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Should we eliminate taxes that tax you for the right to own property?

Should we eliminate taxes that tax you for the right to own property?


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Henrin

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Some good examples of this would be car registration and property taxes where you are charged to use your property, be it your car, or your home. When the government charges you for use they are in effect taking ownership of whatever it might be over, be it again, your car or your home and in effect making you a renter. It is clear this is a violation of property rights in on both front, but the question remains do we as a people agree with it? There is of course other examples of such taxes and my question does in fact include them as well.

It should also be noted for our liberal friends that in many states you must renew your registration on your car every year and this can run easily up in the hundreds of dollars. Obviously, this can make it challenging for the poorer among us to pay such fees. Considering that they are supporters of the progressive tax system and enjoy the argument that the poor can not pay higher taxes when arguing for such a system it would make sense then to believe they would not be in support of this kind of tax.
 
It should also be noted for our liberal friends that in many states you must renew your registration on your car every year and this can run easily up in the hundreds of dollars. Obviously, this can make it challenging for the poorer among us to pay such fees. Considering that they are supporters of the progressive tax system and enjoy the argument that the poor can not pay higher taxes when arguing for such a system it would make sense then to believe they would not be in support of this kind of tax.
I'm pretty sure most Liberals would be fine with eliminating those taxes if the revenue instead was raised through a progressive state/local income tax. I think conservatives would have a cow and most likely that's what is preventing it. The county I live in is very liberal and they instead have support systems in place via county tax to support those that can't afford the taxes you mention.
 
The point you are (perhaps inadvertently) making is that the accusation that the poor don't pay taxes is unfounded. Everyone pays taxes, lots and lots of them.

Your examples of car and property tax are good. Often, more money means a more expensive house and more taxes. Poor means renting or minmal housing so little if any tax. Same with cars. When I bought my car new, the tax was almost $400.00. Now, 5 years later, the tax is down to about $130.00. People who drive beaters probably just pay the $30 minimum.

The State needs to get taxes somewhere. Nobody likes to pay tax but without money, your State can not function.


Some good examples of this would be car registration and property taxes where you are charged to use your property, be it your car, or your home. When the government charges you for use they are in effect taking ownership of whatever it might be over, be it again, your car or your home and in effect making you a renter. It is clear this is a violation of property rights in on both front, but the question remains do we as a people agree with it? There is of course other examples of such taxes and my question does in fact include them as well.

It should also be noted for our liberal friends that in many states you must renew your registration on your car every year and this can run easily up in the hundreds of dollars. Obviously, this can make it challenging for the poorer among us to pay such fees. Considering that they are supporters of the progressive tax system and enjoy the argument that the poor can not pay higher taxes when arguing for such a system it would make sense then to believe they would not be in support of this kind of tax.
 
At the very least, things like property taxes seem like a sensible way to pay for things like firefighters.
 
Only tax on property:
investment propertys
2nd homes
corp owned property
 
The point you are (perhaps inadvertently) making is that the accusation that the poor don't pay taxes is unfounded. Everyone pays taxes, lots and lots of them.

The point that is actually made there is that after everything is said and done they are left with more than they paid in taxes to begin with.


Your examples of car and property tax are good. Often, more money means a more expensive house and more taxes. Poor means renting or minmal housing so little if any tax. Same with cars. When I bought my car new, the tax was almost $400.00. Now, 5 years later, the tax is down to about $130.00. People who drive beaters probably just pay the $30 minimum.

I went today to get my car registered and there was a woman talking about her troubles revolving around her living arrangements with her friends. When she got up to get her car registration renewed it turned out to cost her $220 dollars. I couldn't help to think how someone can afford to spend $220 dollars when they are having trouble finding a stable place to lay their heads at night.

In fact, I see many poor people driving around in newish cars but living in houses that were built back in the 1960's and probably cost in the low hundred range. In such neighborhoods its not rare to see pretty newish cars on regular basis in fact. I would imagine that many of these people never considered that on their first year owning the car it would cost them $500 bucks to just drive the car on the street.

The State needs to get taxes somewhere. Nobody likes to pay tax but without money, your State can not function.

Avenues are important and something people just carelessly forget. If I own my home or my car I should not lose it if I fail to pay the state as if they have some sort of claim to either my car or my home. If we are to believe that the state is the original owner (not saying I do but its an active argument) they would need to sell it to people for them to own and build whatever they wanted to build (which is actually another layer to the problem here since they actively control such things and once again asserting ownership of property) However, property taxes leads to you believe they never actually sold it at all and instead allowed people to simply build on their land and in turn they pay a fee for the continued use of it. When they in turn sell such property to another "user" this fee gets transfered to the new "user" as if it is simply rent and if this new "user" fails to pay such fee they are also up to losing such property as was the prior user when he used the property. This is in effect exactly how rental property works. If you fail to pay your rent you can be kicked out and lose access to the rental property. Do we as a people agree to only have the right to rent?
 
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I'm pretty sure most Liberals would be fine with eliminating those taxes if the revenue instead was raised through a progressive state/local income tax. I think conservatives would have a cow and most likely that's what is preventing it. The county I live in is very liberal and they instead have support systems in place via county tax to support those that can't afford the taxes you mention.

Income taxes are even worse. In that case they are not only asserting ownership of property, but ownership of the fruits of your labor and anything they do not take is simply a gift from the real owner.
 
Only tax on property:
investment propertys
2nd homes
corp owned property

That is all just revolving around the rich though as if the amount you have is somehow important here to it being an acceptable avenue or not. I do not believe such things matter to the overall question.
 
I went today to get my car registered and there was a woman talking about her troubles revolving around her living arrangements with her friends. When she got up to get her car registration renewed it turned out to cost her $220 dollars. I couldn't help to think how someone can afford to spend $220 dollars when they are having trouble finding a stable place to lay their heads at night.
• There's an old saying. "Poor people have poor ways" and it appears to be true. Many people buy better cars than they should because they only look at the payment, not the total investment.

In fact, I see many poor people driving around in newish cars but living in houses that were built back in the 1960's and probably cost in the low hundred range. In such neighborhoods its not rare to see pretty newish cars on regular basis in fact. I would imagine that many of these people never considered that on their first year owning the car it would cost them $500 bucks to just drive the car on the street.
• Yup. They don't think it through. If they had more of a "business head", they wouldn't be low income.


Avenues are important and something people just carelessly forget. If I own my home or my car I should not lose it if I fail to pay the state as if they have some sort of claim to either my car or my home. If we are to believe that the state is the original owner (not saying I do but its an active argument) they would need to sell it to people for them to own and build whatever they wanted to build (which is actually another layer to the problem here since they actively control such things and once again asserting ownership of property) However, property taxes leads to you believe they never actually sold it at all and instead allowed people to simply build on their land and in turn they pay a fee for the continued use of it. When they in turn sell such property to another "user" this fee gets transfered to the new "user" as if it is simply rent and if this new "user" fails to pay such fee they are also up to losing such property as was the prior user when he used the property. This is in effect exactly how rental property works. If you fail to pay your rent you can be kicked out and lose access to the rental property. Do we as a people agree to only have the right to rent?
• That's more of a philosophical issue than an actual issue. We all know that property tax comes with ownership. If you rent, then your landlord pays the taxes and to some degree, adds them to your rent.

Nobody likes taxes. But that's how the world turns.





The point that is actually made there is that after everything is said and done they are left with more than they paid in taxes to begin with.




I went today to get my car registered and there was a woman talking about her troubles revolving around her living arrangements with her friends. When she got up to get her car registration renewed it turned out to cost her $220 dollars. I couldn't help to think how someone can afford to spend $220 dollars when they are having trouble finding a stable place to lay their heads at night.

In fact, I see many poor people driving around in newish cars but living in houses that were built back in the 1960's and probably cost in the low hundred range. In such neighborhoods its not rare to see pretty newish cars on regular basis in fact. I would imagine that many of these people never considered that on their first year owning the car it would cost them $500 bucks to just drive the car on the street.



Avenues are important and something people just carelessly forget. If I own my home or my car I should not lose it if I fail to pay the state as if they have some sort of claim to either my car or my home. If we are to believe that the state is the original owner (not saying I do but its an active argument) they would need to sell it to people for them to own and build whatever they wanted to build (which is actually another layer to the problem here since they actively control such things and once again asserting ownership of property) However, property taxes leads to you believe they never actually sold it at all and instead allowed people to simply build on their land and in turn they pay a fee for the continued use of it. When they in turn sell such property to another "user" this fee gets transfered to the new "user" as if it is simply rent and if this new "user" fails to pay such fee they are also up to losing such property as was the prior user when he used the property. This is in effect exactly how rental property works. If you fail to pay your rent you can be kicked out and lose access to the rental property. Do we as a people agree to only have the right to rent?
 
I thought if they opposed renters, that it's natural for them to turn around and try to turn you into a renter. Isn't that their typical mode of operation?

Renters bad. Government collecting your taxes near-involuntarily? Greatest thing since Nutella.
 
I went today to get my car registered and there was a woman talking about her troubles revolving around her living arrangements with her friends. When she got up to get her car registration renewed it turned out to cost her $220 dollars. I couldn't help to think how someone can afford to spend $220 dollars when they are having trouble finding a stable place to lay their heads at night.

She was probably negligent in maintaining the car's registration. Now she better get that badboy legal, or her friends are gonna cut her off and kick her ass out of the crack-flophouse.
 
Income taxes are even worse. In that case they are not only asserting ownership of property, but ownership of the fruits of your labor and anything they do not take is simply a gift from the real owner.

Or the income tax is a measure in which to determine how much you pay in taxes. We got it...taxes are theft. Government is evil. I think there's an empty wooden shack in Montana that is vacant where you can get away from that intrusive government and all the things they pay for.
 
You do realize that you are quoting Henrin, not Specklebang? Right?


She was probably negligent in maintaining the car's registration. Now she better get that badboy legal, or her friends are gonna cut her off and kick her ass out of the crack-flophouse.
 
You do realize that you are quoting Henrin, not Specklebang? Right?

It looks like your post. You put the Henrin quote after. Anyway, I don't see how who posted it makes a difference; "noble savage" is what it is.
 
What is the "noble savage" thingy mean?




It looks like your post. You put the Henrin quote after. Anyway, I don't see how who posted it makes a difference; "noble savage" is what it is.
 
What is the "noble savage" thingy mean?

The term noble savage (French, bon sauvage), expresses the concept of an idealized indigene, outsider (or "other"), and refers to the literary stock character of the same...

The noble savage achieved prominence as an oxymoronic rhetorical device after 1851, when used sarcastically as the title for a satirical essay by English novelist Charles Dickens, who wished to disassociate himself from 18th and early 19th-century romantic primitivism.

Noble savage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


It's a common problem with inexperienced cultural anthropology.
 
She was probably negligent in maintaining the car's registration. Now she better get that badboy legal, or her friends are gonna cut her off and kick her ass out of the crack-flophouse.

Ok, I don't really wish to make assumptions on her situation. It could very well be she could of easily been able to afford everything fine when she bought the car and now her situation is worse leaving her struggling from day to day or it could be that she simply bought something she could not actually afford and failed to take everything into account. Either is equally possible and I'm sure there is other possible scenarios that could lead her to struggle with such fees. Still the point remains is the fee actually something she should have to deal with. These fees appear to only have two purposes, one is revenue, the other is for tracking purposes and neither actually is enough to warrant it once on a car, let alone yearly.

Oh and what you quoted is from me, not specklebang.
 
I'm pretty sure most Liberals would be fine with eliminating those taxes if the revenue instead was raised through a progressive state/local income tax.

Revenue isn't raised by the rates as much as it is by the strength (or rather I would even say bubbling) of the economy/financial/credit markets. What happens to revenue when you raise or lower taxes is dependent/dynamic thing. It is conceivable (though not a given) that revenue could increase concurrently with a tax cut OR a tax hike. We saw both of these phenomena during Clinton's term: he raised income taxes and revenue jumped, then he cut taxes (the capital gains) and it REALLY jumped.

reynolds-wsj-61611.jpg
 
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Interesting, so my problem is I believe in noble savage? Can you explain how you came to that conclusion?

You presumed that someone paying 220 for registration and living with friends is deserving of sympathy, and sought to use that narration as political rhetoric.
 
Revenue isn't raised by the rates as much as it is by the strength (or rather I would even say bubbling) of the economy/financial/credit markets. What happens to revenue when you raise or lower taxes is dependent/dynamic thing. It is conceivable (though not a given) that revenue could increase concurrently with a tax cut OR a tax hike. We saw both of these phenomena during Clinton's term: he raised income taxes and revenue jumped, then he cut taxes (the capital gains) and it REALLY jumped.

reynolds-wsj-61611.jpg

Sure..the strength of the economy is a large determinant of how much revenue the government brings in. It defies math to believe that a lower tax rate will bring in more revenue unless you believe those tax rates are a major determinant of the strength of the economy.

That is not proven. It's repeated as gospel on the right but GDP growth rates over time are pretty constant....higher taxes or lower taxes.
 
Sure..the strength of the economy is a large determinant of how much revenue the government brings in. It defies math to believe that a lower tax rate will bring in more revenue unless you believe those tax rates are a major determinant of the strength of the economy.

That is not proven. It's repeated as gospel on the right but GDP growth rates over time are pretty constant....higher taxes or lower taxes.

Nothing is universally proven, basically because we can't predict the future. Theoretically could lower taxes and completely reincentivize business growth in the US, and slow or reverse the flood of jobs out of the US. Or we could raise taxes and then see something trigger another massive recession, and what little money people are still making is being increasingly taxed, leaving them feeling much, much more conservative about spending, investing, expanding, etc., leading to even lower revenues. What I think we need is more set, stable, fair way to tax. Simplify the tax code and don't play favorites with it. Don't think of it as a way to punish bad behavior or install a bunch of "incentives" for people to buy houses or cars or whatever the hell. Base it on consumption and that's that. Or base it on income and apply it across the board with no deductions or credits or special favors or perks. Get health care the hell out of the tax code for ****'s sake. Simplify, standardize and flatten. Give everyone the same exact incentive to earn another dollar and invest in our own people.

But don't fall for the fallacy that tax cuts OR hikes = economic growth or "economic justice." Tax rate hike is not the same as a tax revenue hike.
 
You presumed that someone paying 220 for registration and living with friends is deserving of sympathy, and sought to use that narration as political rhetoric.

Well I don't know if she lived with anyone else or if she was simply struggling to keep her current situation in place. The conversion she was having with her friends it was unclear where exactly she was at the moment on that front. I can only assume that they all knew of the situation and were basing their conversion on this and other known information as it was left out of the conversion.

I am also using it only to reach a wider audience than I otherwise would have without it.
 
I like a lot of your post and agree with some of it but definately respect the views of the parts I don't necessarily agree with. I strongly agree with the part about playing favorites in the tax codes. I would like to point out some parts I strongly disagree with.

Nothing is universally proven, basically because we can't predict the future. Theoretically could lower taxes and completely reincentivize business growth in the US, and slow or reverse the flood of jobs out of the US. Or we could raise taxes and then see something trigger another massive recession, and what little money people are still making is being increasingly taxed, leaving them feeling much, much more conservative about spending, investing, expanding, etc.,

You can't predict the future but you can sure as hell look at the past. There's a long history of tax cuts and tax hikes to look at.

But don't fall for the fallacy that tax cuts OR hikes = economic growth or "economic justice." Tax rate hike is not the same as a tax revenue hike.

It is the same unless you honestly think a tax cut equals a large spur in economic growth to offset the lowering of rates.
 
You can't predict the future but you can sure as hell look at the past. There's a long history of tax cuts and tax hikes to look at.

The hints we take from the past have to keep in mind some of the major economic factors about the past that no longer apply. Comparing monetary policy from the 19th century to today's monetary policies is difficult because we now have a federal reserve and a fiat currency. That makes a HUGE difference. Comparing income tax rates from the 50s to the tax rates today is difficult because we were post-WWII but pre-globalization. That's a HUGE difference.

It is the same unless you honestly think a tax cut equals a large spur in economic growth to offset the lowering of rates.

In theory it most certainly could, in the very same way that any other stimulus could. The COST of a stimulus has be to offset by the economic activity it stirs up. It simply does not do this in every case. We're seeing that right now. In that sense it works just like any other stimulant (e.g. coffee, amphetamines, etc.). You enjoy one of your first coffees, it can wake you up, give you all sorts of energy, focus, etc. But if you keep drinking and drinking it, more frequently and in higher and higher quantities, it eventually loses its potency, and eventually you'll have issues with tolerance, dependence and withdrawal and the "fix" becomes the new problem.
 
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