Sorry, oh the irony is rich.
Owing your home today is nearly impossible, but even if you did the ever increasing property taxes will bury you
Submitted 3 days ago by Mickey7@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/df71fdb1-3bb6-414b-b89a-658fb8efb7e2.jpeg
Comments
pr0sp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
Soleos@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I disagree that it’s an issue. I believe vast majority of people understand what a tax is, even if they feel taxes are shitty and respond with blame-y frustration. All words will be misunderstood by some people. Sometimes more and sometimes fewer. If we kept changing the name of things because a vocal minority of people can’t read a dictionary, then we will end up with a handful of generic words that don’t actually mean anything. I believe a better solution is to envest in education more broadly.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Something I’m beginning to learn is that what I thought was originally the minority is actually the majority and vice versa
Nomecks@lemmy.ca 2 days 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.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The government gets to decide how much the government is allowed to fuck you. Seems fair.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Theoretically, in a democracy, we ARE the government.
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 3 days ago
If his math is right, and assuming that his property tax is about 1-2% of his home’s value per year, then the value of his home has increased about 15-30x the original value.
Its hard to be sympathetic.
LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s difficult to be sympathetic because you are viewing the property as an asset financially. And not as a place to live, he likely does not give a shit that it’s appreciated and value because he has absolutely no intention whatsoever of selling and he plans to live there till he dies and that’s how housing should be viewed
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thank you. Not everything in life is an asset to be leveraged to prop up your own position above those around you.
This psychotic way of thinking has led us to this sorry state. And I don’t just mean the USA.
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I agree with your sentement but sometimes places become gentrified and the original inhabitants can no longer afford to live there.
I’m not saying that it’s good or the way things should be but it is a reality.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If you pay property taxes then the property isn’t yours.
ilega_dh@feddit.nl 2 days ago
As it should. You’re telling me someone can just buy a piece of the earth and everyone born after them is just shit outta luck? Fuck that.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well isn’t that pretty much what my local government did?
Gladaed@feddit.org 2 days ago
Certified psycho. If you think owning a plot of land within a country does not have an opportunity cost you are wrong. If you think people imposing costs on others shouldn’t pay for it say it out loud.
Just go and found your own country already, you just need a gun in order to enforce your ownership. In the end a state is just the monopoly of force in a place.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, this is one of the meanings of “property is theft”. To own land is deny all others that piece of land.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I agree with the point that land is owned by the one strong enough to enforce ownership.
Mickey7@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This is such an excellent point. Exactly when do we get to stop paying for something that we already own
MetalMachine@feddit.nl 2 days 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”
SoulWager@lemmy.ml 2 days 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.
boonhet@lemm.ee 2 days ago
As for appraisal, let people declare what their property is worth, and force them to sell if someone offers 20% more than their claimed value.
Ah yes, force people to move out of their homes. What’s lemmy’s obsession with uprooting families lately?
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Has nothing to do with “uprooting families”. Average American families are not the ones overestimating the values of their property. It’s people like Trump who use overestimated values on their properties in order to hide money and grift people into paying him more than properties are actually worth. And then readjusting to actual values, or lower, in order to dodge taxes.
SoulWager@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Land is a natural resource, and like air or sunlight, nobody deserves to own it more than anybody else.
“But my family has live here for generations!” sounds awful similar to “I deserve it because my great grandfather killed the people that used to live here.”
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Investment company comes in and buys literally everything because they can just offer 20% over value. Now they rent it out for twice as much as your mortgage cost. What are you going to do, not like there are any other houses left.
SoulWager@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Think about what the investment company’s tax rate would look like. They’d be bankrupt instantly.
Heyting@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Socialise the housing market and make sure every person has a roof over their head. It’s the only proven solution to homelessness.
Mickey7@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I really like the self appraisal idea
Dadifer@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah, that guy could sell his house for 5 times what he built it for
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
5? I bought my house a decade ago and it has almost doubled. If he built his house for less than his current property taxes, he would easily get 10x if not higher.
Mickey7@lemmy.world 3 days ago
And then where is going to afford to buy another house to live in?
Dadifer@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Maybe he should stop eating avocado toast
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Property tax hurts landlords and I’m here for that.
What did this guy pay for his house, like 20k?
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 1 day 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 day ago
So you never own your house in China, is what I’m reading in your post.
Bag@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
RangerJosey@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Nobody tell him that in Communist China you pay a small land tax once every 70 years or so.
Actually someone do tell him. I bet that little factoid will flip his entire worldview on its head.
thatradomguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I can’t even afford a dingy studio where I’m at… tf
surph_ninja@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
Diddlydee@feddit.uk 3 days ago
America is such a shitshow.
roguetrick@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Counterpoint: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
Marx was not a fan.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I wish someone had told me this 4 years ago…
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 2 days 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.
angrystego@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You make it sound like it’s either or. The resonable thing to do would be to reduce property taxes for the property the owner lives in and tax even more the additional properties. The goal is for people to be able to afford their homes and at the same time making properties not so attractive as an investment.
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Please refer to the section about the negative effects of reducing property taxes.
WarlockoftheWoods@lemy.lol 3 days ago
If you learn skills such as how to fix shit yourself, owning a house is very obtainable.
Bacano@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Image
WarlockoftheWoods@lemy.lol 3 days ago
Probably harder to build than just fixing an existing house, but do you…
PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The average household income where I live is ~$80k. Excluding the top 5%, it drops to ~$50k. That’s (on average) two full-time workers per household, each making ~$12/hour. Their annual (pre-tax) income would be about $480 per week, or ~$2080 per month each. After taxes, that would be closer to $1450. So likely around $3000 for the household’s monthly budget.
The cheapest homes near me start at $300k. A 30 year mortgage with a 6.5% interest rate and 10% down payment would be almost $2100 per month. That’s assuming they’re able to save the 10% in the first place, and get approved for the loan. It also leaves them with only ~$900 for the entire monthly budget. That’s food, utilities, car payment(s), insurance, childcare, etc…
WarlockoftheWoods@lemy.lol 3 days ago
Yeah I mean I guess I’m biased, pgh housing market hasn’t really be affected and there aren’t massive new housing plans like there are in the west. Here you can buy a house with good bones that needs cosmetic remodeling for 60,000
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Why doesn’t he homestead his home. I know Texas you can and it reduces your taxes. Used to be almost 0 but think that part changed.