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Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

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Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#181

Post by munk-a »

nly wrote: post #178
ateng wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure about that either —- there were no tax havens back then. It’s so much easier since 80s to work around the tax system with off shore companies (granted it is getting harder for the past decade) Or was I unaware the widespread loophole back in the old days?

Not so much a loophole, but back in the 50s all kinds of income were treated the same which meant you could write off your income against your investment losses. I think it's naive to assume that rich Americans back then weren't working the system. If it was so great, why do we tax different kinds of income differently now?

I have always believed that the majority of the complexity in the tax code is derived from lobbying by special interests to lower taxes on their specific sort of income.

Lately though it seems like tax filing companies have been the ones primarily responsible for sustaining the complexity of the tax code - though whenever someone's particular benefit comes up that group tends to get pretty vocal (i.e. exemptions for SALT taxes and home owner/child credits)

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#182

Post by munk-a »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #53
yunohn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics works in modern democracies. Taxes are a great example, because almost every country will increase it, but never decrease it. They’ll think of a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove outdated ones.

Very true: my personal solution is to shop for better countries. There's no way to meaningfully influence the government's overreach. Hopefully this will become a trend and the cheapest countries will attract better talent.

> Hopefully this will become a trend and the cheapest countries will attract better talent.

Hrm, I disagree. I think the most beneficial countries will attract better talent. Having a low tax bill doesn't mean much if I need to pay for things privately.

I also personally emigrated from the US owing to the fact that healthcare there is immoral and it felt like (about a decade ago when I left) the country was on the path to major unrest. I've been quite happy up here in Canada where I pay more taxes but get to work with people who aren't burdened down by the stress of untreated health issues.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#183

Post by munk-a »

reedjosh wrote: post #147
mullen wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What then also of the minority that lives under these laws? I never once consented to them, and yet must submit to the majority. And you receive their benefit too. You might not like paying taxes but you receive the benefit of paying taxes, that is why you are forced to pay taxes like everyone else. Some people get more benefit than others but we all get something from paying taxes. If you don't like paying taxes,…

And what of the wars?

The US has a severe representation issue. Other folks have spoken well about the advantages of proportional representation vs. FPTP but if you're looking for something to blame for an effective lack of representation I'd look there first.

Honestly, if the US election before this previous one didn't have primaries and was an open field race there is almost no chance the former president would have been elected - and if the government was run on a parliamentary system even if his party had won there's no chance they would've brought him in as PM.

I am a one issue voter and my issue is proportional representation.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#184

Post by TheCoelacanth »

clarkmoody wrote: post #105
FpUser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Why do you assume taxes are a payment for services?" Because the only alternative in this case is the outright theft. >"there is no implied right or obligation of any sort." Sorry but there is implied obligation. I totally expect to get some services in return for money taken from me and I suspect I am not alone. For experiment try sending part of government that does actual services for constituents for a year lon…

Alternate experiment: try to force the government to perform a service for you.

There are entire industries specialized on doing this. Search for "disability lawyer".

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#185

Post by munk-a »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #62
sneak wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

> I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable. Can anyone of the downvoters say a few words? To me this seems both obvious and non-partisan. What we're doing is accruing ever more laws, creating a centuries-old legal code base without ever removing technical debt. This seems unwise.

(I wasn't a downvoter but sure)

Law isn't a simple practice due to the breadth of subjects it covers - but it is very simplified by the human factor. When laws are enforced they are done so after advocacy from a pair of humans and by the judgement of a human for penalty and possibly guilt (in some cases guilt is determined by a pool of jurors).

This means it's very different from programming where we have a dumb machine that is, at it's best ability, able to look at two numbers and tell you which one is bigger. When it comes to software edge cases must be explicit and factors must be encodable - violations must be recognizable by an algorithm and all cases must be covered. Compare that to the law where generally there are a set of guidelines that have slowly evolved over time to cover more and more edge cases - but viewing any law ever written as completely true to the letter would be a mistake - there will always be carve outs and reasonable judgement entering the picture.

I think the main problem with criticizing the creation of more laws is that we don't currently have laws to cover every situation and it's unreasonable to think we ever will - it'd be nice to get rid of some of the stupid ones but I strongly suspect you'll see this town in Italy end up being freed from any obligations since this hereditary claim is pretty bonkers.

Lastly I might point at countries with a long continuous legal history like England which hasn't changed governments violently or due to outside influence in a loooong time. There are a lot of really crazy real estate claims there, sure - but for the day to day stuff, the laws work. The cost of training lawyers might slowly be creeping up[1] but we aren't anywhere near a critical point of being unable to apply laws. I suspect that point will never be reached and we'll just see more and more specialty in legal professions - instead of an advocate in 1820 you can now hire a lawyer specialized in watershed rights. I expect that trend to continue with specialties deepening and growing further apart just like we've seen with development. You couldn't hire an "ops" guy in the 70's - everyone was expected to be well versed in operating system configuration, interaction and most were probably expected to be familiar with design.

So, I don't think this is actually an issue at quite the level you mentioned - but I do think it's one of these slowly creeping growth factors that makes us more vulnerable to societal system collapse.

1. I'd guess really slowly though since even in the US where precedent is a factor most relevant case rulings are probably from before 1870.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#186

Post by rikroots »

A relatively common local tax in mediaeval England was a 'Scott' charge on property and/or land, used to fund some locally necessary common good. Because the charge was most often area-based, landowners/householders just outside of the charging area were said to get away 'Scott free' - a phrase still frequently encountered in UK English.

For instance in the area where I grew up (Romney Marshes, Kent) a Scott tax used to be levied on local householders and landowners to help pay for the local sea defences (because: most of the Romney Marshes is below sea level). People living on land above sea level were exempt from the charge, thus 'Scott free'. The levy was paid in cash or thorn bushes; failure to pay led to an ear being nailed to the church door[1].

And the tax is still - apparently - alive today ... according to a brief report in the UK's Law Society's Gazette[2].

[1] - https://theromneymarsh.net/newhall

[2] - https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/unearthing-history/68506.a...

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#187

Post by garmaine »

supergirl wrote: post #59
riccardomc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Roman law equivalent is Usucapione, still applicable in Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption

the residents now complain that the feudal law is old and should be abolished. it would be funny if they win the case using a Roman law

It's not a law so much as a governing principle.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#188

Post by reedjosh »

munk-a wrote: post #183
reedjosh wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what of the wars?

The US has a severe representation issue. Other folks have spoken well about the advantages of proportional representation vs. FPTP but if you're looking for something to blame for an effective lack of representation I'd look there first. Honestly, if the US election before this previous one didn't have primaries and was an open field race there is almost no chance the former president would have been elected - and i…

I like CGP Grey on this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

I completely agree as far as voting methods are concerned and do think it would be a better system, but I still don't like giving a group of people rights to commit acts considered immoral when done by an individual.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#189

Post by HerrMonnezza »

jakub_g wrote: post #159
rini17 wrote: post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

Isn't there any law saying that "if no one claims it for N years, the state takes it" / "if someone else uses a place for N years and no one else claims it, that person can claim it?" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption

I had the same thought. Reading the Wikipedia page for the respective Italian law [1], it seems to me (but IANAL) that it would only apply to ownership of material things, not apply to monetary claims.

However, Italy also abolished all noble titles with the fall of the monarchy in 1946 -- I would have also expected that fiefs and any associated claims had been extinguished at the same time...

[1]: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapione

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#190

Post by drdec »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #52
sneak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to…

Income tax in the USA was meant to be a temporary measure to support a war effort. There are similar stories in other countries. There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government plan.

Unfortunately they have a way of making war last forever as well.
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