In 2021/2022 there were 60 people in the UK who probably fall into that last group. Together their taxes accounted for about 1.4% of the UK tax bill despite being something like 0.002% of the population.
Are you familiar with the concept of noblesse oblige?
Further does this include all taxes or just income taxes which are only a portion of revenues used to make less well off people look like moochers.
For instance, in the US, there’s social security and Medicare taxes -- and payroll tax, the social security and Medicare tax contributed on behalf of employees by employers. Renters also pay their landlords property taxes. Sales taxes, tariffs, etc are all born by end users.
Your statement is technically correct. It's also technically correct to say that diners, not restaurant owners, pay sales taxes.
The reality is more nuanced. Introducing a sales tax on restaurant meals affects both diners and restaurant owners: restaurant owners can't pass on the whole increase to diners, and diners cannot afford to go out as much.
Similarly, property tax levels influence landlords' decisions to enter or exit the rental market, impacting housing supply and, consequently, tenant rents.
'Paying' a tax has two distinct meanings:
- Who bears the economic burden after the tax is introduced
I appreciate your nuance, as mixing up economic burden and legal responsibility for taxes is a common fallacy in discussions. But specifically for rents in supply-constrained cities, i would guess that supply is highly inelastic, therefore market rate of rents is already as high as acceptable by renters (i.e. determined by demand curve) and therefore property tax would not affect it much.
This is a silly distinction because by that standard you could equally say that my employer pays my rent because they are the source of income which I use to pay it.
Property tax in the US is a liability of the owner. This is in contrast to other systems like the UK where it is a liability of the occupant.
The incidence of taxation is a well-studied concept in economics, with a solid theoretical foundation and empirical evidence backing it.
You dismiss its application as a 'silly distinction' and repeat the fallacy that the incidence of taxation falls on the party who is legally liable.
If you don't believe me, and don't want to read up on 'tax incidence', consider what would happen if sales tax were paid by retailers instead of customers. Would the flow of money change at all? Would any party be worse off or better off?
This is an entirely ridiculous argument. Who actually ‘writes the check’ is actually important in a discussion about who writes the check, despite the fungibility of money. Renters don’t pay the owners property taxes in the US, even if they pay rent. Full stop.
Why this matters is because in some cases, owners can end up ‘under water’ with even rent not covering property taxes in the US.
Some say that the owners should be permitted to pass that tax bill along to the renter in the form of increased rent. Can't someone think of the poor starving landlords?
Seriously though. Renters pay the property tax, even if they don't get to see the bill.
There's a simple way to visualize why is not true:
You're renting a property for $1000/mo. Whatever the owner is paying for property taxes, you don't know.
Then, property taxes go up by $200/mo. Do you think your rent won't go up by at least $200/mo as a direct consequence of the tax increase? Because it will. Because the renter is of course paying for all costs, including those taxes.
> Then, property taxes go up by $200/mo. Do you think your rent won't go up by at least $200/mo as a direct consequence of the tax increase? Because it will. Because the renter is of course paying for all costs, including those taxes.
So, before property taxes went up, the landlord could have raised rents by $200/month, but hadn't because..?
Rent does not go up because your landlord has to compete with a landlord one town over where the tax didn't go up and so if your rent goes up you will just move.
Your landlord knows moving is a hassle that you'll avoid if it means paying a little more. So he raises it just enough that you won't just pack up the Uhaul and go live there. Then over the next few years, he does the same again, when he can, until he recoups the property tax, or near enough of it.
Some landlords are bad at guessing the correct numbers. Others are savants. In aggregate, renters end up paying almost all of it over time if not immediately, and those that don't end up suffering in other ways (when the landlord just stops paying the tax entirely, but taking your rent, the building gets sold, and you don't get to renew the lease because they're going to knock it down and build luxury condos).
In Singapore and a few other places. However in the US housing is not a government monopoly (sometimes low income housing is). You can always find a landlord in a different town. No need for a new job as you still live in the same metropolitan area.
No it won't. The rent will not go up until the lease is up. And at that point it still won't necessarily go up by 200 bucks because that's just not how markets work.
> In 2021/2022 there were 60 people in the UK who probably fall into that last group. Together their taxes accounted for about 1.4% of the UK tax bill despite being something like 0.002% of the population.
How much wealth do they have compared to other population?
By summing up the top 60 entries for UK billionares from The Times Rich List for 2024 (which is data from 2023), I get almost exactly 500 billion pounds in net worth (£499.55bn). According to Wikipedia, the UK had a total net worth of $15,972bn USD, which comes out to £12,298bn at the current exchange rate of 0.77 pounds / dollar.
That comes out to around 4.1% of the total wealth. However, the number from Wikipedia is from 2022, so this figure isn't going to be entirely accurate.
Further does this include all taxes or just income taxes which are only a portion of revenues used to make less well off people look like moochers.
For instance, in the US, there’s social security and Medicare taxes -- and payroll tax, the social security and Medicare tax contributed on behalf of employees by employers. Renters also pay their landlords property taxes. Sales taxes, tariffs, etc are all born by end users.