Oh. Then that idea of Heinlein’s is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard, and it doesn’t even have entertainment value. Yet another case of a Science Fiction writer who shouldn’t talk about anything else except Science Fiction.
Let’s just get back to - I am happy to pay my taxes. I understand the relationship between taxes and services. But Jesus Fuck, I’d like my property evaluation to at least be based on reality.
I agree, and I am not asset rich.
One of the more memorable things I ever heard my father say about taxes is that, in his opinion, a sales tax (or consumption, or luxury tax) is a fair method of taxing, because it does not punitively tax people endlessly for what they OWN, or what they EARN, but only on what they SPEND. To some degree, consumptive spending can be controlled. You can’t help buying food, but you can by brand X instead of brand Y. You can eat hamburger - or beans - or ramen noodles - instead of filet mignon steak.
Those who do not spend are rewarded by savings that grow. Those who have money for discretionary spending, will probably spend it. But they might also become employers, and share the wealth.
Now in Washington State, we have an almost 9% sales tax (depending on locality) - but not on non-junk-food food items. So, your potato chips are taxed, your bread is not. We do NOT have a state income tax. We DO have to replace the physical license plates on our vehicles every so many years, whether the plate is in good shape or not, for a “fee” of about $100 (hello, guaranteed income to the state to the tune of millions of dollars - god knows where it goes or who is accountable for it). We do have lots of other idiotic taxes, fees, and so on, and that’s not even counting the local property taxes (so we don’t have it easy, not at all).
I would not be happy to pay a 50% tax on everything I bought. But if I had NO other taxes to have to pay also, I’d have more money to make purchases with, and could choose what to buy or not buy with my own money in order to manage my own budget. As it is, I have to make do with what the government sees fit to leave me to live on.
No, I don’t like that.
Why wouldn’t it work? Who knows the value of your house better than you do? You set the valuation, and if someone comes along with that price, you sell it at the price you put on it, allowing a reasonable time for closing and moving. As I said earlier, the same type of system works effectively in horse racing to ensure equitable competition.
And if you don’t want to sell your house…?
Then you put a higher than market value on it. Make the price high enough so that if someone makes the offer, you go “Score!”, and head off with your profit.
Since the tax per thousand dollars of assessment is decided by dividing the amount of money to be raised by the total assessed value, this should make the tax rate lower in dollars per thousand, as I suspect most people will bump the price up a few thousand.
Yes, but if someone, say a developer, wanted to tear down some houses and put up a shopping mall. Before anyone knew that this development was going to take place, the developer could basically ‘evict’ people by paying their ‘slightly above market price’ for their homes. Most people will try to low ball the value of their home to avoid taxes.
Or, what would happen, is that ‘someone’ would buy a house and then devalue it, sell it, to someone else (a wholely owned subsidiary of ‘someone’) and someone gets to claim a huge loss on their books. Then ‘someone else’ claims the value is through the roof so it looks good to the stock holders in ‘someone else’ and inflates the stock value.
The racehorse method works well for horses, because they are primarily investments. Someone forces the sale of your investment, you buy another one. That’s not such a hot idea with homes, though it would work effectively in getting a lot of the whining out of property tax assessments.
We just had a reassessment, and I like the way the town did it. All the houses in town were done at the same time, all values attempted to relate to recent real estate transactions. The fact that real estate values went up a few years back doesn’t have jack all to do with anything, because all the houses take the changes into account. The real point is to try and have all the properties in town relate effectively with each other in terms of value, not have one property at 1997 values and one at 2007.
Houses require maintenance in order to maintain their value. Not just structural repairs and landscaping, but maintenance of the town itself. Nobody would be crying “unfair” if she was simply unable to pay to have the lawn mowed and roof fixed, they’d be advising her to move to a condo where there is less maintenance cost. If she can’t pay to maintain the town she lives in, advising her to move is now practically a criminal act.
Isn’t it true that you use the education system to the extent that you reap the benefits of living in an educated society? Similar comments for your other examples. For another example, someone who drives a car might complain that they have to pay for public transit they don’t use, but in fact they use it to the extent that it removes a huge amount of traffic from the streets they then use. Public services don’t benefit only those who directly use the services, which is why we all pay for them.
Because it forces a tyranny of the rich. A pensioner who doesn’t want to sell their house either has to set the price outrageously high (and bankrupt themselves with property taxes) or else they set it low enough to afford the taxes at the risk of being booted out by the first person who wants their house. And who actually thinks that being forced to sell your house to a third party is a good idea?
Seriously, this isn’t even worth arguing - it’s absolutely absurd and cruel on its face, and I’m not going to argue it.
It would be rather fun to live in this world for maybe an hour. It appears to be the purest form of an open market I’ve ever seen. “I want your shirt.” “Fuck.” Everyone would have to carry around their own catalog for personal possessions. If I was rich in this universe, I would walk around buying people’s materialism, just because I could.
That was my point actually. Cutting public services as ‘fat’ to save taxes will eventually bring the weight of the issues of those that USE public services to the front door of the people that PAY for those services, even, in some cases, they’re the same person.
Cutting bus service, for example doesn’t mean people stop needing to get places.
Cutting down on police services can, and usually will increase the number of crimes.
Do a RIF on a fire department or close a station and response times get longer, causing people already in need of help to face greater danger.
All of these things can effect everyone in the long run, taxes are better paid to prevent issues than to mitigate them after they’ve already happened.