Substandard Housing

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Island Time is misinterpreting the requirement for a willing buyer and a willing seller, in determining FMV... FMV is an estimate of the market value of a property based on what an educated, willing, and unpressured buyer and seller, each behaving in their own best interest, could agree on...

Exactly!

[cyan]

Originally Posted by GordMay

From where do you think local governments should get their revenue, if not property taxes?

In the US, the largest source is intergovernmental transfers, mainly state government, at 36%. Property tax accounts for 30% of local government revenue. The local property tax part of this results in rich communities having much better police, roads, and schools than poor communities because of higher property values. I would have guessed you'd be on the other side of this one?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by cyan

rich communities [have] much better police, roads, and schools than poor communities because of higher property values they're rich and can influence local government.

FTFY

[sailorboy1]

I am always amazed at how a thread can drift.

[AKA-None]

So by some arguments here there should also be a tax on things like church property. They bring value but no taxes. And gramma sells her house and moves where?
Is there no value in a stable community? Yet in another prepper thread people were saying they would go there, but what would be there? People who are possibly not committed to to community because they have no long term relationship?
So many questions so few answers or options.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So by some arguments here there should also be a tax on things like church property. They bring value but no taxes. And gramma sells her house and moves where?

I'm not getting into the property tax drift, but I'm all for taxing churches just like any other property. Irks me that they get a free ride just because the owners claim to talk to invisible friends.

(How's that for drift potential ).

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So by some arguments here there should also be a tax on things like church property. They bring value but no taxes. And gramma sells her house and moves where?
Is there no value in a stable community? Yet in another prepper thread people were saying they would go there, but what would be there? People who are possibly not committed to to community because they have no long term relationship?
So many questions so few answers or options.

Grandma doesn't have to move unless she and Grandad failed to plan for retirement. Or their kids are selfish, impatient $h1ts. There are such things as reverse mortgages, which would keep the tax bills paid til Grandma is called to be with Grandad once again.

There's lots of value in a stable community.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

FTFY

That doesn't make any sense.
Such silliness makes me curious about your thoughts on the original statement of the thread.

[Island Time O25]

I believe the themes of substandard housing and property taxes are interconnected.

We can argue pro and con of various property tax schemes but one fact remains - even if you pay off your mortgage (or initially pruchased for cash) the property never really belongs to you. Try not paying your property tax bill for one or more years and you will see it more clearly. And that's what it's all about - the government allowing us to reside in a place that is supposedly "ours" as long as we pay that gov't off one way or another. A classic mafia-style shakedown scheme.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

I believe the themes of substandard housing and property taxes are interconnected.



We can argue pro and con of various property tax schemes but one fact remains - even if you pay off your mortgage (or initially pruchased for cash) the property never really belongs to you. Try not paying your property tax bill for one or more years and you will see it more clearly. And that's what it's all about - the government allowing us to reside in a place that is supposedly "ours" as long as we pay that gov't off one way or another. A classic mafia-style shakedown scheme.

Or, the cost of living in a civil society.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I'm not getting into the property tax drift, but I'm all for taxing churches just like any other property. Irks me that they get a free ride just because the owners claim to talk to invisible friends.

(How's that for drift potential ).

I guess we should tax private universities, too.

Harvard University gets taxpayer subsidies, though it has $35 billion in endowments. Every student could go there free, just from that. So why are taxpayers loaning money to students to go there, again?

Yet some folk think taxpayers should directly pay everyone's tuition, and also pay any debts from people who still owe on their student loans.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by loneshark64

Florida is substandard housing.

Yet it's full of people who went there because they liked it better than THEIR states.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

By your logic if everyone around me is selling for $500K and I am waiting for that $1mil offer I should be taxed at $1mil while I wait?

You keep missing my point, whether intentionally or otherwise. I am not arguing that everything does not have its price and ultimately FMV. I am arguing that until that happens, and only then and not before, there can be and there should be no theoretical FMV upon which to base taxation of one's property.

Sure it would be inconvenient, especially politically, to have neighbors pay vastly different amounts of taxes. But it is only right that people are not gouged just because their neighbors paid 10X today compared to X which someone paid 20 years ago.

I recall reading about such system existing in France and how it is meant to keep the elderly in their ancestral homes. Seem logical to me - that taxation should be based on actual prices paid and not on some theoretical numbers which do not apply to a particular property.

US system is meant to keep the property ownership turn over high, which in turn allows the tax offices to collect more property tax from more people. But at a cost of big disruption for long time residents who are forced to sell. I often hear a complaint from the elderly in my area that they pay more in annual real estate tax today than they paid for the house 40 years ago. That is just so wrong on all levels.

Florida seems to have this right, with limits on how much someone's tax value can go up in any given year.

That way if someone buys new in an expensive neighborhood, they knew the tax man cometh. And someone who has been there for a while gets some break, but eventually their taxes will catch up and be based on the market value.

And no, someone shouldn't be completely immune from tax increases because they've had a home for 50 years. Because if that were the case, everyone would just be inheriting homes (or leaving them in grandma's name) to avoid taxes forever.

You're taxed on the value, and that's the way it should be. If you're living in a neighborhood that is so desirable that the taxes have gone up, there should be some ways to provide relief to the long-term occupant, but it shouldn't be so disconnected from reality that people who don't qualify are tempted to exploit it.

Nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody. But there does need to be a way for people to pay taxes, and people with more assets can afford to pay more than their fair share so that people who can't afford it get subsidized.

So the young couple with four kids is generally getting subsidized by the elderly couple with the bigger house in order to get the kids educated.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

There's lots of value in a stable community.

So new people coming into a community doesn't add value?

Stability isn't the same as stagnation.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

I guess we should tax private universities, too.

I'm surprised they're not already. Had to check. Of course private universities should be taxed, the same way other private institutions (like churches) should be taxed.

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Yet some folk think taxpayers should directly pay everyone's tuition, and also pay any debts from people who still owe on their student loans.

Those are different issues.