alt Hacker NewsYeah? And? You don't get a mortgage and pay the tax in the first place without being wealthy enough; poor people don't get to own a home and don't pay property tax (excepting for those in rentals who proportionally subsidize the payments the landlord makes).
It's fundamentally a tax on wealthier people among a community.
We really going to sit here in 2026 and pretend the people who wrote down all these rhetorical circumlocutions weren't just making up language to justify their supposed expertise/their social moat? The entire American system is rich families manipulating the legal system to screw have nots. Whole lot of have nots defend a system that doesn't care they exist.
Strip away the ornamental language of the law and just see the ground truth; a person with means to buy the house pays a tax on it all. A poor person never pays a tax because they never own a home.
What is this? Why does everyone feel like they stepped out of the middle ages where dark tongues still exist and the ornate incantations of superstitious people still rule?
It doesn't need to be logically as complicated and intentionally obscured (in my opinion legalese has been to manipulate the illiterate which were the majority back in the day).
Such social conservatism is holding society back.
By your logic, everything is wealth tax. Bought a $5 item and paid sales tax on it that at least one person couldn't afford? Wealth tax! Got groceries while someone was going hungry? Wealth tax! And as you acknowledged, poor people are still paying property taxes, they're just baked into their rent. You're out here decrying "rhetorical circumlocutions" and "ornamental language" while ignoring the argument at hand and engaging in the same discourse you denounce.