I can see how, conceptually, shifting tax burden to companies rather than individuals puts public services at risks. Companies don’t really have a lot of incentive to want things like quality schools, parks, and other non-profit public services.

On the other hand, property taxes seem to be a pretty flawed system that still result in inequalities. Individual homeowners hate them and will do anything to lower their burden. More wealthy and mobile people will move to different jurisdictions specifically to save on tax burden. There are extreme examples like The Villages in Florida where the heavy demographics skew toward older residents means that minimal funding reaches services that benefit younger families who work there as service industry workers. My understanding is that this is a particularly extreme arrangement in the villages: if you lose your employment within the jurisdiction you have to pull your kids out of the local schools immediately.

Then you have issues where you get poor jurisdictions and wealthy ones based on property values. Some states help mitigate this by pooling property taxes across the state for school funding.

I’ve heard that many condo buildings in my area have a standing arrangement with a law firm to submit appraisal appeals every single year and the law firm is paid on a percentage based on the savings they achieve.

This system can’t be efficient for anyone involved. When you really think about it this is like a siphon of money that could be going into public services into a private law firm.

The thing about property taxes especially those that have owner-occupier exceptions is that they sort of work okay because they’re a good approximation for wealth. They’re still regressive but you can pretty safely assume that someone who owns a second home is wealthy enough to pay a high tax rate.

On the other hand, that arrangement passes more costs on to the lower income renter. Their property owner landlord has higher property taxes than owner-occupiers and theoretically passes those costs on to the renter.

I think someone could devise a better system and do away with property taxes as they function today entirely. We need a system that makes all the stakeholders in our society feel like every dollar they invest is a positive investment with returns.