[chii]

> Anyone can buy [it]

i think that can open up some issues with people's assets that also have sentimental value.

I think instead of "anyone", it should be just the govt. If your appraisal seems too low, then the gov't reserves the right to purchase the asset instead of charging you the owed tax.

[Nition]

Not just things with sentimental value but just anything you're still using as well. It sounds like you'd be living in fear any time you invited someone over that they'd start saying they'll buy your frying pan and your second couch or something. And you'd have to let them buy it.

Then you have to go to the shops and buy new stuff... or just go over to their house the next day and buy it all back at the same price. Maybe see if they've got any other good stuff that isn't worth much while you're there.

Or you could just buy it back immediately when they buy it from you, stuck in an infinite While loop of ownership.

[ljf]

Why would they want to buy your frying pan? Is the value you've given it very low, making it cheaper to buy yours than another one? Is there a shortage of frying pans, increasing the value of yours?

[oconnor663]

People are often angry with each other and eager to hurt each other in any legal way available. (Ask your friendly neighborhood divorce lawyer for their stories.) This sort "anyone can take your stuff if they're irrational enough" would be very easy to exploit to make someone's life miserable. And the problem only gets worse if you imagine a normal person making a very rich person angry.

[Nition]

Thank you, you said it better than me. Any system where anyone can take someone's stuff without their consent, even for a price, would never work.

[Nition]

They see you have a good pan and want one that's the same. Buying yours is less effort than going to the shops and faster than ordering one.

Obviously social decorum would usually prevent this scenario, but the fear of possibility remains.

[puszczyk]

Maybe that firing pan is owned by a rockstar ?

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Its trivial to limit this rule to assets that the government tracks transfers of

For example cars, land, air rights, real property.

This would also settle the issue of eminent domain once and for all. Put up or shut up.

[yardstick]

I wouldn’t even trust the government with this ability. Also what will the government do with these assets? Hoard them forever? Or eventually sell them back into the market. I can imagine govt employees receiving kick backs for seizing assets this way and selling them to their friend.

[lmm]

> Also what will the government do with these assets? Hoard them forever? Or eventually sell them back into the market. I can imagine govt employees receiving kick backs for seizing assets this way and selling them to their friend.

Presumably the government would auction them (as is done with seized proceeds of crime etc.). So there is no way to hand them off to a friend for a below-market price, and no way to profitably kickback.

[sukilot]

Auctions are already used today as a way for government and unethical entities to steal from the public. This is an epidemic in civil forfeiture for alleged crimes, and in property tax seizures for cash poor-homeowners.

[lmm]

The problem in those scenarios isn't the auction, it's the seizure without compensation.

[RepAgent]

Is there a reason why sentimental value should not be taxed?

I mean, you would not extend the taxation to personal holdings with little value or moderate value (automatic tax deduction of $2,000 per person from COST would probably be enough) but if someone wants to keep something very valuable for sentimental reasons, why the feeling should not have a value put on it?

[harimau777]

A couple of thoughts:

The question can easily be turned around: why should sentimental value be taxed?

It seems to me that protecting the things that are important to someone is a core purpose of society. Forcing someone to choose between the security of the things that are important to them and their financial wellbeing would undermine that.

The justifications for a high tax rate don't seem to apply to inheritance of items that have high sentimental value but low utility. Since the property does not have great utility, taxing it does not moderate income inequality due to inheriting capital. Both the idea of a higher tax rate on people who have more and the idea that it is justified to tax things higher that people didn't earn seem like an odd match for property that is high in sentimental value.

[lmm]

The tax burden is supposed to fall on those who are most able to bear it. Funding our society necessarily means inflicting a certain amount of misery on the citizens; the tax rates are supposed to share that misery out in a more-or-less equitable way.

Someone who has a lot of valuable things is better off than someone who doesn't, and so we demand a greater share of tax from them. It seems to me that that logic goes through exactly the same whether that value is nominal or sentimental.

[justin66]

> The justifications for a high tax rate don't seem to apply to inheritance of items that have high sentimental value but low utility.

There's nothing accurate about saying an expensive work of art has "low utility."

(and as I pointed out in a separate comment, an inexpensive work of art won't be taxed heavily so the whole point is moot)

[barrkel]

Because it gives wealthy people power to take things that poor people love.

[sukilot]

The solution for that is to tax wealthy people more.

[RepAgent]

As I said, there is no reason to extend tax to personal property. If poor people owns something valuable, they stop being poor when wealthy people take it.

The distinction between personal property or personal possessions and private property is important to make and the line must be drawn.

[chii]

> If poor people owns something valuable, they stop being poor when wealthy people take it.

if you owned some land which could've been mined/fracked upon, then it might make economic sense for said company to purchase your land. You'd have to either pay an above average tax rate to justify holding on to the land, or be forced to sell it.

On the one hand, it does make economic utilitarian sense. On the other hand, it prevents people from being able to control their own property. Esp. if they have no funds to fight or defend themselves.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

You foeget eminent domain.

The stack is already against the homeowner who lacks lobbyists to fight back

This achieves more of a level playing field.

[yardstick]

“If poor people owns something valuable, they stop being poor when wealthy people take it”

Only if you accept the money given makes up for the loss. Money does not make someone rich. It may put bread on the table but that poor person is still poor because they lost what was important to them.

Also the rich don’t get rich by paying more than they have to, which may not be what the property is worth to the original owner.

[seniorsassycat]

The amount they would have to value it at so they could afford the tax if they have to pay it may too low to turn them into a wealthy person if a wealthy person chooses to buy it.

[gerhardi]

Taxing sentimental value would be a perfect way to make the poor even poorer.. I don’t like the idea. Why would someone want to do this?

[RepAgent]

Did you understand the tax deduction part?

You can set the number so that if poor person must pay tax, he actually is moderately wealthy.

[gerhardi]

Yes and still, the idea of taxing sentimental value feels as absurd as tax on level of life satisfaction or something similar.

[C1sc0cat]

Your Granddads MOH or Victoria Cross for example

[dragonwriter]

Sentimental value is value and is factored in when declaring value; you are taxing the value to the owner.

> I think instead of "anyone", it should be just the govt. If your appraisal seems too low, then the gov't reserves the right to purchase the asset instead of charging you the owed tax.

For intellectual property (only), I've suggested in the past a version of this where anyone can buy it at the declared value, but it can only be bought into the public domain, which is sort of a hybrid of the anybody can buy and only the government can buy ideas.

In the more general case, an alternative is “anyone can offer to buy with a bid at or above the declared value, but unless it is the government exercising eminent domain you can refuse by increasing the declared value above the bid, posting back taxes as if the declared value for the current tax year were the new value, and for prior years as if the value had increased on some legally defined schedule over a set window of years (say, 5) or since you acquired the item, whichever is shorter, including a time-based penalty for all the ubderpayments.”