By applying a tax to a _thing_ that someone owns, you are saying 'actually, this thing you have is mine, and if you don't pay me for the privilege of having it, I will take it away from you'.
Property tax pays for maintaining the utilities and services connected to the property. If you buy land that is completely unconnected from public services, you will find that the corresponding property taxes are extremely low.
Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but who pays for the roads to houses in the suburbs and why is it the people living in apartments that don't use many roads?
I'm not saying taxes are bad. I'm saying specifically that taxing property itself is bad. If someone 'owns' a thing, why would they pay rent to some landlord (the state)?
I acknowledge that I'm indulging in equivocation by saying 'assessing taxes from property is essentially paying rent to the state'. I assert that the equivocation is valid because the outcomes of not paying rent and not paying property taxes is the same: you get evicted.
This depends on what you mean by "own". We have property rights, which are colloquially referenced as "ownership" but, by definition, these are rights and don't exist outside the state, which enforces them. So yes, your rights are given to you by the state and you don't really have any without the state enforcing them. If you could naively own your property then you could just tell the tax collectors to fuck off, what are they going to do with your property if it had been truly yours?
> So yes, your rights are given to you by the state and you don't really have any without the state enforcing them.
This ignores the Constitution and the acknowledgement of 'inalienable rights'.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, [...]
In essence, the government of the United States derives its power from the governed, and otherwise wields no true power. The Constitution of this nation is written specifically limiting powers of the government, and not enumerating the rights of the people.
> If you could naively own your property then you could just tell the tax collectors to fuck off, what are they going to do with your property if it had been truly yours?
Yes. This is where the second and fourth amendments to the constitution are important. True sovereignty (not in the sense of that 'sovereign citizen' nonsense) comes with martial ability; that is, the right to take another life. Sovereignty is necessarily paired with 'power', as without it, there isn't any true ability to protect one's rights.
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All that said, I'm appealing to an ideal when I say 'property tax is theft'.
I imagine you wanted to say "ignores the Declaration of Independence", which you quoted? Sure, if you believe that this declaration endowed you with the unalienable property rights then just go ahead and don't pay the property tax, what is going to happen if your property rights are truly unalienable, right?
Also, how theft would be even possible if property rights had been unalienable? If someone stole from you and you retained your property rights you could just keep enjoying your property and exclude the thief from your property as the right entitles you.
I know this is a facetious dismissal, but I'll try to respond anyway.
> I imagine you wanted to say "ignores the Declaration of Independence", which you quoted?
Correct.
> Sure, if you believe that this declaration endowed you with the unalienable property rights then just go ahead and don't pay the property tax, what is going to happen if your property rights are truly unalienable, right?
I'm not advocating for breaking laws, regulations, or rules of the nation I live in.
> Also, how theft would be even possible if property rights had been unalienable? If someone stole from you and you retained your property rights you could just keep enjoying your property and exclude the thief from your property as the right entitles you.
This is less about the pragmatics of 'possession' and its intricacies (the old adage 'possession is 9/10s of the law' is relevant here), and more about the policies of the governments that rule, and ultimately that answer to the people they rule.
If I am advocating for anything, it is change in laws and the appropriate limits on government to limit the levying of taxes on possessed things. In this case, land.
In the UK, a leaseholders get screwed if they forget to renew their lease before the 80 year mark.
The cost to develop the land needs to justify the development. If I spent $500k to build a house on the land, I would like to be able to use that house for as long as the house exists (or I sell it to re-coop the investment).
Many people are really bad at saving properly, but they will pay their mortgage. Landownership enables at least some old people to have a cushion in retirement.
You're mixing a house as personal property with the much broader claim of private property on land.
It is possible to protect those two uses you mentioned, and other reasonable uses of land, without at the same time spending state resources in enforcing perpetual, absolute, hereditary, exclusive titles on plots of land.
Sounds fine to me! I mean, it depends on how much the person owns. But I'm fine just saying "you own too much, you don't get to own that much anymore".
I've had annual property taxes as low as $1/acre.