alt Hacker NewsProperty taxes are the most evil of taxes because they force you out onto the street if you're unable to pay them. Qualifying it with the words "very valuable" to solve the problem creates an arbitrary two-tier system that is inherently unfair.
>Claiming that you have ownership over land on this planet is odd, you didn't create the land and governments change overtime.
The government didn't create the land either.
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Property taxes are the most just of all taxes because they are the most correlated with your consumption. Speficially, the land value tax portion of property tax (ideally, that is the whole component).
>The government didn't create the land either.
The government did create the peace and order that allows you to sleep at night on your land without having to worry about another tribe taking your land from you. Without an ability to defend it, "your" land is a tenuous label.
The government, and the rest of society, also pays a hefty price routing utilities, police, ambulances, and people around your property's borders. The more property you have, the more it costs the rest of society, not just in money, but in time.
Earned income taxes are the most evil of all taxes. Why would you have to pay for the act of providing value to society?
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Because it is politicaly unpalatable to tax landowners, we tax economic activity instead.
The result is that return on effort are reduced. That mean labor, entrepreneurs, and capital bear the burden of supporting government budgets as opposed to landowners who benefit from the economic activity making their land valuable.
Taxes as a rule discourages whatever get taxed. The exception to this is land, because land isn't created. It already exists in nature.
Don't tax what people make, tax what people took.