Property taxes are the taxes you pay after you pay tax on your income and then again on the things you buy – in order to avoid being evicted from your home. They are the taxes that never end until you die or leave the place you’re effectively renting from the government. It is possible that, over the course of say 30 years, you will end up paying a third again – maybe half – what you paid for the house in what amounts to rent to avoid being evicted from what is as much “your” home as a renter’s place is his.
It is thus a tax that is even more regressive than the income tax, which for most people is in the vicinity of a quarter of what they earned. For many “homeowners,” the sum paid (the sum they are forced to pay; let’s stop using the passive voice) easily amounts to $50,000 or more after as little as 20 years. That sum would provide a tremendous cushion against financial hardship such as loss of employment or an expensive health problem. That cushion is ripped away from people by the government – which considers its “needs” more important than the needs (and rights) of the people who are forced to pay for them.
The property tax is arguably the worst tax because most tyrannical of all taxes – because the only way to avoid it is to not own property; to literally pay rent, in other words. Either to the government – or a private landlord. That or live on the street. The homeless are the only people who do not pay this tax – or rent – which both amount to the same thing, functionally speaking (with the difference being that rent is as such is not immoral in that it is paid freely by people who agree to pay it).
It is particularly vicious because it requires the earning of income – which is taxed – to pay it, which for most people means they can never stop working, even after a lifetime of working. The monthly pittance the government gives older people after forcing them to “contribute” Social Security taxes for a lifetime is typically sufficient only to pay for basic living expenses, such as food and utilities. There is not enough left to pay the forced rent styled “property taxes” on the home they live in, so they’re forced to either keep on earning income – and paying income taxes – or sell the home (and pay taxes on that) and then pay rent somewhere else.
That or live on the street.
The immorality of property taxes is of the same species as the tax on income in that both take from people that which is their property; i.e., they are a form of theft but particularly immoral because it has been legalized and because they are recurrent and perpetual. A common street thug might take your money once. He has no ability to take your money every day because – among other things – you are free to avoid him and also free to defend yourself against him, which is still legal to do in most places. If you defend yourself against the government, it is a “crime.”
Many people agree that it is, too.
That’s an epic example of Stockholm Syndrome. Probably because it’s been about 120 years since Americans were free to keep what they earned, so no living American remembers that.
Many Americans have already forgotten what it was like to travel freely by air; to just buy a ticket – using cash, if you liked – and board an airplane without being patted down by a government geek or (the alternative) going hands-up through a scanner and/or having your face biometrically scanned.
Property taxes are like this also in that many people have been mind-diddled into accepting them as . . . acceptable. They have thus accepted their own enserfment, in a literal sense although they do not see it because they have been conditioned to not see it. What was a serf? He was a peon (as in pee’d on) in the Middle Ages, in Europe. He owned nothing and wasn’t very happy about it. He was perhaps permitted to live in a dwelling owned by the local lord – who was the actual owner of the land the serf’s hut sat on. And thus, the serf was – effectively – owned by the lord. This system was called feudalism – and it’s the same today as it was then, with the only substantive difference being the modern serf’s hut is usually nicer.
And, of course, the modern serf does not appreciate that he is a serf.
Maybe he could be less a serf?
A step in that direction would be to place a cap on the amount of property taxes people are forced to pay. Not annually but all told. In other words, once a “homeowner” has paid say 25 percent of what he paid for his house in property taxes, it is agreed he has paid enough and is freed from having to pay any more. A person who bought the now-average $400,000 home would thus be free of property taxes after he paid $100,000 in property taxes. That is a lot of money to have paid and by any decent standard is enough – unless of course the real object of property taxes is enserfment.
Draw your own conclusions.
. . .
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We might have better success eliminating property taxes if we went back to only property owners having the right to vote. … instead, we are outvoted by the masses getting government handouts and wanting our $$$$.
Hi Roy,
That is an excellent suggestion. Voting is inherently problematic in my view (no one’s rights ought to be up for a vote) but if we must have voting, it ought to be limited to those with “skin in the game.”
If you live in Ohio. there is a petition campaign to abolish property taxes:
https://axohtax.com/
Today is Yom Kippur day. What’s so great about that? It means that the government skoolz are closed. The traffic on the busy street I live on is down by about half making for a much more pleasant commute. If we are to measure economic activity by traffic volume then this means 50% of my town’s economy is based on the government endoctrination facilities. People in the neighborhood work at the skoolz. They need the income to pay their property taxes so they can keep working at the skoolz teaching transgender science to 10 year olds.
In three days will be the 52nd anniversary of what Egyptians “The Crossing”, that is, the opening attack of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where the Egyptian Army crossed the Suez Canal and overcome the IDF “Bar Lev” Line, which ended up being, as Patton had put it some 29 years or prior, a “monument to the stupidity of man”. Yeah, even the vaunted JOOs, who falsely ascribe themselves as THE most intelligent of peoples (any surprise THEY’D assert that?), repeated the tragic military mistake that “La Belle France” had made some 33 years earlier; that of putting their trust in a line of forts overlooking the Suez Canal; to delay any Egyptian attempt to retake THEIR territory seized from them in the Six-Day War; the Sinai. The Israeli engineers who built that sand wall, averaging about 75 feet high, and dotted with 29 forts and various support facilities, estimated it’d take 48 to 72 hours for the Egyptians to breach that line; by then, the Israeli Air Force would have conducted devastating air strikes, and the vaunted IDF armor would have moved into position to deal with any breakthroughs.
Still, what the IDF didn’t count on was the simple brilliance of a young Egyptian engineer, then a Lieutenant in their Army; who in 1971 proposed using firefighting pumps commonly used for ships and large factories; the Egyptian government bought a slew of them, first from the UK, then higher-capacity ones from West Germany; and somehow the Mossad missed the significance, though they were tipped off about the unusual purchases! Tested at a secret location in the “Qattara Depression”, not far from the famous El Alamein battlefield, where an equivalent sand wall was built to test the idea and to train combat teams that’d have to scale the sand berms on foot and hold a clear position for the combat engineers to work, the idea was proofed and Egyptian assault teams readied for that day, October 6, 1973, which was then also at the beginning of Yom Kippur, and a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. As much of the Israeli Army and reservists, then more religiously observant as a whole than now, would be at their home synagogues, the IDF mobilization would thus be somewhat slower and hampered.
That morning had begun with Egyptian tanks and accompanying infantry engaging in what appeared to be maneuvers, on their side of the canal. After some driving around and furtive “exercises”, Egyptian soldiers even “took twenty”, stripped off their uniforms, and cooled off in the canal itself, putting IDF observers at ease that this was simply another exercise; which, the day after the Muslim equivalent of the Sabbath, on Friday, October 5th, 1973, would have been expected anyway. The Egyptian units pulled back, out of sight from the IDF observation posts, and quiet ensued for a few hours, until, at 1430 hours, local time, the Egyptian artillery opened up. Since both sides had engaged in sporadic artillery duels, among other hostilities, during the 1967 to 1970 “War of Attrition”, this wasn’t surprising, but the FEROCITY of the barrage, lasting about an hour, WAS. Smoke shells from Egyptian (USSR-licensed, locally assembled) M1954 130mm howitzers, with a range of 17 miles, blanketed the Canal, frustrating the IDF observers in their posts. The Mossad had about six hours advance “warning” that an attack might be happening; their “inside source” in the Egyptian High Command that had given them huge “Intel” in 1967 had “retired” (he wasn’t found out until after his death, I believe it was in the late 1990s, with the man’s son, also an Egyptian officer, being arrested and his grandsons kicked out of the Army), so they had to use less reliable sources. IDF Defence Minister Moshe Dayan met with PM Golda Meier and other officials; he advised an immediate air strike ; but the Jewish “Iron Lady” (don’t let that grandmotherly appearance fool anyone, she was “nails”) decided that would result in even the United States not backing them up; they had to wait to confirm that the Egyptians and/or Syrians struck first (BOTH did). It was probably just as well that IAF didn’t strike as they had in 1967; this time, the Egyptians weren’t going to see their Air Force caught on the ground, and they moved, during the smoke laying, batteries of SAMs, which proved deadly to the IAF Phantom fighter-bombers, to cover the two Egyptian Field Armies engaging in the crossings. Although not all went according to plan, as is typical, the battle plan being the “first casualty of war”, the deployments of the water pump engineer teams went largely as planned, with each group either a battery of three British-made or two German-made pumps, and most of them achieved the breachings of the sand wall as dusk fell on the first day. Due to how the Egyptians spread out their armored units on their side of the Canal, awaiting for which openings in the sand wall would be ready first, and which temporary bridges would first be erected; the IDF, given how the smoke and haze confused the battle, and they couldn’t get close enough with their own recon aircraft to get a better picture, they delayed the deployment of their lone armored division in the Sinai. FWIW, PM Meier had phoned President Nixon already, but a CIA-sponsored SR-71 “Blackbird” mission out of a USAF installation in the UK wouldn’t be ready until the following day. The following morning, the Egyptians were across the Canal in great strength, having isolated most of the IDF forts and captured some. Most important, the tank-hunting infantry, equipped with the “Sagger” anti-tank missile, were dug in along hills and other positions, overlooking where the Israeli armor would likely attack. As the Israeli M48s and M60s (“Magach”) approached, WITHOUT infantry or supporting artillery, as there hadn’t been time to get them to the Front, they were attacked by the anti-tank units; an entire brigade was WIPED OUT in less than two hours, a staggering and humiliating defeat for the IDF; especially General Israel Tal. Particularly disconcerting was how badly the IDF tanks “brewed up” when penetrated by the HEAT rounds of the Saggers; it was found that the hydraulic fluid for the turret and gun traverse, good ol’ GM Dexron II, aka “Cherry Juice”, when a high-pressure line was ruptured, became instantly flammable and burned with terrible intensity; later on, a far less flammable working fluid was substituted. Many IDF tankers who’d suffered severe burns and somehow were evacuated were quickly flow via ‘MediVac” to the USA; to the Brooks hospital in San Antonio, where the “Burn Center” had pioneered quite a few therapies that saved lives of burn victims and/or restored them to a semblance of functionality; these IDF soldiers provided, unfortunately for themselves, excellent test subjects!
The Egyptian Army, though it’d won handsomely those first few days, wasn’t in a position to properly exploit its victory, more, the Syrians, who’d also attacked along the Golan Heights in strength, frittered away their huge numbers so badly that the Syrian general in charge was executed by President Hafez El-Assad for at least incompetence if not being an outright traitor (the Israeli’s bribing the military leadership of their enemies into “throwing the game” was very much a “thing”). For a few days, at least, Israel lay prostrate to an exploitative maneuver which German Generals Guderian and/or Rommel wouldn’t have passed on, and neither would Soviet Marshal Zhukov and US Generals Patton and Schwarzkopf. Indeed, this was what Egyptian top general El Shazly advocated; a quick strike across the Sinai that’d force the Israelis to sue for peace and return to their pre-1967 borders (which happened ANYWAY as part of the 1974 truce and later the “Camp David Accords’). But, unwilling to risk moving their precious SAM batteries (which were likely operated by Soviet “advisors”, many from Kazakhstan or the other USSR “Turk” republics, to not be readily recognized, wearing Egyptian uniforms)) from the west bank of the Canal, their coverage range being, of course, limited, when the Egyptians attempted to press their attacks, they were soundly beaten, as by then, the crisis in the Golan Heights had passed, and the IDF could move enough forces, and enough reservists had mobilized, to take them on. The IDF counter-attacked in a bold plan by General Ariel Sharon (you may have heard of him) to cross the Suez themselves, into AFRICA, and cut off the Egyptian Third Field Army, which was accomplished. That at least salvaged Israeli honor and prestige, and with Nixon’s pledge of material support (Operation “Nickel Grass”) the IDF used what they had to great effect.
Still, “The Crossing” was a great, if generally unacknowledged in the West, military feat, yet another example of “outside the box” thinking, and a warning that even the “best” can be undone by complacency and hubris.
The Civil War’s true purpose is revealed upon understanding no one was freed, but that ALL Americans became ENSLAVED to the Almighty (((Dollar)))….
Put that in your pipe and smoke on it awhile….
Certainly it was where the Federal Government, the CREATION of the several states by dint of, at first, the Articles of Confederation, then later, the “revision” (that’s all it was supposed to be, a “more perfect” Union) document, the United States Constitution, became the MASTER of them, symbolized by General Lee’s surrender to Grant, with the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, VA. A popular alternate name, common throughout the South, and not just the states of the erstwhile Confederacy, was “War Between the States”, as it was seen as the forcing of the will of the states that had elected Lincoln in 1860 (obviously neither Bell nor Breckinridge, the former having the “Mid-South” states and the latter the more “Deep” South. FWIW, they didn’t get ALL the “slave” states, Douglas, the “Northern Democrat” candidate, who placed second in the popular vote tally to Lincoln (who got just under 40%), got MO and DE, which remained in the Union as two of the so-called “border” states.
The irony is that Federal, or more properly, NATIONAL hegemony, has been wreaked upon the “Union” states that mis-used its powers to force the Confederate States back in, with musketry and artillery and a naval blockade. “Dishonest Abe” Lincoln was literally a TRAITOR to the US Constitution, as he went beyond his allocated powers to make war upon the states that no longer wanted to be a part of the USA, but simply asked to depart in PEACE. Lincoln and his successors, like Grant, left them in PIECES.
I’d like to know why anyone believes we need government at all for anything? No government, no masters, and no thugs would mean no taxes. (No taxes for anything!)
If any gang or cartel comes around trying to extort us, we just kill them. Yet we let this imaginary gang of thugs called government whose only legitimacy to authority is the fact that they will, just like a cartel, extort you under the pretense of theft, violence or death if you don’t play along with their rules, the only real difference being that they just happen to wear pretty uniforms, suits, and robes.
No piece of deer skin or paper ever in the history of mankind gave anyone any authority over anyone else except for the fact that people subjected themselves to a perceived authority – good intention or not, nothing good comes from government.
The fact that most people cannot perceive a world where they don’t have to be told what to do and forced to support those who claim they are your masters shows it is the masses who are naïve, but blind obedience of masses does not make them right, nor moral nor legitimately in control of mine or anybody’s life;
Any great civilization, at its core, has always revolved around the rebels who dare to question and create — no government creates, not even one that claims it will only rule you a little. (Yes, this applies even to roads – government does not create nor maintain roads; private companies do this through the funneling of what is stolen from us to go into the creation or (not very good) maintaining of roads. Cooperation and coalition can do this without a government or force.)
The inevitable spiral is always to whom can accumulate the most wealth and power, and only government can facilitate that;
Government is the structure and control system that allows banks to create money from thin air and powerful hidden families to steer the Obama’s, Clintons, Bush’s, Trumps, Mussolini’s, Hitler’s, Mao’s and Stalin’s of the world as well as using its most powerful tool, mind control, through:
1) the education system that produces more obedient, indoctrinated slave-masses only smart enough to do the work, but not wise enough to question the power of those forcing them to do the work;
2) all mass mainstream and alternative media whose primary goal is to create a pretend world where government is the victor and savior of everyone all of the time and marginalizes the questioners and foments false division through politics by giving the illusion of choice, when the reality is both or all choices are a part of the show and support the power structure;
3) the policy enforcers that rob us on the side of the road and do the bidding of the powers that be behind the guise of some imagined “thin blue line” because most people have been taught not to protect themselves, which owes to why they say government and goon-thug-cops should exist, for our saaaaaaafety!;
4) the military-industrial complex whose only reason to exist is to protect a power structure ruled by psychopaths because they believe this nation-corporation is more important than anything else and therefore it must have secrets and to keep those secrets there must be a overt and covert force to oppose anything or anyone opposing their legitimacy to rule this piece of land and the giant corporation that sits on it;
5) i shouldn’t leave out the banks as they are most critical point of all, for without the banks that use the Babylonian-magic trick of money-out-of-thin-air, the whole structure wouldn’t exist; banks control governments and governments protect banks; sound money, which can be anything that two or more parties agree on in exchange for goods and services does not have to be controlled by a thing called government or a central bank; Indeed, it is the banks that don’t want sound money because it is through their money magic and government’s enforcement that keeps everything propped up; All debt, based on paper promises to pay (which include all Federal Reserve Notes, mortgages and loans), are a false debt that does not exist and yet you are forced to pay, plus interest!!!! This is the final seal of enslavement by using and believing in pieces of paper that we work for that have no actual value and can be stolen and devalued at will by banks and governments…
The imaginary thing called government has all of these institutions to enforce its rules at all cost. The root of all modern woe is government!
Just think: if people ruled themselves and lived in cooperation, like most of us do until the tax man cometh, then we would have no secrets worth hiding, no one would worry about borders that mean nothing, and foreign governments and peoples would have no reason to have ill will toward a people who are peaceful and are not actively making war with others from around the world!;
There would be no handouts that would entice anyone to come here to receive them and everything we earned could be used for ourselves and maybe, just maybe, the ability to help those less fortunate, although in a world without government theft, poverty and homelessness and imprisonment for having a plant or a substance someone else doesn’t like, would exponentially decrease. Indeed, without a government hell-bent on “protecting us from ourselves”, things like drug use and the associated violence and crime that comes with them would drop dramatically because it would no longer be profitable to engage in such business, and such business that does continue would be made safer because the overt threat of imprisonment or a shootout with uniformed goons wouldn’t exist.
Imagine being able to buy a car outright, take it home and teach your son or daughter to use it and no one getting in your way of doing that?! You’d be able to get the car you want with all the features (or lack of) that you desire, and the best part is you wouldn’t have to adorn it with license plates and tags and stickers and the only thing in your wallet would be a library card and maybe some privately issued silver certificates…who knows?
This is just a taste of changes that having no government would bring. Sounds scary doesn’t it? It would only be scary for those that lack self control, and government will never prevent some people from harming others; but instead of relying on the extortion racket called government, we, along with our neighbors, friends and temporary coalitions called juries would be able to enact justice without having a leviathan that uses its own theft and violence to exert control.
We need to end government. Period. No more jerkoffs trying to run and ruin other peoples lives through arbitrary, meaningless, tyrannical edicts and dictates.
Anyone who ever votes again in any election is a part of the problem because they believe others should be allowed to rule their lives and that everyone else should be forced, under threat of imprisonment or death, to support and fund a machine of mind control and enslavement.
It doesn’t matter whether this enslavement comes from D.C. or Israel or the local county dog catcher – end ALL government, and we would end poverty, joblessness, suffering and imprisonment over meaningless rules for those that never harmed anyone.
Borders are imaginary lines and sexual preferences should not be legislated — we don’t need government to confirm there are only men and women! Cars, houses, and anything we work for and own should be ours and not taxed!
Stop voting!; Stop paying taxes!; Stop asking permission!; Stop rallying for those who want to kill you!; Trump, nor anyone in any government in this world is your friend.
Stop & Think.
“Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem — I prefer dangerous liberty over peaceful slavery.” – Latin saying
Well-said, sir!
You are, apparently, one of us kooks. Welcome!
Oh, I’ve been around, haha! I believe I was a partial inspiration for this article:
Dating and Diapering – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2020/08/05/dating-and-diapering/
I’m Sam, from SE Ohio. Just FYI, I still haven’t found “the one” and now because of the jaxxination and the inanity of the populace, I’m a bit pessimistic I ever will…then again, I always keep my eyes and ears open in my corner of the world. Admittedly, how many young women think like I do above, aren’t jabbed, decent looking with no or very few tattoos, want children and will move to Mexico with me (eventually)? It doesn’t help I’m nothing to look at, har har. They might be out there — I won’t say they aren’t! — but they’ve got to be few and far between!
Anyway, good day to you Eric and dear readers and kooks, in liberty and vigilance,
Sam from SE Ohio, aka Eromon Ecnelis
LOL
https://boo.world/resources/niche-dating-how-to-meet-hot-libertarian-girls
Or, just hire it done.
I forgot to say, thank you.
You bet, Eromon – good to have you with us!
Amen, Eromon! I cannot think of one thing the government did that ever “helped” anyone. Save for themselves and their own enrichment. Matter of fact, they are good at destroying things, and then “developing” a solution to the problem they created. All while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for both! No wonder government positions attract psychopaths and sycophants.
When you examine communist property taxes and I don’t know who came up with the idea but only a GODvernment official. You can see it was designed as an unconstitutional illegal money making machine, for them.
You already paid for the house and now you have to be taxed on it month after month just for sitting on YOUR land?
As I said before, taxes should be VOLUNTARY beyond the services of a constitutional GODvernment. No more than 9% of what you make, PERIOD and NO taxes on what you buy.
Renters pay property tax too. You have to think about it. The landlords are taxed too and when it increases for the landlord, who do you think pays that? The renters do with rent increases. So even if you rent, you are paying property taxes too; for the landlord!!! The second thing people and government is concerned with is how will the government make up for the loss of property taxes? When has the government ever had a problem taking your money? They lose one revenue stream; they will make another one. That is just common sense. Or they could cut their budgets. Wow that would be nice!
Very good point, Bill – thank you for bringing that up!
Yes indeed, Ohio Bill, we DO! Which many do not understand. When a gooberment official screwed up and spent money he should not have in this neck of the woods, he raised property taxes to cover his a**. My rent went up because of it, and the landlord (who was a nice guy) explained that he had to recoup the money somehow. But in the end, why buy a house, when in the end, even the landowners and home owners still pay rent ala property taxes? The “you will own nothing and be happy” mantra from the globalists come to mind….
Well in Ohio, the people have the ability to amend the state constitution. The Ohio citizens are revolting and gathering signatures to place on the ballot an amendment that would prohibit anyone from taxing land. The politicians are panicking because this would eliminate property taxes for Ohioans. A petition to put it on the ballot missed the needed amount for this November, but now another one is being signed for next November and they will have enough signatures to put it on the ballot. The reason I brought up the rent increases is that we will need their votes too and MAYBE they will actually see their rent ‘decrease’ for the first time in history. Think of that? We will counter the politicians by saying the fact ‘when has government not been able to figure out how to pick our pockets?’ We just one to close one of their unfair streams of revenue so we can be free of serfdom.
@Ohio Bill — The reason I won’t sign my name on any petition nor ever vote again in any election (I actually de-registered) is because government, local, state, and national, is illegitimate and i, nor any living man or woman granted them the power to rule over our lives.
Nevertheless, getting rid of property taxes in Ohio, to me, sounds like a pipe dream, not because it may happen, but because the legislators will always find a way to recoup what they lost from one tax and get it from another or a new tax. I mean, after all, their go-to trope is that it’s “fo duh chiddlins.”
Never mind the mom who works, homeschools her children, dad’s away all day and they’re only scraping by and yet they still pay for other peoples’ kids to go to the indoctrination camp.
Again, this whole issue (in fact all issues) devolves into why government exists in the first place and is allowed to do what they do. Participation in that thing called government legitimizes it! There is no need for a petition! Just STOP paying! If there was a campaign of mass resistance, I’d be all for that – in fact I’d sign today on the proclamation that starting immediately no more property or other federal or state taxes will be paid or filed ever again and along with potentially millions of other potentially armed signers to this declaration we will have spoken loud and clear that government is illegitimate and we will no longer support them and our subjugation to the evil amalgam.
Petitions and asking for approval is tacit acceptance that the thing called government has legitimacy to rule in the first place. That’s really all there is to it. It’s like Tiny Tim going up to the goblin goobernor Mikey-poo DeWine-a-lot and asking: “please sir, can I stop paying you tribute?”
Let me ask you a question or two: Did you sign the United States Constitution? Did you sign the Ohio Constitution? If the answer is ‘no’, then tell me how that particular contract (and all subsequent tacit contracts in the form of legalese and statute) applies to you or anyone else that did not sign onto it?
I’m not saying we don’t have rights – we’ve had those in absolute measure BEFORE and AFTER any such piece of parchment or paper was signed by people who claimed they had the right to rule then and each successive generation afterward; Rights are inherent – they cannot be granted nor taken.
It’s amazing to me – in fact it’s disheartening, enraging, and saddening at the same time – that telling people that all they have to do is NOTHING and stop participating is met with utter disgust and resistance as if they believe that inaction toward something evil, so that thing no longer functions, is somehow itself an evil action?! It’s ri-goddam-diculous!
There’s some odd 12 million Ohioans, for instance, and only 132 politicians in the Ohio Statehouse giving orders. Even if you added all the administrators at the local levels, you’re still only talking about a minor fraction of people that think they have authori-tah… But, as we found out during the Covaids Fauxdemic that the sheep are abundant and willing…
Property taxes turn EVERYONE into a renter. If you rent from a property “owner”, he’s simply the MIDDLEMAN, with more discretion as to what to do with the property…but NEVER anywhere close to what he OUGHT to be able to do! And, if the local big shots want HIS land for…whatever, especially if it’s lining their pockets from some land developer, they abuse Eminent Domain, thanks to Kelo v. City of New London (CT), which the nine “justices” up-ended centuries of Common Law and what the Constitution is SUPPOSED to protect, namely, the sanctity of private property. No longer, since Kelo came down twenty years ago, need a municipality or state demonstrate a “compelling” public interest, like constructing a freeway, with their being no more feasible alternative. All they have to do is say, “We want…” and they can just TAKE it, and that supposedly they have to offer “fair market value, which, by definition of the transaction being forced, is inherently UNFAIR. Simple “tax farming”, especially in states where property taxes remained fixed upon the last transfer of the property, like California and its “Prop 13” that the Dummycrats especially hate so much, can be motivation and justification.
In effect, NO ONE “OWNS” real estate, the “Landlord of last resort” can and WILL seize it if you become delinquent on those property taxes and assessments. But why stop THERE? If you’re out and about, the cops can stop you, and shake you down for cash and valuables, taking them under “Civil Asset Forfeiture”. I fail to see how that legalized brigandry can be deemed “Civil”, but neither was that “wee squabble” between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. Proportionately, the greatest bloodbath and human tragedy, and economic disaster, this nation has ever endured, and all because the “majority” would not let the dissenting “minority” of states, fed up with economic vasselage, go their own way.
In Indiana (and I am sure other states too), rental property is taxed at a higher rate than your “owned” primary home. So in fact you are PAYING MORE as a renter!
Nothing good to say is a not-so-good look. Got a better place to live?
Right! Surely that’s the same thing all those medieval porch-di*k lords asked their serfs for 1000 years: “Got a better place to live?” And then…one day…the answer was, “as a matter of fact, yes I do, so bye muthafukka!” Or the similar question that the direct offspring of those same medieval lords asked of the slightly less aristocratically connected rich, colonial landowners, who were ready to go to war over what ironically amounted to less than half of the tax burden that their political descendants have now heaped on the median US household. Of course, we know what our Founders’ answer was: “no, but this place of yours here will suit me just fine, George, so, uh, GTFO, like right now!” Do you want to admonish them, too? But you’re right, I, should be thankful for what I have, unlike our Founders, but much like most of my ancestors, specifically the medieval serfs who for 1000 years just smiled and said, “thanks for the gruel, my liege.” Those gloriously happy times would have lasted forever, too, if hadn’t been for those darn kids: Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria! What great timing–we should all spit on Columbus’ memory a few days from now, for cursing us with the hopey-changey delusion of a better world. Thank you for the criticism, Joel; you should be a philosopher-king!
You’re on the right track, but all taxation is theft, so one is not more or less despotic and oppressive. We could split hairs about how equitable application among the taxed might be better (such as the “flat tax” or “nat’l sales tax), but the result is the same: slavery. All governments will always over-tax to the point of economic serfdom because: (1) they can; (2) the inherent lag in accountability makes them inept at managing funds, so they are always desperate for more; (3) they can; (4) 90% of people who work in government and 100% of elected politicians actually suffer from megalomania and have a subjugation fetish, their psychosexual lust for which is fed by tax schemes; and (5) they can. So complain all you want–make great, morally unassailable arguments even–nothing will change until we institute a better foundation of governance and enforce in ourselves the will to maintain it. But we won’t do that any time soon because even good people like you think our Constitution (which was clearly penned by borderline illiterates who were at best still moronic enough to classify some people as 3/5 humans) is a holy tome! Thus, “America” is doomed to devolve very soon into what we are seeing today in Britain’s real-life dystopian horror novel because we are not willing to acknowledge that our Founders’ ideas, while not horrible, were not nearly good enough. Then again, maybe the idiotic Antifa freaks will somehow succeed in collapsing our federal system, and then the noodle-armed nerds over at “Convention_Of_States.dork” will suddenly be taken seriously for the first time ever. Wouldn’t that be a funny coinkydink!
While they are too high, I recognize there is a need for property taxes…but not forever. Nobody who has paid property tax on their personal residence should have to keep paying indefinitely. Property taxes on one’s personal residence should end after paying them for 20 years or at age 65, whichever comes first. There is no excuse for the government to hold the homeowner’s home over their heads and the homes they paid for on a perpetual mortgage the state can take away for nonpayment. I have a small home on two acres in a rural area. Property taxes are a burden on a fixed income, and after paying them for over 40 years, enough is enough.
Amen, Glee –
I’ve owned (sic) my house for 21 years. I paid $270k for it. I have so far paid more than $40,000 in property taxes. It is obscene.
I’ve paid more than you ($50k) in just five years on a $400k home. And I live in a so-called Deep Red State! So what, you probably pay about the same percentage of your wealth cumulatively across all tax streams as I do, and it’s by design. Our Fabian masters actually use (well, lately, more like “try to use,” but their Millennial heirs have zero patience and have all become rabid Commies) an algorithm to squeeze, slowly and continuously, more and more from our wealth. For 100 years, they’ve been ticking up economic oppression just enough so that most of us remain unconscious of it; and our masters are also johnny-on-the-spot to help us project our subconscious distress onto other things (like hating Russia). Or if we do recognize we’re “in the Matrix” so to speak, then all we do about it is whine on social media, which is literally a simulated society, designed and controlled algorithmically by our Fabian masters to pacify and diffuse our rage.
Your property taxes are worse than obscene… it’s theft, pure and simple, and from the point of a gun, no less.
All (((government))) is bad, some worse than others….
Hi Saxon’s,
Yup. I just got the “second installment” notice; about $1,200. That could have bought me the pressure washer I need, plus the paint I need to deal with the peeling paint on the backside of my house and bought food for a couple months. But instead I get to pay for “the schools” I don’t use and “services” I don’t want – because other people do and the power to make me and others pay for what they want but are unwilling to pay for themselves.
But what about the children? I mean, how else are they going to be indoctrinated unless you’re forced at gunpoint and badge to finance it? If you being homeless and impoverished as a result, your slave masters think its a worthwhile tradeoff.
In watching Charlie Kirk videos recently, the one thing that has really struck me is just how dumbed-down and confused college students are. It’s really shocking.
It is, Mister –
And there’s another, deeply troubling aspect: Things like property taxes generate resentment toward others when there ought to be bonhomie. I like kids. I amhappy to help kids out when I can – and because I want to. But I vehemently dislike being forced to finance “the schools.” It takes a conscious effort to not resent “the children,” but it’s an effort worth making because it’s not their fault.
No. There is “no need” for property taxes nor taxes on our labor (“income”). You are being told your property isn’t yours, and your personal labor – your time of life – isn’t yours. Not something the founding fathers envisioned nor allowed.
Most egregious tax is inheritance tax: You’ve built up an estate, all the while paying your taxes along the way, and then your heirs have to pay a tax on your legacy! A close 2nd is property taxes as you posit. To mean real property and personal property. You acquired said property with after tax money!!! Next is income taxes, then capital gains, then consumption taxes.
The most egregious, thankfully not being implemented is *unrealized* capital gains. That is the holy grail they’re after.
They aren’t going to get that, because unrealized capital gains are fictitious. Paper wealth. I can value this pet rock at a million dollars, but it doesn’t mean anything until I actually try to sell it. There is no “market” value if it’s real estate because it isn’t fungible and isn’t on the market, and if we’re talking stocks the market changes many times per second anyway. I “could” get literally any number at any time, for any thing I possess. Which there’s no possible way to maintain a complete inventory of anyone’s (let alone everyone’s) possessions at all times, anyway. What are we going to do, track every scrap of paper, every Post-it note, every can of beans in the pantry?
Some observations:
In many jurisdictions, the local school district is one of the largest employers, if not the largest employer.
And contrary to popular belief, publick skool teachers and especially administrators do OK for themselves; in fact, many earn more and have better benefits than many of the people living in their communities, for a job that isn’t all that difficult or dangerous (with quite a few exceptions of course).
All the while, property taxes go up and up, while test scores keep falling.
Yet somehow, private schools spend a lot less money and get better results.
Hi Bryce,
A friend of mine that’s on the town council told me that 70% of the property taxes go to the schools, no wonder the roads are falling apart. Being a teacher is a pretty good gig, basically a part-time job. You get the summer off, all the school vacations and holidays, plus the pay and benefits are better than most, along with great retirement benefits. All courtesy of us taxpayers; sign me up.
“ publick skool teachers and especially administrators do OK for themselves “
Oh they certainly do! I get soaked in property tax to support a two building, all on the same property, school district. This “district” is only 8 miles from town and could easily be managed by the city district. Nope, this semi rural setup has its own fiefdom starting with the district administrator who last year, salary was right at $200,000.
There are a number of people under him making at or near $100k. Three years ago they had an elementary home room teacher making $93k. What the hell is an elementary school doing with a home room teacher?
What’s worse is the morons out here keep voting yes on special levy requests. Several years ago it was a “hobby farm” at the school last year it was to replace the busses.
Washington state is basically owned by the public schools cabal. Any ballot initiatives to roll back taxes get gutted by the WA Supreme Court yes the teachers union owns them too. Many people here are totally cowed by “it’s for the children!!”
What Mr. Henry may have said:
Patrick Henry Speaks Against Zoning and Property Taxes
Mr. Speaker, gentlemen of this assembly:
We are told that these ordinances, these zoning laws, are for our welfare. We are told that these taxes upon our lands are the necessary price of civilization. But I ask you — by what authority does government seize the rights of the freeholder, and by what justice does it compel him to purchase anew, year upon year, the very soil he has already bought with his labor?
What is liberty if a man cannot build a dwelling for his children upon his own ground, except by leave of a magistrate? What is property if the state may dictate the size of his lot, the shape of his house, or whether he may keep his aged parents under his roof? These powers were never delegated by the people. They are assumed — assumed by men who believe they know better than the very owners of the soil!
And what of these taxes upon the hearth and homestead? If a man must each year ransom his land from seizure, then he does not own it. The state is the true master, and he the tenant at will. This is not liberty, but bondage under another name. Tell me not of “public service” or “common good” — for liberty once lost is never regained.
Have we so soon forgotten the tyranny we cast off? The Crown taxed us upon our tea, upon our stamps, upon trifles — and we took up arms! And now we bow our necks to burdens far heavier, because they were laid upon us not in one stroke, but in creeping increments. Despotism steals upon a people in this manner: not by one great chain, but link by link, until they wake to find themselves bound.
Shall we call ourselves free while we are forbidden to use our own estates without permission? Shall we boast of independence, when the soil beneath our feet belongs not to us, but to the tax-gatherer? No, gentlemen! Freedom so constrained is but a shadow.
I say to you: it is time we remember that government is our servant, not our master. The deed in a man’s hand is sacred; the fruits of his labor are his own. Tear away these unjust restraints. Cast off these feudal imposts. Restore to the people the rights for which their fathers bled.
For I declare to you — if this be liberty, it is liberty in chains. If this be government, it is government without right. And I say now, as I said in days past: Give me liberty, or give me death!
Excellent
The only Pol talking about eliminating property taxes is DeSantis. I hope it becomes more than just talk.
Nice dream, I like it: “A step in that direction would be to place a cap on the amount of property taxes people are forced to pay.”
Another dream: Only corporations pay property taxes.
That’s truer than you think. And you and I my friend when your name is spelled in “All CAPS, is a Corporation – (A Strawman).
Statutory Basis
1 U.S. Code § 1: This overarching statute dictates that “unless the context indicates otherwise,” the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, associations, firms, partnerships, and individuals.
Specific Statutes: This definition is not just a general rule; it is repeated in many individual statutes to ensure that corporations are treated as “persons” for the purposes of those laws. For example:
15 U.S. Code § 7: defines “person” to include corporations and associations for laws governing monopolies and unfair trade practices.
28 U.S. Code § 3002: includes corporations, partnerships, and other entities in its definition of “person” for purposes of debt collection laws.
29 U.S. Code § 630: also defines “person” as including corporations for workplace safety regulations.
The Clearfield Doctrine: for those willing to venture further down the rabbit hole..
https://thepeopleslawyeruk.com/wp-content/uploads/Exhibit-8a-Clearfield-doctrine.pdf
THE Bottom of the Rabbit Hole.
The US is a Corporation: by Stephen Kimbol Ames
https://foundationfortruthinlaw.org/Files/The-Ultimate-Delusion-U.S.-Government-fraud.pdf
People should be forced to attend a few local GovCo meetings, City Council, County Commission and School Board.
It would quickly dissuade them of the notion that GovCo is anything like they were taught in 8th grade civics class. They would see the arrogant hubris that seems to be the raison d’etre of all these politicians and bureaucrats.
Tar and feathers are too good for them.
Absolutely, Mark. I’ve been a small town mayor for many years. The only people who show up are supplicants who demand something, weak minded activists or tax feeders.
One thing I’ve also noticed is that if a project is proposed and no one shows up to object the attitude of the board is, “Well, no one objects so let’s go ahead and do it because everyone supports it.” However, if a large group shows up and is vocal in their opposition the response is, “Well, we appreciate your concern but, we have to consider the wishes of those not in attendance. So we’ll go ahead with the project.”
In other words, heads they win, tails you lose.
The step in the right direction would be to overturn the mandatory state education laws.
9 out 10 people I talk to think of property taxes as the 12th commandment handed to Moses (the federal income tax and mandatory education being the 11th and the 13th). They are clueless serfs, indeed. That these two contradict with the 8th commandment (Thou shalt not steal) does not register in their state-school addled minds.
Local schools consume 50-70% of the property tax, which you must pay whether you have your children in school or not.
Libertarians should start a grass-root campaign to abolish mandatory education laws. This would have a far-reaching effect, even beyond reducing property taxes.
LOL. The genocidal Jew calls the goyim forced to finance his genocidal war against the Palestinians he has locked up in a death camp “stupid serfs” while pretending that the laws his prophet Moses handed to his tribe apply to those very same serfs he is working to eliminate. Jews have no shame because Jews lie so often that they have lost contact with the truth.
The only problem is that people think schools are failing BUT, OUR schools have wonderful people running them. They also love the fact that their kids can play in the AA level for the NFL & NBA.
Also, they don’t realize that it’s these massive Byzantine structures that cost so much that their taxes are so high that both parents must work to pay their tithe to GovCo.
One of the oldest paradoxes is understanding how Congress has a 10% approval rating but 90% of the individuals get re-elected over and over. Congress is terrible but my guy or gal is fighting the good fight.
Amen, Terry –
I suppose it’s because so many of us think “our representative” is a fine fellow. It’s all the rest that aren’t.
Perhaps its because we still have so many people who think elections are something other than fake and gay
If you want your children “educated”, EDUCATE them YOURSELF. Public schools have ever the more become institutions of INDOCTRINATION. As a senior project engineer, I supervise engineers and geologists in an extensive environmental remediation program. The recent graduates…UGH! While most of them have good PC and technical skills, they’re undisciplined and just about functionally ILLITERATE! Especially the girls having gone through a “STEM” program, which should include a course on how to put down the Gott-Damned “sail fawn” (Cell Phone).
A lot of rice bowls get filled from property taxes, particularly from “education” spending.
Here in Texas, it seems like every high school has plans to build an $80 million football stadium and similarly priced performing arts hall.
Morning, Roscoe!
Yup. And that’s exactly what needs to be challenged.No one has the right to live off anyone else. Kids? I like ’em fine and if I have any, I’ll take care of raising and educating them. How is it that I am obliged to hand over money to educate other people’s kids? People choose to have children just the same as people choose to have pets- yet no one is forced to pay taxes to buy pet food and so on for other people’s pets.
Hmmm…
Catch-and-release program to spay & neuter feral politicians?
I might donate to something like that…
It seems that long before there were extensive systems of “public education”, and especially well BEFORE Federal involvement, which goes back about 75 years (HEW, for “Health, Education, and Welfare”, which was established by (I like) Ike in 1953). Eisenhower, being a career politician that happened to wear an Army uniform, and NEVER having held a combat command, was promoted over 366 more senior officers to head SHAEF in 1942. Granted, his administrative skills were superlative, MacArthur called him the “best Chief of Staff” he’d ever had, but aside from banging his sometime driver and aide, the British “doughnut dolly”, Kay Summersby, “Ike”, though he HATED the Germans (he was responsible, right after the Ruhr pocket surrendered on April 18, 1945, with over 320K German troops bagged, having the “Rhinewiesenlager” (Rhine Meadows Camps) set up, where the prisoners were left, penned up, but usually exposed to the elements, and given little or no food and no sanitation facilities or medical care, and this barbarity was excused by designating these hapless men (and some women) as “Disarmed Enemy Forces”, which was to deny them Geneva Convention Protections…not that we or the enemy cared much for them anyway! That’s the sort of man that ten years or so later is bringing the “best” of what he took from the Germans, their Autobahn and their school systems, and sought to remake American in that mold. Go figure. All I know is, we put “Nat-Zees” on trial and either hanged them or sent them to prison for “war crimes” we freely did ourselves. “Viktorjustiz”.
I’ll bet that GI that reflexively gunned down two German soldiers attempting to surrender, if he’s alive, STILL wonders what “Bitte! Bitte!” means.
Hi Roscoe, an eighty million dollar stadium filled with students who probably can’t spell the word stadium.
“ similarly priced performing arts hall “
Ditto here in WA, for a long time now. Long gone the “ multi purpose building” that was gym for PE, basketball court for intermural games, and a small stage for plays and concerts with (the horror) folding metal chairs.
Take a look at these palaces, Auburn WA (not a huge city) school district has THREE!
Scroll down a bit and zoom in, wow.
https://www.auburn.wednet.edu/district-departments/theatres
Eric: “A person who bought the now-average $400,000 home would thus be free of property taxes after he paid $100,000 in property taxes.”
While an intriguing idea, one issue I have with that thought is that many people move multiple times over the years for various reasons and will thus never be free of these taxes. One solution might be considering total property taxes paid over multiple purchases and at a set point pay no more property taxes even if you have only lived in your current home a short time, say six months.
To paraphrase the bard “Would a property tax be as sweet to GovCo if it had another name?”. Since GovCo has no desire to live within it’s means they will only tax differently to continue spending. ZeroHedge has an article explaining the latest tax hike idea in Germanistan which would allow GovCo to continue spending as the economy craters.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/germanys-biggest-tax-hike-wwii-spd-targets-families
The same lunatics are here also.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/joy-reid-says-earning-money-and-leaving-it-your-kids-dangerous
“…if you go back before the 20th century, there were no income taxes. There were no regulations on business. You could earn as much money as you want, leave 100% of it to your children with no taxes. That’s the world they want back.”
Says the great sage, Joy Reid. I wish Republicans wanted that back. Ditto the end of all theft aka taxation.