term from the $42m loan then the monthly repayment for that alone comes down to $155k/m! Then is that $3m was a personal loan or line of credit with 5% annual rate then that’s another $56k/m! 😬😬
I really hope bro did the math with this one or it might be one of those ‘burn money for years to earn money for generations play’ “
Texas just passed more tax reform which subsidizes the rent payment for “owners”, hiding the true costs of increasing millage rates for local governments and school systems for another two years, kicking the can down the road.
IIRC, the latest “reform” required the state to spend $47 billion, $24 billion came from surplus state level revenue, mostly sales taxes.