I don’t understand inflation, so as an old landowner I think I shouldn’t have to pay taxes.
Property taxes do hit retired people differently though. Taxing based on what the government says your land is worth instead of your income is absolutely meant to create opportunities for real estate agents and developers at the expense of the people living there.
Taxes based on assets tax those with assets, instead of income taxes which tax those who work.
If old man owns such a valuable piece of land, he deserves to pay his fair share for the public services he used.
It’s like saying you don’t want to pay for schools because you’re not a student.
The fact that schools are funded by the surrounding area is crap and needs to change. He’s retired with a social security income. He paid into the system his entire life already. Telling him he must sell and move out because he’s not wealthy enough is exactly what we should be working against. It’s a system by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
The fact that schools are funded by the surrounding area is crap and needs to change. It’s a system by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
Unless there is an article or background on the guy in the picture you’re projecting a HUGE amount of stuff you just made up on that guy.
He’s retired with a social security income.
That’s what his sign says. I take him at his word on that one.
He paid into the system his entire life already.
Well, no he didn’t. He didn’t start paying into it until he started earning money. Likely for the first 18 years of his life, he lived of what other people put into the system. Many of those people that paid for him are in the situation he’s in right now, except now he sees it as unfair.
Telling him he must sell and move out
No one is telling him to move out. He certainly isn’t saying he will be forced to move if he has to continue to pay property taxes. You just made that up.
because he’s not wealthy enough is exactly what we should be working against.
He’s not saying he is not wealthy enough. You just made that up. In fact, his sign is indicating he does have he wealth to cover the property taxes via his Social Security. He’s saying he doesn’t’ believe he should have to pay anything one something he bought decades ago while he continues to enjoy the services of the city and society the tax dollars pay for.
No, that’s how American K-12 schools are funded. That and infrastructure. Which is why poor areas have worse schools and roads; and police from outside their tax area. Which is both a great way to punish the poor in the old school protestant fashion and force them out the second the wealthy want their land.
And you know exactly what I mean by paying in his entire life.
Finally, paying half your income on property taxes is not financially sustainable. It’s ridiculous to me that you would even pretend it is.
No, that’s how American K-12 schools are funded.
Partially true, but not absolutely. K-12 in many places in the USA are funded through property taxes. I’m in the USA and my public school system is funded via income tax. No property taxes go to school.
That and infrastructure.
True in some places. False in others. Some places derive income from high property taxes. Other places choose high sales taxes. Yet others do it on income tax.
Which is why poor areas have worse schools and roads; and police from outside their tax area. Which is both a great way to punish the poor in the old school protestant fashion and force them out the second the wealthy want their land.
Again, partially true. Some states have state taxes that fund various projects at the municipal level irrespective of the wealth of the locality.
I don’t disagree that a more equitble system for funding schools should be designed and implemented, but you know know that because I’m trying to have that discussion with you in another thread and you’re weak as water on that and won’t discuss any specifics except “someone else should pay”.
And you know exactly what I mean by paying in his entire life.
I know your words on that don’t match reality, and you’re skipping a really important part of that reality. I’ll admit I was wrong one part of that. I said he likely started “paying into the system at age 18”. We know thats wrong. His sign tells us he built his house at age 25. Age 25 is when he would be first paying the property taxes he’s complaining about. So he’s spent even less time paying into the system and already wants to be except from it for the society benefits he still gets.
Finally, paying half your income on property taxes is not financially sustainable. It’s ridiculous to me that you would even pretend it is.
Again, you’re making stuff up from nothing. What are his expenses? He owns his house. He’s retired so his healthcare is covered by Medicare. If he’s living on just social security he’s likely not even paying income tax because his income is low. What are his other expenses? Food? Clothing? Electricity? Water? He might have a well and not even have that bill. Are you saying half his income can’t cover those things? Further, we have no idea what he earned in life. Did he spend it on stupid stuff? We don’t know. I’m certainly not claiming any of my assumptions of him as fact, but that isn’t stopping you from doing so.
So you’re just doubling down on what if this and that.
Gotta be one of the most dogshit takes I’ve ever seen, hope you’re evicted one day!
It is kinda fucked up if retired are forced to move out from their house via taxation. Only ones who benefits are real estate companies
That’s the fictional boogeyman used by the rich to gut public services. See the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer association and California prop 13.
The tax cuts go to the rich and corporate land owners.
We could always, also tax the wealthy. This is not fictional. Retired people in the US are facing a crisis as they’re priced out of housing because their social security is fixed and housing prices are skyrocketing.
We could put the stipulation that you’re only exempt from tax increases if the unit is owner occupied, they’ve been there for at least five years, and the resident is retired.
We could also limit the exemption to modest homes, but instead California gives it to mansions and shopping malls too.
If you’re rich, pay your damn taxes.
Agreed
Its always guys that look like they extract peyote in their kitchen.
What’s wrong with that?
Edit: despite that peyote shouldn’t be just gathered on the wild, because they’re protected
For many states property taxes are the majority of funding for public schools. If that’s the case for the pictured person, the sign could also read:
“I got my public education for free from age 5-18 funded from others paying property taxes including learning how to read and write to make this sign you’re reading. Now that I’ve received that free public education and benefited from it, I’m not interested in paying for any kids to be educated using my dollars. F you, I got mine.”
We could also just pay for education differently.
Yes and. How most of the US funds their school system is super fucked up. Here in Canada, primary education is paid for by the province, and school funding is based on student enrollment numbers. This translates to much more equal levels of education, regardless of how wealthy a given neighborhood may be. I was shocked to find out that schools are paid for by catchment area taxes in must of the states - it makes the history of redlining so obvious when the is literally a “wing side of the tracks”.
Here in Canada, primary education is paid for by the province
Property tax is the mechanism through which the taxes are gathered, but funding is through the province. This is very different than how allocation happens in most states, where schools are directly funded by their catchment area.
Here in Canada, primary education is paid for by the province, and school funding is based on student enrollment numbers.
So the source is the provincial government, but in that system where is the province deriving the revenue to pay for schools? What is being taxed by the province to bring in the money it uses to fund schools?
Property taxes is the answer
I love the “but it pays for schools” argument, like how about we drop 3 less bombs per year and just pay for all the schools out of the existing tax pool like it should be.
I agree with the sentiment but to put some numbers into perspective we spend about 850 Billion a year on K-12 education. The US military budget is about 850 Billion. Now I would fully support switching about 200 Billion of that and throwing it at the most underfunded schools in the country. Another source would be police budgets. Police are massively overfunded and take most of a local region’s money. So we could easily grab some of that funding too.
Generally wealth transfer taxes should be higher though, so buying houses (especially second and third houses or out of state houses), buying vehicles over the “budget” category (ballpark 35K these days?), any boat that’s not a primary residence or a 10 foot fishing boat, etc etc… This idea that anything other than income tax should affect everyone equally is pretty ridiculous, as is the idea that the only way to tax wealth is to tax stocks.
Until we do, we can’t stop the current funding source. Feel free to present your argument on your proposed alternate method.
Have the rich actually pay taxes. Use that.
If you’re actually serious, you have to do better than that for an answer. How are you going to tax them? What are you going to tax them on? Who is considered rich?
It’s as fine tuned a proposal as, “tax property”.
“Tax property” has finely enumerated rules completely spelled out in the letter of the law in hundreds of different variations across many states and cities. You can certainly disagree with it, but its a fully formed and executed system that is funding many schools today.
What you’ve got so far in this discussion is “stop what is currently in place and make someone else pay somehow”. Thats not even fully formed thought much less an argument that can be defended. Your first statement, and now this follow up tell me you’re really interested (capable?) of proposing a better alternative.
I’m not going to “finely enumerate and spell out the letter of the law in hundreds of variations” for you.
Income and wealth taxes also have hundreds of variations and fine tunings. Saying I have to invent a whole new system on my own right here and now or else I’m not serious is not serious.
So he bought a house for 6k 50 years go and now has to pay 2k in property taxes each year. If he was renting that wouldn’t cover two months.
Does he also complain that the sales tax on candy bar is more than he used to pay for a candy bar when he first bought his house?
The real problem if that’s the scenario is that his social security check is less than $400/month.
Its almost 2000
“I don’t understand how inflation works and I’m blaming government for it”
If the property tax scales with inflation and social security is also adjusted for inflation, but your property tax is getting more expensive relative to your social security income, something’s not right.
spoiler
I understand that housing prices are outpacing general inflation… that’s kinda my point.
A big part of why housing prices are outpacing general inflation is constrained supply due to long time homeowners paying artificially low taxes.
I went and argued my taxes at my annual township tax assessment meeting. I was being assessed for a new deck and ramp. That added about $200 to my taxes. What I did do was move the wheelchair ramp out away from the house a bit for better winter time safety and repaired the steps, ramp boards, and railings.
Should I have been taxed for a whole new deck and ramp when I just did repairs and made safety changes?
You have to think more like Trump, LOL. The rich don’t pay any taxes through the use of loopholes. Why should you. Slum lords should be forced to pay taxes, not working class schmo that needs a roof over their heads. Tax the slum lords.
And this is why in most civilized countries, progressive income taxes make up the majority of the government budget. Basing taxes on non income/investment related metrics screws over the poor + lower middle class. It’s a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
you could have progressive taxes on wealth as well. there’s a difference between having one house worth 500k and having 500 million in shares
True, you just need to make sure you start high enough up, or exempt the value of a primary residence (maybe limit the exemption to a non-opulent value of a house so the richest don’t start building castles to bind their money tax free)
UK has property taxes too and its pretty shit tbh. Council tax, there are bands based on what your house was worth in the 90s (yes really…) and generally the poor will pay a higher % of their income. I have a pretty small bungalow, 60m². One of the lowest bands and pay £1600 a year on a house that cost £230k. The most you can have to pay is £4200, beyond that point regardless of how much more expensive your house is the tax rate doesn’t increase.
The original plan of the tax was a fixed rate per person. This among other things is why many people were keen on the idea of digging a hole so deep that we could hand Thatcher over to Satan personally.
That has to be the most regressive tax I’ve heard of in western Europe. Absolutely excessive and I’m sorry it’s happening to you.
Belgium has a home value tax as well, based on fictional rental income + a very convoluted calculation + different % surcharges per council. I find back that it’s on average about 700 to 800 euros per Flemish adult person, but it has large variations. It causes a lot of grumbling, but for most people it’s not considered excessive.
Why have taxes based on income when you can tax accumulated capital instead?
If you try to take too many eggs out of 1 basket, the person carrying that basket is likely to try and run away. So it’s easier and less disruptive to take a few eggs out of lots of different baskets.
Taxing accumulated capital without exceptions is also guaranteed to screw people over. The man in the OP is a good example: he’s a modest man who many years ago bought a modest house for a modest sum of money. Due to circumstances, that house has now increased in value, making him a wealthy man on paper. But he’s deriving no income from that wealth, since he can’t rent it out because he lives in it himself. So now he’s a modest man, who is rich on paper, who is expected to pay high taxes on his paper wealth, turning him into a poor man who is barely scraping by.
Interesting. In Texas once you hit 65 they freeze your property taxes and no longer increase it. My parents are only paying $1,800/year on a $250K house. Meanwhile I’m paying $14,000/yr on a $500K house.
If you live FULL TIME in Florida there is a cap on property tax increases. Many people in Florida own homes but do not live here full time and therefore are not eligible for this protection against increases. But they don’t have an age limit that ends all increases.
Sounds like it’s working as intended to target snow birds or landlords owning multiple properties
Yes it does help limiting some snow birds. There is a whole methodology with snow birds. Unrelated to property tax and and home ownership. To establish state residency you need to physically live 6 months and a day in a state to be considered a “resident” there. Many try to get around it. But states go as far as checking where your cell phone is along with credit card purchases to catch people lying about where they were.
Sorry how much??? I think we pay like 7/800€ property tax yearly on a house worth about 400k€… I thought US had low taxes.
Low income taxes. And our sales tax is typically lower than European VAT when the comparison is valid. But those generally go to the feds and the state, that do not fund municipal services, so municipalities have to collect the remainder they need through property taxes, typically on real estate and cars. And none of them fund healthcare, so we have to pay a company premiums for that. Basically the same for higher education. When you look at our total financial burden to receive the kind of services that are funded by taxes in other developed countries, we can be deceptively expensive, especially if you start thinking about the comparative quality of those services. But our income and capital gains tax rates are low, especially if you are very rich! I made myself sad
My state doesn’t have any income tax. So it’s offset with higher property taxes. Other states have lowe me property taxes but have an income tax.
Americans actually pay a higher effective tax rate than in civilized countries, while receiving fewer services in return.
Only the very weathy have a lower effective rate because they use discretionary spending to purchase lax tax laws.
America is a shit hole country in deep deep denial.
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Do you live in Michigan or is there somewhere else that was this idiotic too?
I think you may have it wrong on what is happening, this guy isn’t paying less tax than those around him from how i read it. Your area seems to be taxed based on the purchase price and not the assessed value of the property.
From how i read it his taxes have steadily gone up base on home prices and assessments. He pays taxes every year and they are relatively the same as those around him. The problem is that the value has gone up more than it should have due to the local gov wanting to be paid more. Most county commissioners (R/D doesn’t matter) are paid a percentage of what the property tax based on population. This means that if the price goes up then they get paid more. At times these also come from the state instead of a county. This means that they reps are paid based on the tax assessment.
If we make the math easy lets say he paid $30,000 for his house. (I know a city wont be this way but a small house in a rural area works for this also lets assume it was purchased some time ago). The current (as of today) monthly average of Social Security payments is $1976. ($23,712 yearly) This is about $70,000 every 3 years. $70,000/2 is $35,000. Again those payments are based on today and not the last few two years. Based on that math, SS 1976 x 12 (year) $23,712 divided by 2 (half my ss check) thats $11,856. He is essentially being taxed 30% of what he purchased his home for. I know this may not sound like much to some but its not about you in the city working the full time job for x an hour. This post is about a guy who built his home and purchased the lumber piece by piece and built it himself after purchasing the land.
No, the person you’re replying to likely lives in an area with annual assessment limits. This means when they move into their house, they pay taxes on the assessed amount at that time. Every year, even if the assessment shows a 50% increase in value, your tax increase will be capped at something like a 2% increase. Over the course of 30 years this adds up to huge tax savings the longer you stay in one place. The downsides are that it causes more traffic, causes homes to sell less often, and provides less local tax to fund public programs like schools.
Ohh snap I read the comments wrong. I totally missed the “the way the guy wishes they did” referring to taxes. Nice catch.
I was explaining how it must be for the guy in the pic. Not how the OP was talking about it. Thanks for the clarification on my fuck up.
This guy’s actual problem isn’t that his property taxes have gone way up. His problem is that his income, that is say social security, has not kept pace with the inflated cost of property taxes. And of course it hasn’t kept up with any of the other inflationary costs we are dealing with today as well. And this is something that has hit everyone else because the average wage has not kept up with inflation either.
His property taxes have gone up because his wealth has gone up. Sounds fair to me.
Is this guy paid by some rich guys wanting to abolish property taxes?
While I do think there should be some relief for some people as far as property taxes are concerned… living in a town or city gives a person access to many local government subsided services. Firefighters, and ambulances are some simple ones that everyone uses. Roads as well. And the cost of that does increase over time. Basing a person’s contributions to paying for that based on the value of thier property is just easier for local governments, and more stable. But it doesn’t really corelate with the use of those services. Nor with income or ability to pay.
Life necessities really shouldn’t be taxed at most levels. Food, shelter, water, heat, medical care. Most already aren’t. But housing still is. Investment properties should be taxed of course, but an average primary residence really shouldn’t be.Looking at my electrical bill is depressing. It’s always power used x and then taxes that are the same as x plus fees. So using $100 in electricity means I pay $220 with over half being taxes and extra fees
Yeah, and property taxes result in more low density housing, as that increases the amount of tax revenue per person. High density housing means less revenue per person but the costs of services per person is still about the same. Sure theoretically, public transit is cheaper per person with high density housing, but realistically it isn’t because nobody gives a shit about public transit in the suburbs.
Of course there’s more costs overall because more suburbs mean governments are pressured to spend insane amounts of money on building and expanding highways. But it’s usually a different level of government that builds the highways, so doesn’t factor in the decisions to create more low density housing.
I’ve read otherwise on the costs of services per person and density. A fire station can only reasonably cover a certain amount of space. So low density housing means you need more fire stations for the same amount of people. And of course you need more road per person in general.
They dangle the carrot of “home ownership” as if anyone ever owns a home that can be taken away for not paying taxes.
TBH, property taxes could be a necessary evil, like only imposing them above a certain number of owned homes, to curb some companies buying up homes en masse to control the rent market, but I have a weird feeling they might not be the ones paying these taxes.
Lots of countries have property taxes that are more reasonable because they focus on city services like trash pickup and stuff. The problem is property taxes are tied to education in the US and in many states the higher the property taxes the better the schools, the more exclusive the neighborhood, etc.
Agreed with # of homes owned as well as square footage/meters. A mansion should be hit hard by taxes.
I don’t think taxes negate ownership.
If you rent you need permission for every modification, every pet, even for something like planting a garden.
Ownership can be conditional; you can own a domain, but if you don’t pay the renewal fee it can be taken away; you can own a car, but if you drive it without paying your registration it can be impounded; you can own a business, but if you don’t pay your license renewal it can be revoked.
Owning something doesn’t mean it can never be taken away or that you don’t need to do anything to keep it.
I see both arguments for this as valid. I get that you wanna stay and live your entire life in the place you owned forever. The reality is taxes are needed and will increase forever, which are important to keeping your state functioning (as long as the people in charge are doing a good job and actually using the funds wisely). I wonder what state they are from because I know property tax can be wildly different depending upon that. I’m sure they don’t want to, but there are like 6 states that currently offer no property tax to seniors over 65 and 10 that offer exemptions based on income and age. At the same time it is good to see them complain because maybe they can try to sway the state to also offer the no property tax benefit to seniors as well. Still if he is hurting that much, then it’s probably easier to sell the place and move to another place that will allow him to be better off with less worrying. It’s a valid option even if he doesn’t agree with it.
his point is that his income should have increased to reflect inflation, since his taxes did. it’s actually obscene that half his check goes to property tax on land he’s had forever, and people are talking down about him for it.
Yeah, that makes much more sense. I absolutely agree, sadly most places draw the line on ever allowing that to happen. Although I do remember reading that some states have minimum wage tied to it which was pretty shocking, despite making perfect sense.
I’m not going to offer numbers and percentages but I would propose an overall cap on state property taxes. That would force the state to spend less or finally get rid of funding for things that are not providing the desired results. I would shift the percentage of property tax levied more on commercial than residential. And finally I would have a lower rate for those who own the house and live there as opposed to an owner who is renting out the house.
Property taxes go towards education. More right-wing bullshit attacking schools.
But this is a bad idea.
Areas with high property value have higher quality schooling. Area with low property value have lower quality schooling. The rich stay rich. The poor stay poor.
Maybe education money shouldn’t come from property taxes. Maybe corporations should pay for the education they require their workers to have visa corporate taxes
Here the increases are capped at 3% per year if you live in the house. I lived in a shitty house we bought for 35k in the 1990s crash, and property taxes when we sold it in the breakup 20 years later were still under 1k a year, though insurance was crazy high. With husband we had to buy a much more expensive house, there are no shitty ones for sale anymore, all are snatched by corps to flip and rent. So now it’s high but in 20 years maybe it will seem low again. Especially if the market crashes and it’s re-assessed more reasonably.
It’s just inflation, I do think someone owning a home costs the city in roads, trash, transit, other services, Is not crazy to tax on property ownership.
Inflation is also not what the guy with the sign is taking into account in his complaint. He’s at least 40 years older in that picture than he was when he bought his property if he’s getting social security. The real purchasing power of whatever he paid back then is much smaller than the same number of dollars is now.
$5000 in January 1985 would be the same as $15,055.50 now according to the inflation calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website
Also, it’s only every three years that he’s paying that much. Honestly, he’s not making the point he thinks he is.
We need taxes to fund emergency services and local government in general. The problem isn’t that taxes go up in dollar amount. The problem is that the 1% take everything for themselves, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs. Our pay and public benefits (like social security) don’t rise with inflation because of the actions of the rich.
The solution is so obvious, but we spend so much time arguing about everything but the real problem.
Yeah, if you are comparing the house you bought in 1980 for 10k dollars and say you pay 5k in tax every three years, using 2025 dollars then that is totally useless as a statement.
I wonder if there should be an exemption for those on Social Security.
That said, I don’t know of a good way to ensure that an exemption like that wouldn’t be abused.
My city has a senior discount on property taxes, where seniors that have a net worth and income both below certain numbers pay reduced or as low as 0% of their regularly assessed property tax. I’m not sure how they verify net worth, but it seems like a good system to me as long as they have figured out a way to do that efficiently and effectively
Comparing property taxes now in 2025 dollars to unadjusted original cost in 1950 dollars is nonsensical. The two numbers bear no relation nor should they.
The average social security check is $1,978 a month or $23,736 per annum. Half of that is $11,868. Lets suppose he lives in CA where the annual rate for owner occupied is 0.74%. His house would be worth approx 1.6 million dollars. To to be clear he is whining about paying the appropriate and legal tax on his fully owned 1.6M cash hoard. This is a great problem to have.
If its that burdensome he can cash out and even with rent payments for the rest of his life live great even if he has no other savings of any sort.
Looks like about $5800 a month gradually increasing with inflation for at least 25 years.
If he has another $400,000 which seems super likely since I don’t think he’s actually living in his 1.6M house on $12,000 a year it could be more than 7500 a month.
If we add a little realism and only include another 15 years he could probably actually withdraw about 11,000 a month.
https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/social-security/average-monthly-social-security-check https://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/property-tax-by-state
I think it’s the moral issue of having to cash out your own property to afford to live in something you built and already own
Property tax funds important things like schools, emergenct services, etc.
if he was destitute otherwise would already have sold it. You are arguing in favor of a tax break for some rich prick probably worth north of 3 million not paying the taxes that pay for your kid to get a decent education because basically feels.
Its no more immoral than you giving up your income.
I argue that we should replace property taxes with income taxes because property taxes lead to disparities in outcomes between different jurisdictions. Then an old man can be secure in his own property without depriving the public of funds.
And I disagree with your premise that property taxes pay for a decent education. We don’t have decent education in the United States and I truly believe that no amount of money will fix that
There is no way you can convince me that gentrification is actually good for kids. Property tax funding education does nothing but punish poor families.
Property taxes funding education, in a state like Texas where school districts are seized by the state and systematically dismantled by private equity interests operating in state-appointed positions, is a fucking joke.
This isn’t strictly an issue of taxation. Its an issue of (un)representative governance forcing people into a privatized model by leveraging the pain caused through dysfunctional public services. “Oh oh! Crimes up! We need even more cops! Oh oh! Schools are failing! So we need more… checks notes football stadiums and administrative offices.”
It’s deliberate mismanagement intended to destroy confidence in public institutions.
For those who want more info on this, here’s the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Property taxes on your first house should not be steep. On your other houses on the other hand…
1.6M cash hoard
Cash is liquid, the theoretical home in question is not.
It trivially is in any hot market
Seconded. This is inaccessible net worth. It is useless to someone who cannot take advantage of it. Sale would incur capital gains, which would be significant, and finding another property to live in would be just as unaffordable.
Lets suppose he lives in CA where the annual rate for owner occupied is 0.74%. His house would be worth approx 1.6 million dollars.
That’s largely due to the property inflation from the tech sector and not consistent across the state. You could be in San Fransisco and see your land 10x in value as the city explodes around you or you could be at the ass end of Oakland or the rural east end and still live in a slum.
This guy could also be from Texas - in the exurbs of Austin, Dallas, Houston, or El Paso - and be looking at closer to 1.5-2% annual rates. Very possible he acquired some dirt cheap land in Beaumont or Bexar County only to see his $5k plot balloon to $100-200k over the course of 20 years.
If this was so it wouldn’t be half his ss in property taxes. Average ss is 1900 a month
I was wondering if the US is property taxes were like 33%/year but it said original value, so I’m guessing it was dirt cheap then
My parents bought a house for $14k in the mid 70s.
Yea, it’s super location dependant. Generally the more rural the lower the taxes. But it also varies by state. States with low or no income tax tend to have higher property tax.
Remember - america is not a country, it’s a business.
If you can’t make it - noone gonna do shit
