Property tax hurts landlords and I’m here for that.
What did this guy pay for his house, like 20k?
Owing your home today is nearly impossible, but even if you did the ever increasing property taxes will bury you
Submitted 1 year ago by Mickey7@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/df71fdb1-3bb6-414b-b89a-658fb8efb7e2.jpeg
Comments
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 year ago
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
I’m really trying to reconcile how the Chinese manage a more equal society while having a fraction of the tools we do; they don’t have property taxes, just a lease you renew every ~70 years, they can’t do QE like we do.
It’s like we have all the tools to delay the trajectory of capitalism, we just choose not to use it.
Speculater@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So you never own your house in China, is what I’m reading in your post.
LordCrom@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So property tax I am ok with, in theory. The people with property in a city should pay for services like fire, schools, police, road maintenance… What gets me is when the city wants more and more for stupid shit like iPads for all students… Every 3 years due to forced upgrades or just old style deprecation over 3 years.
The amount my taxes go up each year is more than any raise I get. Then add on insurance which has gone insane. I paid off my house to avoid a 20k female flood insurance bill because a 1 foot piece of concrete touched a high risk flood zone. A technicality because if I took down a screen patio, then I wouldn’t have to pay.
It’s insane how expensive owning a house has become
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
It doesn’t make sense that cities need to increase property taxes every year though
Property tax revenue should be increasing every year by default without changing the rate simply because houses and properties increase in value every year typically
If property tax is 5% and the town makes $100,000,000, the next year if property value increases by 5% then their revenue goes up 5% as well to $105,000,000 automatically. Why do they need to also increase the tax to 6%?
boonhet@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Every 3 years due to forced upgrades or just old style deprecation over 3 years.
iPads don’t deprecate in 3 years, nor require forced upgrades. They get nowhere near as much support as a regular Linux laptop (which is what schools SHOULD be using) and even less than Windows laptops pre-11, but if they’re being replaced every 3 years, that’s just policy, not an actual need. Currently the oldest supported iPad is going to hit 8 years since release in a month. The newest unsupported one is going to hit 9 in a month. So yes there’s forced upgrades, but that’s in like 8 years.
I work as a software engineer and most companies have had a minimum 3 year lifetime policy for company laptops. Reasoning being, after 3 years there’s a higher chance of failure, and there have been enough advancements in hardware that upgrading might save SOME dev time. If it fails before 3 years, you get a new one. If you want to keep it longer, you can keep it. But if you want a new one, it should be 3 years old first. I don’t get why school iPads need to be replaced this often, but I reckon there might be a lot more wear and tear and THAT could be the reason for a 3 year replacement policy. It’s simpler than just replacing individual units every now and then.
bluewing@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I have taught math for 4 years in my local school. The iPads were used by the 3rd and 4th grade students. And they never left the classrooms and were well supervised during use.
Starting in 5th grade, they were issued Chromebooks. Google Classroom was used for assignments and other communications. And since Mommy and Daddy had to pay for them IF they were damaged, they held up quite well. The IBM Education model is very robust. Not fast, but robust.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I paid off my house to avoid a 20k female flood insurance bill
Female flood sounds interesting
m4xie@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Did they mean FEMA, and autocorrect “completed” it?
Mataresian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Yea generally electronics is depreciated every 3 to 5 years. But I can imagine that after 3 years of children usage they are done for. That aside though, I think what you would be more looking for is a fair tax system.
What I think that the problem with local property taxes is that if a city relies on it too much to pay for everything then this causes too many issues. For a poor city this could mean that if they don’t increase the taxes they can’t afford basic school care which people expect. So they moved to riched areas who can provide that. Or they move because of the higher taxes. This in turn lowers the property value and decreases the taxes further. Which in turn increases the problem.
So I believe the educational budget should be provided by the central government so the same kind of quality in schools is given nationwide. This can of course be applied to other costs a city is making.
In addition to this I think a property tax should be progressive and link to your overall assets. If you just own one house and you don’t have any more assets. Then why should you be taxed as much as somebody who owns a lot more (of course if the house is 2m and you’re living of social security it is a different story. L
thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Top down education doesn’t work, that’s how we get stuck with schools that have massive IT budgets with little to show for them. Most teachers don’t use anything beyond spreadsheets and Youtube.
I don’t think that there is an easy fix.
I’d like to think local autonomy would help, so small communities could design their own curriculum, but I’m too much of a pessimist and see such experiments failing quickly because of corruption and incompetence.commander@lemmings.world 1 year ago
Yea generally electronics is depreciated every 3 to 5 years.
Not really.
But I can imagine that after 3 years of children usage they are done for. That aside though
It’d be cheaper to protect the devices with cases and screen protectors.
Quadhammer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dont forget increased pay for public servants who more and more act like they dont work for the public
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
My dad literally went to the city and argued against them raising the book value of his home, which would cause him to have to pay more in property tax.
He won too.
That loon.
bluewing@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You certainly can argue about your property taxes and win concessions if you have a good reason. It’s not hard to do. You just need to get off your ass and attend the annual tax assessment meeting.
It’s why that annual meeting exists.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I had no idea that was a thing… Mainly because it’s never been relevant to me… At least, until recently.
Thanks for the info.
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Did he go to city council chambers, or did he just vaguely go into the city itself and start arguing with people?
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I was not provided details as to what he did to argue it, or who he spoke to.
… That being said, I don’t think it was the latter example you gave
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
i mean, this is less of a property tax issue and more of a social security thing.
Though i am pretty fundamentally against property tax, it’s a physical thing that i can own, i don’t see why i should pay taxes on it. If you want to tax me just hit me with income tax.
Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Property has infrastructure like water, roads, electrical, sewers, etc running to it that needs to be maintained. It also has things like fire fighting police surveyors etc that need to be paid in order to maintain society. Everyone could work in a city therefore the city/county/state would collect the income tax but the local town you live in doesn’t get any of that money.
thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Roads that are too big, house that are too spread out.
Police because stores refuse to hire their own security and offload it to onto your property tax.
Sewers because dumb people are too stupid to compost properly, and now we need chemicals on farm fields since the traditional method of composting is dead.
Garbage trucks and landfills because companies sell you wrappers and containers that outlive the products and are made from toxic waste.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
People need to stop thinking about property like it’s any other regular thing like a vehicle.
Land is not a thing it is a limited resource.
If someone owns a piece of land in a city it doesn’t matter what they are currently doing with it, even if they do nothing with it, that’s wasting potential that someone else could be doing with it and affects everyone around that piece of land.
Brosplosion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Cause you don’t own it. You are borrowing it from the government.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
income tax.
the wealthy dodge this by a bunch of schemes that don’t count as ‘income’.
I hate paying property tax, but reckon it’s the only way to get money out of the fortunate ones that are lucky enough to own a chunk.
ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And the bigger the chunk, the more they owe.
bluewing@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s pretty easy to dodge property taxes also.
m0darn@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
It’s a wealth tax on wealth that’s very difficult to hide.
pr0sp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Sorry, oh the irony is rich.
Hiatus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This isn’t a discussion on property tax, it’s more about social security. There is no reason we cannot scale taxes/fines to income. Many countries pull this off…
meliaesc@lemmy.world 1 year ago
We would need to make sure all loopholes are closed for wealthy people just using investments to harvest losses… Trump only needed to pay $750 in taxes on his “taxable” income one year.
Crikeste@lemm.ee 1 year ago
bUt tHeN nO oNe wOuLd bE iNcEnTiViSeD tO wOrK oR bEcOmE wEaLtHy
thatradomguy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I can’t even afford a dingy studio where I’m at… tf
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
So he bought a house for 6k 50 years go and now has to pay 2k in property taxes each year. If he was renting that wouldn’t cover two months.
Does he also complain that the sales tax on candy bar is more than he used to pay for a candy bar when he first bought his house?
thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You have to think more like Trump, LOL. The rich don’t pay any taxes through the use of loopholes. Why should you. Slum lords should be forced to pay taxes, not working class schmo that needs a roof over their heads. Tax the slum lords.
bluewing@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I went and argued my taxes at my annual township tax assessment meeting. I was being assessed for a new deck and ramp. That added about $200 to my taxes. What I did do was move the wheelchair ramp out away from the house a bit for better winter time safety and repaired the steps, ramp boards, and railings.
Should I have been taxed for a whole new deck and ramp when I just did repairs and made safety changes?
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“I don’t understand how inflation works and I’m blaming government for it”
grue@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If the property tax scales with inflation and social security is also adjusted for inflation, but your property tax is getting more expensive relative to your social security income, something’s not right.
candybrie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The real problem if that’s the scenario is that his social security check is less than $100/month.
MetalMachine@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Property taxes always made me think that you don’t actually own it, rather its a different form of rent based on property value. I know its the not the same as renting as you have stored value if you sell, but its difficult to call it “ownership”
Bag@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
sfu@lemm.ee 1 year ago
[deleted]deltamental@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yes, we can cover the resulting tax shortfall by increasing the tax on single mothers, first-generation low-income homebuyers, and renters.
Look at the result of California’s tax policy (which was designed with aims similar to yours): an entire generation of young people will never be able to afford a home in the place they grew up in, while millionaire retirees get a huge tax break while making thousands renting out spare rooms in their massive houses on AirBnB.
These kinds of special tax carve outssound nice in theory, because it seems like you are just “not taking money from old and disabled people”, but that tax burden falls on everyone else, as does the massive distortion of the market. You are in fact taking more money from other people, who may be hurting even more.
And don’t tell me, “We’ll fund it by a tax on the rich”. If that’s your proposal, get that tax on the rich passed, and dole out the proceeds to elderly at risk of homelessness. Have it officially be budgeted, so that we can decide if keeping an elderly person in their $2.1m 5 bedroom home is worth cuts elsewhere. As of now, such policies are mostly robbing middle class young people blind.
boonhet@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’m gonna have to agree with you here.
There’s a better special tax carve out: Don’t require tax for the primary residence. The owner MUST be registered as living at that address. Not a family member. The owner.
Okay if you have family you can have a few more homes, but realistically, if you own 10 or 20 homes, how many people can you REALLY trust to have full ownership of them instead of you? You’re going to have to start paying tax at some point.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Solution build excess housing below cost until real estate prices go down.
SippyCup@feddit.nl 1 year ago
at the primary residence up to .25 acres. Anything more than that should be taxed as normal.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Farms & ranches would have to be exempt. There are some cases where it’s legit important to have a large land area.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
.25 acres? Can we up that to at least an acre. I need a place for my chickens to roam and to plant my gardens, and I prefer to have a fire pit with outdoor patio furniture and a grill. Many places an acre is the standard plot size.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I wish someone had told me this 4 years ago…
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s the thing about increasing home prices nobody talks about. It increases the “value” of your home, so you’re taked more.
When my parents retired, they didn’t move out to the country to get away from the city life. They did it because it saved them 40 grand a year in property taxes.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Depending on area 40k property tax means a 3-4M house. Poor rich people!
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The house was about 180 when they bought it, then climbed in value over time to the point they had to move due to taxes. The combination of city, county, 2 separate MUDs, school, ESD, health district, and other taxes didn’t help either.
The school taxes alone were nearly 2% of the value of their home. When your home quaruples in valueshoppingthe area around you gets ritzy, that adds up.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Where the fuck did they live? What was the rate home value and rate? That’s insane.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s really not that crazy in some areas.
They had municipal taxes, county taxes, school district taxes (when massive school bonds pass every single year without fail that one can really add up), emergency service district taxes, Water District taxes, Healthcare District taxes.
That shit adds up when the value of your property doubles every 3 years like it has been doing in Texas.
KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They dangle the carrot of “home ownership” as if anyone ever owns a home that can be taken away for not paying taxes.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 1 year ago
TBH, property taxes could be a necessary evil, like only imposing them above a certain number of owned homes, to curb some companies buying up homes en masse to control the rent market, but I have a weird feeling they might not be the ones paying these taxes.
see_i_did@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Lots of countries have property taxes that are more reasonable because they focus on city services like trash pickup and stuff. The problem is property taxes are tied to education in the US and in many states the higher the property taxes the better the schools, the more exclusive the neighborhood, etc.
Septapus@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Agreed with # of homes owned as well as square footage/meters. A mansion should be hit hard by taxes.
absentbird@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I don’t think taxes negate ownership.
If you rent you need permission for every modification, every pet, even for something like planting a garden.
Ownership can be conditional; you can own a domain, but if you don’t pay the renewal fee it can be taken away; you can own a car, but if you drive it without paying your registration it can be impounded; you can own a business, but if you don’t pay your license renewal it can be revoked.
Owning something doesn’t mean it can never be taken away or that you don’t need to do anything to keep it.
commander@lemmings.world 1 year ago
Property taxes also aren’t egregious if you don’t live in an expensive house in an expensive area.
The problem is that most of ya’ll have been conditioned to think “that’s not good enough for you” even when you can’t afford more. Then entitlement kicks in where you think you deserve more before others who have less and before you know it, Bernie loses the nomination and we’re stuck with a trump presidency.
FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 1 year ago
To be fair this dude could have gotten his house 45 years ago for 50K. So adjusting for inflation and overall development of hus, it could make sense. Comparing current payments to cost of money 40 years ago is comparing apples ro oranges.
Now all that being said…there is a serious issue with cost and availability of housing, and I am not dismissing that. I’m just saying context is needed
kersplomp@programming.dev 1 year ago
Property tax is the big thing that forces people to engage with capitalism against their will.
Without property tax, you could live off-grid for eternity. But with property tax, you always have to earn money, and the people that control that money therefore control you.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You’d have to earn the money to purchase your off-grid setup in the first place.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Outside of fantasy no that is just nonsense
surph_ninja@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What type of community will his home exist in if everyone stops paying taxes?
Boomers underfunded the schools and shit around here to get out of taxes. Now that they’re ready to move to Florida, they don’t understand why no one wants to buy their house.
MordercaSkurwysyn@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I don’t know his situation but I think primary residence up to certain value shouldn’t be taxed at all. There’s a huge difference between an old man living alone in a house he had built for his family 60 years ago and an “investor” who owns entire neighbourhoods.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 year ago
How big is his house? How much is it worth now?
How much did he pay for the land it sits on? Or did he inherit that?
Who does he think maintains road networks and all the other infrastructure he relies on?
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think an issue is that taxes are not seen for what they are. The government and agency work on our behalf but don’t get paid until I pay my taxes. Maybe the local government just needs to send these bills to people’s houses instead and get rid of taxes altogether.
Nomecks@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Property tax rates are based on how much your city/county needs to operate. Property values change, but so do mill rates. Most cities aren’t allowed to take surplus tax, so they tweak the mill rate when property values fluctuate.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
While I do think there should be some relief for some people as far as property taxes are concerned… living in a town or city gives a person access to many local government subsided services. Firefighters, and ambulances are some simple ones that everyone uses. Roads as well. And the cost of that does increase over time. Basing a person’s contributions to paying for that based on the value of thier property is just easier for local governments, and more stable. But it doesn’t really corelate with the use of those services. Nor with income or ability to pay.
Life necessities really shouldn’t be taxed at most levels. Food, shelter, water, heat, medical care. Most already aren’t. But housing still is. Investment properties should be taxed of course, but an average primary residence really shouldn’t be.qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 year ago
California disagrees: …wikipedia.org/…/1978_California_Proposition_13
Property tax is assessed when there’s a sale, and otherwise changes very slowly. It’s a controversial measure.
michaelmrose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Comparing property taxes now in 2025 dollars to unadjusted original cost in 1950 dollars is nonsensical. The two numbers bear no relation nor should they.
The average social security check is $1,978 a month or $23,736 per annum. Half of that is $11,868. Lets suppose he lives in CA where the annual rate for owner occupied is 0.74%. His house would be worth approx 1.6 million dollars. To to be clear he is whining about paying the appropriate and legal tax on his fully owned 1.6M cash hoard. This is a great problem to have.
If its that burdensome he can cash out and even with rent payments for the rest of his life live great even if he has no other savings of any sort.
Looks like about $5800 a month gradually increasing with inflation for at least 25 years.
If he has another $400,000 which seems super likely since I don’t think he’s actually living in his 1.6M house on $12,000 a year it could be more than 7500 a month.
If we add a little realism and only include another 15 years he could probably actually withdraw about 11,000 a month.
kiplinger.com/…/average-monthly-social-security-c… www.tax-rates.org/…/property-tax-by-state
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There are a lot of people suffering right now to the extent that his plight seems so frivolous.
I’ll bet hes a republican voting for deficit which results in raised taxes on people like himself.
SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Eh, probably paid like 25k for a house that’s worth 500k now. Really what we need to do is make property taxes scale more aggressively, so it isn’t economical to hoard more resources than you can actually use. Maybe something like annual tax owed = (value of all real estate owned by one person)^2/10,000,000. Perhaps with a grace period for new construction/renovations.
sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 year ago
Remember - america is not a country, it’s a business.
If you can’t make it - noone gonna do shitRunawayFixer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And this is why in most civilized countries, progressive income taxes make up the majority of the government budget. Basing taxes on non income/investment related metrics screws over the poor + lower middle class. It’s a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Using retirees as a tool to work against property taxes has historically been an effective strategy, but it’s important to remember:
- What we’re actually trying to accomplish
- Will the proposed change be effective in accomplishing the goal
- Will the change have other consequences that are negative to the extent where the potential benefits outweigh the consequences in aggregate
- Are there any alternative means to accomplish the original goal
One-by-one:
What we’re actually trying to accomplish
Seems to me that the root question is one of housing affordability, in particular for retirees, who may have a lot of assets, but limited cash flow
Will the proposed change be effective in accomplishing the goal
Reducing/capping property taxes does indeed make it easier for some retirees to keep affording their homes, but reducing property taxes makes real estate a more lucrative investment, driving up the overall prices of real estate. This applies for both private persons intending to use the property to live in, for private persons looking seek rent, and corporate actors doing the same. Messing with property taxes is a large part of the housing affordability issue present in many places in the U.S and elsewhere (zoning laws being another major contributor, in particular those mandating single family homes, and lack of public housing being the other major contributor). Hence, this change would only benefit those lucky enough to have purchased a home in the past, at the expense of all retirees not already that lucky, which are now less likely to be able to do so.
Will the change have other consequences that are negative to the extent where the potential benefits outweigh the consequences in aggregate
Apart from driving up the prices of real estate for other retirees, everyone else interested in purchasing a home will also feel this broad increase in prices. This has led to large swaths of the population being effectively priced out of home ownership. This has the second order effect of making owning rentals more lucrative, as higher rents can be charged, further exacerbating the larger problem of housing affordability, but now also for even poorer people.
Finally, reductions in real estate taxes limit what public services can be funded through their use. In the U.S, this primarily means schools, infrastructure, firefighting, transit etc, all of which are suffering a lot in quality, much as a consequence of having messed with property taxes in the past.
There’s a very, very strong case to be made that the consequences have very much outweighed the benefits in this scenario. I would even say that they have been devastating, being part of the root cause of a large amount of issues seen today.
Are there any alternative means to accomplish the original goal
There clearly are good means to tackle this problem in other ways, the principal of which I believe should be massive public investment in social housing. By building a huge supply of high quality homes affordable to everyone, we make sure no one will have to be forced to go without an acceptable home, regardless of whether they are retired or not.
The second strategy should be to entirely remove the kind of zoning laws that have contributed to the kind of increase in housing prices seen today - mandating that only single family homes should be allowed to be built on massive lots with low utilization is hugely harmful to housing affordability.
These two measures would address housing prices having gone up in the way they have historically, which would also lead to property taxes not rising in such a dramatic fashion.
What should never be done, however, is reducing or capping property taxes.
Cocopanda@futurology.today 1 year ago
People that complain about taxes. I’ll agree you don’t pay taxes. But you don’t use any roads to travel. Ever again.
m4xie@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Or fire services.
TheTurner@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I work with one of those people. He’s a dipshit. He thinks time is controlled by satellites and clouds are made by cloud machines. Also, the earth is flat and no one has left it because of the dome.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Mine him for Sci-fi stories.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 year ago
That’s the only issue with the opt-in taxes idea. But seriously, why should the rest of us be punished because they don’t want taxes? Just have the destructive people who say taxation is theft, well…live with no government services, 100% dependent on corporations. Taxes should be opt-in. And that means, those who opt out will have no medical service, no public sewage system, no disability or welfare. We can let them have the roads as gratis, just to keep the peace. They will quickly realize how stupid and evil their system really is, when they are the only ones suffering from it.
gabbath@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This sounds nice but in practice will backfire. You need the systems to be universal, so that everyone, including the richest, have a stake in wanting to see them improved. Otherwise you’ll get a two tiered system where the public versions are trash because they’re underfunded and the private versions (what the rich use) are great but also expensive af.
You want things to work like insurance, where everyone pays in but only the people who need them use it. I want Musk to pay a fuckton into Social Security, not nothing at all because he doesn’t use it. Even now there’s a problem with Social Security in particular because, even though everyone has to pay it, it puts a cap/limit on how much you pay, so Musk currently ends up paying his share in the first day of the year, and his contribution amounts to the same as a teacher or something.
Universal programs with progressive taxation, that’s the way. Low taxes at the bottom, high taxes at the top.