US Property Tax Comparison by State

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

US Tax Ranking by StateThe latest report on property tax comparisons within the USA has been released. A report from Attom Data shows just how nuts things are becoming with regard to taxes. Property taxes have become really insane in the North. The average annual property tax bill in Alabama in 2016 was $776 compared to the the highest average is New Jersey where it stands at $8,477.

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One Thing at a Time

Guest Post by Eric Peters

If you’ve ever restored an old car or a motorcycle – a basket case that needs everything – you know the importance of focusing on one thing at a time. Because it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the totality of the mess.kaw_50_ontruck

The last bike I restored (a ’75 Kawasaki S1 triple) I started with just the frame. I had the entire bike completely disassembled, the parts laid out like the famous skeleton of Lucy, the oldest semi-complete fossil of a distant ancestor of humanity yet found.

Looking at all those rusty, worn out grease-caked parts, the peeling chrome and  pitted metal, made it hard to imagine the “like new” bike I hoped to have at the end of the odyssey.

Which is what makes it hard to even begin.

Which makes it easy to give up.

Our situation, politically, is a lot like this. So much needs fixing, so much is broken, it’s easy to just give up and resign ourselves to the hopelessness of it all.

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How to Create A Fairer System

This is the problem with taxation. Major public corporations can move their tax domicile offshore to avoid taxes legally. The average person cannot move his labor offshore to lower his taxes, which is a disadvantage we must address with tax reform. With VAT, that is far worse than a sales tax. Every person in the chain must collect and file paperwork. It must require three times the number of people to administer such a system compared to a point of sales tax collection.

But that issue aside, there should be ABSOLUTELY NO income taxes whatsoever. That not only eliminates government having to track everything, but it also eliminates the whole movement of capital solely for tax purposes. This is unfair, for the average person cannot send their labor offshore to avoid taxation without moving. Even then, that would only get an American the first $100,000 tax-free; after that, it would be subjected to U.S. income tax.

The Founding Fathers of the United States revolted over taxation without representation. We are back to that now, for we are being taxed to pay interest to service debts from the last two generations. We had no right to vote on that spending, which took place before we were born. This is not a democratic process.

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Income Tax Has Been Highly Destructive to Society

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Income Tax Top-Bracket-2

Income taxes are a product of the Marxist period. This is when class warfare became dominant. People actually argued that it was unjust that someone else had more money than another and expect government to take it from them. The introduction of the Income Tax was expressly stated that it would ONLY apply to the rich. This is no different from seeing someone with a Rolex watch and going with a gun to rob him yelling it’s not fair he has someone you do not. This is the coveting of your neighbor’s goods.

There are some who begrudge others having anything they do not and attribute everything to some sort of fairness. This was the dominant theory that took hold in the world especially after the Panic of 1893. This trend has led to the downfall of Western Society as it it to those who grabbed all property in the Communist world.

Nevertheless, this displaced the family structure and altered society tremendously. Children no longer saved to take care of their parents. That became the duty of the state – not their obligation. So as the state now fails from fiscal mismanagement, we will see the true cost of Marxism as did those behind the Iron Curtain. The difference today, they have a health distrust about government and retained the family structure. I Europe and America, we lost much of those values as a whole.

The fact that the US National Debt was paid off on January 1st, 1835 without an income tax proved that Marxism and the income tax is not merely unnecessary, it has been highly destructive.

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