I don't like paying property tax any more than anyone, but it's necessary. Without property tax, there is no cost to holding property, which means land hoarding. With property tax, you own as much as you need and that's it. Besides that it's the main funding source for city infrastructure.
Maybe the solution is to make tax liens non-foreclosing on primary residences.
They accrue with interest. And they automatically accelerate on sale or collateralisation. But if you and your heirs continue to live in the property, don’t sell it, and don’t borrow against it, it isn’t something the government goes after you for. (You could let local governments borrow against or even sell these claims.)
I think that is a sensible solution to keep the elderly in their homes, but misses the point, which is the government claim on the land.
For people on the more libertarian end of the spectrum, use taxes, income taxes, and even residency taxes are more palatable. This is because the point of taxation is supposedly voluntary social interaction. Similar sentiments exists across the political spectrum, just two different degrees. It is the same principle under which people even on the left object to being taxed for consuming solar power that they themselves generated
> Migrants are simultaneously eating up all taxpayer dollars
Migrants are fiscally profitable in a way e.g. native-born high-school dropouts and their descendants are not [1]. (Note the source. Not usually pro immigration.)
To a native with no other access to unequal markets, there's no reason not to spend. Their Big Mac per hour ratio is only getting worse and saving won't change that.
Give those people the same relative windfall sums and some will accelerate spending, others will invest.
That will never work anyway. Migrants could switch to crypto or other methods. The levy would probably end up hitting business transactions if anything.
In a recent post on his Substack, Diamond quipped that every time the topic comes up, "folks get all twisted into knots over how we’re going to pay for the things those taxes currently pay for — frankly, they’re missing the point."
I don't like paying property tax any more than anyone, but it's necessary. Without property tax, there is no cost to holding property, which means land hoarding. With property tax, you own as much as you need and that's it. Besides that it's the main funding source for city infrastructure.
Maybe the solution is to make tax liens non-foreclosing on primary residences.
They accrue with interest. And they automatically accelerate on sale or collateralisation. But if you and your heirs continue to live in the property, don’t sell it, and don’t borrow against it, it isn’t something the government goes after you for. (You could let local governments borrow against or even sell these claims.)
I think that is a sensible solution to keep the elderly in their homes, but misses the point, which is the government claim on the land.
For people on the more libertarian end of the spectrum, use taxes, income taxes, and even residency taxes are more palatable. This is because the point of taxation is supposedly voluntary social interaction. Similar sentiments exists across the political spectrum, just two different degrees. It is the same principle under which people even on the left object to being taxed for consuming solar power that they themselves generated
> use taxes, income taxes, and even residency taxes are more palatable
One could rebrand property taxes as municipal use fees that you agreed to when you bought into the municipality…
One could certainly do that, and some people do now. However, I think the implication is that the underlying tax calculation should be revisited.
> Levies on migrants' wires to foreign countries could help fill the gap, one lawmaker said
Migrants are simultaneously eating up all taxpayer dollars and sending vast sums overseas.
> Migrants are simultaneously eating up all taxpayer dollars
Migrants are fiscally profitable in a way e.g. native-born high-school dropouts and their descendants are not [1]. (Note the source. Not usually pro immigration.)
[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-s...
To a native with no other access to unequal markets, there's no reason not to spend. Their Big Mac per hour ratio is only getting worse and saving won't change that.
Give those people the same relative windfall sums and some will accelerate spending, others will invest.
They are often already taxed by social security - which they might never get to claim.
Certainly happened to me when I worked as a temp in the US.
That will never work anyway. Migrants could switch to crypto or other methods. The levy would probably end up hitting business transactions if anything.
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