[tamimio]

>property taxes

Call it what it is, a perpetual rent.

There's nothing funnier than a lot of people taking some absurd principles for granted when they make no sense at all, property taxes being one of them. So imagine you grind at least 30 years of your life working extra hours or two jobs to pay for an already inflated asset based on speculated prices rather than the actual cost, only to end up with that asset in a perpetual rent agreement where if you stopped paying it you basically don't own it anymore, a rent that also isn't controlled, so you can get screwed in the future like how a lot of people ended up selling their house because their retirement isn't enough to cover such rent.

Make it make sense, the only real winners here are the banks after they collect all that compound interest throughout all these years, and the government taking all these taxes.

[concinds]

Where's the money for local services supposed to come from?

Why should you be allowed to monopolize a piece of finite and scarce resource, land, for free?

Since you think it's a scam, surely you support 100% capital gains taxes on homes? Since old people getting rich off of an unproductive asset, blocking supply to "preserve neighborhood character", and inflating the price of their artificially-scarce goods would be more of a scam?

There's nothing wrong with retirees being forced to sell and downsize. You don't need a family-sized home when you live alone. Property tax is the least unfair tax of them all.

[tamimio]

The government already takes enough taxes. I am sure they can figure it out. In fact, you are already double taxed: once on income tax (which was temporary and only paid on corporate profits, not yours, but that's another story) and then taxed again on what was already taxed through GST, sales tax, VAT, you name it.

>finite

You think land is finite? You do realize you can fit the entire human race - both the ~8 billion people currently alive and the estimated ~100 to 117 billion people who have ever lived- inside the Grand Canyon? We have enough land that every single person could have an entire farm of their own, not to mention the "land isn't enough" argument makes no sense in a country with giant parking lots, and no exceptions are made for people living in apartment blocks.

The solution is simple for what you mentioned at the end: make houses a depreciated asset, not an investment. Investment by concept must always go up, scale, and grow, making it inevitably unsustainable. Japan did it and fixed the entire housing issue for the next generations to come. I am sure we are smart enough to do the same. Housing and land are made to live in, not to invest in, and keeping them empty to gauge prices up.

[concinds]

> The government already takes enough taxes.

Is the deficit a scam too? It does not take enough taxes, you are heavily subsidized and want to be subsidized further.

The argument is simple. Land ownership with no property tax privatizes gains that others must subsidize. Land value comes from government infrastructure for water, electricity, roads, public transportation, which are expensive to maintain. That, and artificial scarcity, is why your house grows in value, which is why people treat it as an investment.

Japan fixed it by having a dying population, which causes other problems.

[tamimio]

The deficit argument is a deflection. The government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending and priority problem. Canada (but also applies to other countries) runs deficits while handing out billions in corporate subsidies and mismanaging public funds consistently. Asking citizens to pay yet another layer of taxation to cover institutional inefficiency isn’t a solution, it’s a blank check with no accountability.

On land value coming from government infrastructure: that’s a partial truth dressed up as a complete argument. In Canada, most land is technically owned by the Crown, meaning you’re already leasing it under various terms depending on how title is held. So the “you’re privatizing public gains” framing already falls apart at the foundation. But let’s humor it anyway: what if I’m fully off-grid? Septic tank, solar panels, private road, self-maintained everything. Does my land value drop? No, it doesn’t, because the value is also artificially inflated by government-controlled permitting, zoning restrictions, and intentional supply suppression. The government is simultaneously the cause of inflated land value and the entity collecting taxes on that inflation. That’s not a neutral tax, that’s a racket.

On Japan: you’re conflating two separate timelines. Japan implemented its housing policies and saw prices stabilize and even decline well before its fertility crisis became the dominant economic story. The Akiya (vacant homes) problem and price normalization were underway as a direct result of policy choices, treating housing as shelter rather than an investment vehicle. The fertility decline accelerated consequences but didn’t create the policy. Meanwhile, Canada’s fertility rate is already comparable to South Korea, one of the lowest in the world, and Canadian housing prices haven’t corrected meaningfully. That alone dismantles whatever argument of “Japan only worked because of demographics”.

And here’s where it gets uncomfortable: the Canadian government has effectively admitted (look it up online, they don’t even hide it) that preserving housing values was a deliberate policy consideration in pushing back against remote work. Commercial real estate, residential landlords leveraged to the hilt, and an economy where housing represents a disproportionate share of GDP all created an incentive to force people back into urban cores. This isn’t conspiracy, it was acknowledged. When your economy is structurally dependent on a housing ponzi scheme, every policy bends toward keeping prices elevated, including taxation that forces lower-income retirees to sell, which conveniently frees up supply without crashing prices.

The honest conclusion is that property tax doesn’t exist to fund services equitably. It exists to keep the machine running for the people who benefit most from it, and that isn’t the person who spent 30 years paying off a mortgage.

[estearum]

Yes you should not be able to own something you had no hand in creating, such as the earth beneath your feet or the productivity of that earth created by your community.

Totally absurd to think that you should!

[lotsofpulp]

>There's nothing funnier than a lot of people taking some absurd principles for granted when they make no sense at all, property taxes being one of them.

>Make it make sense

The cops/judges/prisons/schools/military/etc that maintain a mostly peaceful and ordered society that prevents someone else from walking onto your property and throwing you out costs money, and costs more money every year. The more land you have, the more it costs, since more time, materials, and energy have to be spent moving around all of that surface area you have "own". Surface area is the costliest thing people consume.

Tax on the improvements on the land, as well as earned income tax are the absurd principles.