End property taxes!

Economy
185

Ell, I would suggest expanding on your proposal. You have only suggested a very basic summary statement, but nothing else. Also, you stated “keep paying for it in the form of property taxes,” but that is not what property taxes are doing. Have you looked at all of the things that your property taxes pay for? Mostly things that you would utilize in your community (i.e., school district, library, park district, forest preserve). If you end property taxes, the funding for those items would go away and also those services.

Now, let me be clear, I have not said that property taxes are the proper method for funding those things, but only that if you do away with them, you may benefit in one area, but suffer in others.

Let me expand on one area, funding for school districts. About roughly 75% of my property taxes go towards funding the school district in my area. I have 3 kids and have put all 3 of my kids through the schools in my district (last kid is a Jr.). My property taxes paid for that. Now, one of the things I have been thinking about is why do our property taxes pay for the school district? It seems that it isn’t fair since the property taxes are going to pay for other kid’s education as well as our own. Also, what about the people who don’t have any kids in the school district? Their money is taken to pay for other people’s kids to go to school? The pro of this would be that if the children in the local community get a good education, then that will make for a better overall community. Those in the community with less funds are helped by the rest of the community to educate their children so there aren’t those who are left out and again improves the whole community.

Again, I am not saying that I agree that is the best system. I think we need to start discussing other alternatives to the existing way property taxes are utilized. If they are reduced substantially, then the members of a community will have other expenses. If the library isn’t funded by property taxes, then people may have to start paying for a membership. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily.

There is way more to discuss I think on this topic and I won’t solve it here in one post. However, after reading many of the replies below, I think we first need to go back and really understand why the property tax system was created in the first place to fund community services and then discuss ways to tweak it, change it or eliminate it. Then we need to come up with other alternatives.

We’ll never fix property taxes by just complaining about them. We need solutions. Ell, if I was your boss at a company and you came to me with this issue, my response would be “That may be true, but what would you do to fix it?”

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186

You know, there is no reason the city can’t charge some kind of tax without attaching it to your house. All it does is strip the equity right out of the house.

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187

A core element of our proposal is to increase federal tax revenues based on US economic growth… They’re killing our jobs and taxing us to the bone…

Maybe they wouldn’t need to tax us every which way if our economy was thriving and our economic value wasn’t being funneled internationally.

Please vote for our proposal!

188

I personally do not mind paying property taxes. If appropriated correctly, the money stays locally to support parks and rec, schools, streets in your neighborhood etc. It’s the federal taxes that go into a big black hole!

189

Please consider voting for our proposal to protect US jobs and the US economy from a mostly unknown threat

190

Preach!!!

191

Yes, or they should have to help maintain if they want to keep charging property tax. I mean if a limb is hanging over the Electrical wire the county won’t come and remove it until it falls and then everyone in the neighborhood’s power is out. If you live out in the country, you have to take your trash to the dump. The country or state does not mow my grass trim the trees nothing. It’s my property until I stop paying the taxes. Once I stop, they take it resale it and pocket the money. Make a family go homeless or put them in housing that the taxpayers have to pay. Makes taxes go up These politicians are stupid now that I’m sitting her writing about. greedy

192

It sounds like a nice idea, to end property taxes for those who actually own a home, but it’s actually quite a bad idea. It shifts the tax burden to those trying to save to buy a home and to start/have a family. Rent will go up so saving for a house will become even more difficult. Property taxes for 20-35+ year olds will go up. This is all really bad.

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193

The purchase of primary residential property should be exclusive to American citizens. The purchase of that property should include the sovereign allodial title when complete. ALL services associated with the property shall remain at the discretion of the property owner, whereby no forced or blind contracts will exist obligating the property owner for payment of service they did not agree to.

ALL municipal, state and federal funding shall not be derived from private property taxation.

Municipal, State and Federal agencies may offer contracts for services available through private corporate providers, such as but not limited to; electricity, water, sewage, cable, home insurance, landscaping, home maintenance, etc.

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194

It started on a government level

195

I am really lucky the property taxes where I live are exceptionally cheap I have 27 acres I pay $245 dollars a year not a month a year 500 a month is psychotic. I’m going to tell you if I had a tax bill like that I would be running for a council to change that shit. I would be going door to door collecting signatures to change that I would be going to apartment complexes where renters live and say do you realize that that $500 a month property tax you’re paying for it by having it built into your rent, I would get signatures from every single person I come across because nobody wants property taxes like that and I would make sure they knew my name and my face and we would have a conversation I would make sure every minute of my time off was knocking on doors was walking into coffee shops was making myself known with petitions in hand and then I would be running for council if they refuse to change it. And if that is your tax between your state and your borough or town. I would make that shit stop. And my mouth has gotten me on the council before.

1 Like
196

How about this: Make the local police/fire/schools, roads payments…etc… part of the city/local utility bill such as with the water, sewer, trash…etc. Call it a monthly Local Services Bill. Have it itemized in the bill so you know where all the costs are going to for each local service.
Property tax on a house means if you can’t pay due to income loss means you lose your house (full sale) to pay for the tax and that is not right, especially for Seniors living on Social Security/small pensions. We need to take the taxes off primary residence property and also one primary vehicle per adult.

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197

All taxes should be in the form of sales tax. have a federal sales tax that is the same percentage for every state. Then each state can decide for themselves what percentage they pay. if you spend more then you pay more.

198

Because GDP is a measure of how much we collectively trade with each other in the economy over the course of a year, not how much money flows through the government… It’s a measure of how much “economic activity” is going on, like an economic temperature.

It’s similar to saying let’s use the amount of money transacted in home sales this year to pay for our street sweeping. Reporting how much was done in transaction business between citizens doesn’t immediately convert to money in a government’s pocket that it can use. For that, you need a “tax” of some kind.

200

Amen! Property taxes are state and local issues not federal. I would argue that they should be based on your use of local and state resources and not the value of your property, though. A use tax of some form would give a certain amount of discretionary control back to property owners and also capture renters that pay no property tax directly.

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201

Plus, the value of properties keep going up. So, that makes it more difficult to pay for those on fixed incomes. I agree with those on this thread, property tax should be a one time payment. At the very least no more once the home is paid off.

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202

AGREED! This is a huge problem living in Florida. The property taxes for me (for a moderate home not on the water) are almost $9000 this year and insurance was $9000 also! I’m shopping around the insurance, so this will hopefully get better. $1500/month not including a mortgage! This is not affordable for retirement! Totally ridiculous as it will price out the elderly and retirees.

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203

Not to nit-pick, but every renter is absolutely paying the property taxes of the land owner. It’s not like the land owner hasn’t baked that cost into the price of rent.

Customers always pay 100% of all business taxes because businesses either ensure their prices include those taxes or the corporations lose money and fail. This is true of landlords just as much as it is all the other businesses and corporations. The customer always pays for the business taxes.

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204

I agree. I’m tired of paying taxes in my small town and watching the local government misspend our money and give themselves raises for doing nothing.

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205

So I like this idea but a lot of money comes from property tax? This helps pay a lot of things in areas. Especially schools!! So I think maybe decreasing it but I wouldn’t completely abolish property taxes.