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High property taxes are good

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Re: High property taxes are good

#41

Post by toomuchtodo »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

Alternatively, have them pay for an appraisal and finance the progressive property taxes out of home equity. Upon death, the property is sold and the equity used to pay progressive taxes is repaid.

This prevents the generational wealth transfer of subsidized senior housing tax rates with the benefits going to next of kin, who sells the asset and receives the proceeds.

Re: High property taxes are good

#42

Post by exclusiv »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

I disagree.

The local budget shouldn't change much from year to year, but when values go up, they are quick to reassess high on, many times, artificially inflated values. When values go down, then they aren't too quick to reassess accurately downward.

In this situation, you just end up displacing retirees which is not good.

I'm not talking about having special rules for retirees, just saying the politicians feast when home values skyrocket and cities need to have a reasonable balanced approach to be able to have great services and departments for the community, but not try to optimize for their budget.

So many great cities have been destroyed from high property taxes. They jack up prop taxes, then lose families and are left with mostly older citizens, and there's a breaking point and they leave.

Home values plummet along with property taxes. So what they thought might be good for the community ended up being a poor decision.

Also property taxes are not perfectly progressive. Only areas with nice homes have good schools.

Re: High property taxes are good

#43

Post by xhxhsjjsjsnz »

Retric wrote: post #19
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #6

Land value taxes are even better. Property taxes provide a disincentive to making the land more productive. A land value tax would incentivize residential landowners to build more units which provides more supply and would lower rents.

I don’t think that’s a meaningful difference. It would take an extreme property tax to actually incentivize an empty field over productive use of that space. It might in theory make a difference when considering replacing a 40 story building with a 42 story one, but in practice you really don’t see that kind of construction project. In that context pushing for larger jumps before replacement might actually be economi…

It’s not just empty fields. It’s also empty buildings. A grocery store sized unit sat vacant in my San Francisco neighborhood for over a decade. Cheap property tax due to Prop 13. Owners wanted to wait for the “right offer” to develop it.

Re: High property taxes are good

#44

Post by crisdux »

gedy wrote: post #7
vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

> Those of us who can't afford property will shed no tears. You seem to believe the fallacy that not being able to afford a home is other homeowners fault, and not due to poor government planning (likely by the same politicians you willingly vote for.)

I think you are missing something. It's not about blame, that doesn't matter. People are lashing out. It's about anger at the system. It's becoming increasingly obvious that recently a large part of our personal prosperity is based on incumbency. Our government is routinely breaking social contracts which maintain order. That makes people angry at the system, government and their fellow citizens.

Re: High property taxes are good

#45

Post by laverya »

Retric wrote: post #19
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #6

Land value taxes are even better. Property taxes provide a disincentive to making the land more productive. A land value tax would incentivize residential landowners to build more units which provides more supply and would lower rents.

I don’t think that’s a meaningful difference. It would take an extreme property tax to actually incentivize an empty field over productive use of that space. It might in theory make a difference when considering replacing a 40 story building with a 42 story one, but in practice you really don’t see that kind of construction project. In that context pushing for larger jumps before replacement might actually be economi…

Have you ever seen a flat parking lot in the downtown of a US city?

Low property tax (because it's unimproved) plus real estate speculation.

Re: High property taxes are good

#46

Post by mikeyouse »

belligeront wrote: post #39
recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

High property taxes are good on non-owner occupied homes.

This is a regressive tax. It forces higher taxes on renters (as a class, less wealthy than homeowners) than homeowners.

Nah, rents aren't determined by owners' costs (except at the margin where property owners are debating whether to 'stay in the game') - they're determined by bog standard supply/demand and usually set to the maximum rate the market will bear.

Re: High property taxes are good

#47

Post by justinzollars »

This community is deranged. All forms of taxation are messed up, the funds end up in grifters pockets, funding wars, or in black holes.

The last place I want my money is in a politicians pocket. But this community overwhelmingly supports this concept.

If a slave is taxed at 100% and an indentured servant is taxed at 20% - what does that make you?

Re: High property taxes are good

#48

Post by Victerius »

happytoexplain wrote: post #34
vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

There's a reasonable and holistic argument to be made for the generalized version of your position, but specifically wanting people to be removed from their homes by forces they can't control under the rationale, "fuck 'em", is counterproductive and - I don't think it's uncalled for to say - immoral. It's important to have a base level of humanity for people, regardless of what side of which broken social dynamic the…

> removed from their homes by forces they can't control

A caveat here is that many of these people vote against denser zoning in their neighborhood. So, in a way, the appreciation of their primary home is due to factors that they do control.

Re: High property taxes are good

#50

Post by Elof »

Ekaros wrote: post #5
recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

High property taxes are good on non-owner occupied homes.

Also it should be used as tool to increase densification. Just increase if property is not sufficiently dense, maybe to some 20%. At that point people are free to choose either to allow redevelopment to happen or support local community.

Residential real estate represents 5% of the GDP (in the US), 25% of an individuals wealth, and 65% of the homes are owner occupied. A 20% tax even if only for property deemed underdeveloped would bankrupt a ton of people (myself included) and throw the entire market into chaos. Most people who were hit with this wouldn't be able to redevelop because of the expense, so they would be forced to sell. The market would get flooded and drive down the value. Investors would snatch everything up, redevelop, and start driving up rental prices. We need change but this would be horrible in so many ways.
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