Comment by larkost
8 hours ago
Why is it unfair to tax a property that is receiving services at a rate proportional to its value? One part of the value of the police service this is paying for is for protecting your property, and certainly that is more valuable the more valuable your property is.
And one value of property taxes (one that is dysfunctional on empty lots) is that it encourages "maximum" use of high value property (lots of bad particulars here, but the overall direction is about right). While we may dislike an elderly person being effectively forced out of the home they have lived in for decades, it is usually for more "productive" uses (for the market definition of productive).
As an example my in-laws have three properties in Hungary that are empty, and have been for quite a few years. Cumulatively they get something like ten weeks of use in a year. But since Hungary does not have property taxes there is almost no incentive to make better use of these properties (yes, they could rent them out for an advantage, but there is no disadvantage pushing them to sell).
The argument of empty lots imo doesn't hold. See NYC and other cities where all homeless could be housed in currently sitting empty properties.
It is a problem though, I doubt a property tax is a solution, the proof is, it doesn't solve it.
I wouldn't be against taxing owners on their income, including dividends. To fund municipalities.
My argument isn't that taxes are bad. Public services need funding. Rather, that certain taxes are absurd.
If anything, this particular tax serves one thing that the working class on rental denounces: prime real estate neighborhoods typically are better policed, have better schools, and better infrastructure than what we call "poorer" area.
Edit: I don't imply it is due solely to this tax, but the concept of taxing properties imo makes redistributions naturally or cynically more localized to areas where more gets collected.