In 2012, North Dakota held a referendum to become the first US state to repeal property taxes.
The measure would have amended the state constitution to eliminate property taxes and mandate the government to find revenue through alternative means.
Proponents noted that a property tax was unnecessary because North Dakota had sufficient revenue from its state income tax and oil income.
They argued that property taxes were regressive taxation that disproportionately affected low-income homeowners and senior citizens. Further, repealing property taxes would provide financial relief to homeowners and foster economic growth by attracting businesses and residents.
A coalition of bureaucrats and special interest groups opposed the referendum.
In the end, voters rejected the referendum by a wide margin, with 78% voting to keep their property taxes.
A Disturbing Distortion of Property Rights
Most people thoughtlessly accept property taxes as a normal part of life—like gravity or the sun setting in the west.
There is no way to pay off your property tax obligation in one fell swoop. It hangs over your head as long as you own the property.
However, the existence of property taxes raises some important, fundamental questions.
Do you really own something if someone forces you to make never-ending (and ever-increasing) payments on it?
Clearly, the answer is “no.”
You would possess such an item but wouldn’t own it—an important distinction.
Suppose Tony Soprano imposed a coffee table property tax on his neighborhood. He would demand everyone pay him $100 every year—for eternity—for every coffee table they had in their house.
He would increase the amount owed each year depending on the market value of the coffee table. So, his goons would assess the current market value of your coffee tables every year to justify the ever-increasing extortion.
He would threaten those who refused to pay with violence, kidnapping, imprisonment, and the theft of “their” coffee tables and other property.
Would people living in Tony Soprano’s neighborhood really own their coffee tables?
While many people would correctly view this as an intolerable situation, these same people would unquestioningly accept government-imposed property taxes on “their” homes, offices, and raw land.
In actuality, you don’t really own anything you have to pay a never-ending and ever-increasing property tax to keep. You are merely renting from the real owners—stop paying, and you’ll find out who really owns it.
The government forecloses on the houses of people who don’t pay their property taxes all the time.
For example, Geraldine Tyler, a 94-year-old elderly woman living alone in Minnesota, lost her condo over unpaid property taxes. The government seized her property and sold it at auction.
It’s not uncommon for people in North America and Europe to pay tens of thousands of dollars in property tax every year… just to live in their own homes. And the burden will almost certainly continue to increase. This is because most governments continually raise property tax rates, especially governments in bad fiscal health, which is to say all of them.
Whenever politicians want more money, they can simply increase property taxes and hope nobody notices. It’s like changing the dial on a thermostat.
That’s why property taxes have nowhere to go but up.
It’s possible that, over a lifetime, the government could take more in property taxes than the underlying value of the property.
Conclusion
Respect for property rights and property taxes are mutually exclusive concepts.
What’s yours is yours, and you shouldn’t need to pay anyone for permission to keep it.
That’s why the very concept of property tax is a despicable affront to property rights, which underpins civilization itself.
The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises puts it best:
“If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.”
That’s why the people who promote, implement, and benefit from property taxes are anti-civilization parasites.
The unfortunate reality is that you will be paying ever-increasing property taxes… unless you own property in one of the few places on Earth without them, the Cayman Islands, for example.
As the example in North Dakota illustrated, the average person will overwhelmingly support keeping their property taxes even when given a rare chance to eliminate them.
It’s reminiscent of the scene in the movie The Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo how most people are comfortable with the system and would fight to protect it:
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy.
But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save.
But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy.
You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
Due to overwhelming popular support for terrible things like property taxes, we can only expect them to increase.
The same is true for policies that cause inflation.
The growing majority of voters who collect net benefits from the government is a built-in constituency to perpetuate policies financed by ever-increasing inflation.
Here’s the bottom line.
Expect ever-increasing inflation and taxation until the situation spirals out of control… which could happen soon.
Unfortunately, most people have no idea how bad things can get, let alone how to prepare.
We will likely see incredible volatility in the financial markets that could decimate many ordinary people’s life savings and retirement assets.
But I’m not just talking about a stock market crash or a currency collapse…
It’s something much bigger… with the potential to alter the fabric of society forever.
It could result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.
Few people are aware of what is really happening.
And even fewer know how to prepare.
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That 94 year old woman probably worked her whole life or was married to someone who worked their whole life and paid piles of taxes and her kids probably served in wars but she gets zero respect for her contributions. At the end of her life they descend on her without a thought of regard and no one helps her. Politicians never seem to lose their homes, why is that?
Property taxes have always been legal under our Constitution. However, as Direct taxes, they have always been required to be apportioned.
If you think your property taxes (or such taxes in general) are not actually being apportioned (hint: they are not) that is where you should start.
” 78 % voting to keep property taxes ” — Horseshit !
Same 78 % that all ‘ voted ‘ for Biden ?
Yep
Probably at least 78% of N. Dakotans are smart enough to not be anarchists, so they realize that there must be some mechanism to fund local governments.
Of the choices mentioned (state income tax, tax on oil extractions or property taxes) which do you prefer, and why?
Commercial (statutorily sanctioned) property or private property? Property taxes need only be paid by commercial businesses which are themselves creations of the STATE. Of course the public fool system doesn’t teach us anything valuable and the local bearcats are just mindless automatons doing their ‘job’.
There is not one corporations that pays taxes. A corporation may remit taxes to whichever government agency is doing the shake down, but it is not paying the taxes. All the myriad taxes a corporation remits are either collected from YOU directly to be passed on (sales/use/VAT) or baked into the price YOU pay to buy that corporation’s product (income/property/ad infinitum).
This is why I formed a corporation and conduct business. It is more detailed, time consuming and at times genuinely frightening than having a moderate to high status job, but conducted properly it is nearly inflation proof. In fact, in a small way, inflation increases my income, that is, a ten percent profit on 1.00 rises as inflation changes the one dollar into two. The margin is the percentage on dollar, which remains intact after cost of goods sold increases to two, three or whatever amount.
Yes, sorry, I guess I should have read ahead before I replied to Gary.
That’s the reason why they were set up, before income tax amendment. Because property taxes were the original version of corporate and or farm income taxes.
1
The greater the value of the property, the theory was that the larger the profits.
Before the income tax amendment to the constitution governments used other funding methods.
For.example the federal government used tariffs, coinage, wire tax on telephones/telegraphs (for the military); and alcohol,taxes to fund the government. But then they passed prohibition, and so to fund the federal government they said they needed a income tax to make up the loss of alcohol taxes.
That was the real reason for prohibition, as a trojan horse for an income tax amendment. Because if it wasn’t they would have repealed the income tax along with prohibition. Or banned the alcohol tax with repeal.
Your rather odd ideas indicate a garbled knowledge of the history of taxation in the U.S.
My understanding is that both alcohol Prohibition and “the Income Tax” were normal “progressive” overreach in their continuing attempt to control people and shape the U.S. into a communitarian paradise with “elite” progressives” in charge of everything.
In any case, our governments used to take care that property taxes, being Direct taxes, were apportioned as the Constitution requires and Americans used to demand.
Commercial property is private property, unless you believe it belongs to the state.
You can start a business i.e. go into commerce, without incorporating, although you get some benefits from incorporating. Needing state permission to do ever more things that we have a natural right to do with no permission at all is a road to serfdom.
Certainly the state wants you to think, as Obama famously said “you didn’t build that”, of course implying that a business you did create and build doesn’t belong to you, but rather to the collective which socialists fantasize creates things rather than just bleeding productive enterprise dry.
If you do some deeper thinking about who actually ends up paying the taxes levied on businesses, you’ll realize that the consumer pays the tax on commercial property, even if in a roundabout way.
I disagree. The appropriate starting point should be backed with lead of the caliber you desire.
I can’t stop you from shooting IRS agents, but I strongly discourage it.
the apportionment business only concerned taxes levied by the federal government. almost all property taxes are levied under the states’ authority. not saying it’s right, but, lets not confuse issues needlessly.
The right to be free of Direct taxes that are not apportioned has, I believe been construed to limit the States and local governments as well as the national government. Almost all property taxes are levied by local governments.
Isn’t an unapportioned tax on property nothing but arbitrary confiscation according to political whims?
A ‘debt’ that cannot be paid off is not legal. It fits the definition of indentured servitude. See 13th Amendment.
No they have not. Property taxes are not legal under the Constitution, which is why there is no Federal Property tax. Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the right to tax property. It grants the right to collect taxes, but those taxes must be in line with the rights of the Citizens. That is why for the first 110 years, Federal taxes were limited to voluntary excise taxes and tariffs.
The right of the Citizens to own property while not specifically noted, is covered under the 10th Amendment because the right to own property is not given to the Federal Government, except in the case of Washington DC, Military bases, and Ports. Likewise, no State Constitution that I am aware of gives the ownership of the real property within, to that State. Property taxes, like income taxes are illegal under the Constitution and are contrary to the rights of a free and sovereign person. Of course the Constitution has not been obeyed by the Federal Government since the Civil War.
Read for yourself what SCOTUS said about it in this case-
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep158/usrep158601/usrep158601.pdf
And then in this one-
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/240/1/
You’ll find that the two categories of taxes authorized by the Constitution are inclusive. There ris no tax that can be imagined that is not either Direct or Indirect.
Um…no. Property titles in the US were allodial. This means that the ownership is superior to ANY claim from anyone else, including gov’t and eminent domain.
So no property taxes.
It is said that you can still do this today, if you have mineral rights, homestead, various claims, etc., but it has been much more difficult since the purported bankruptcy of the fedgov back in the ’30’s.
You can research old English, French, and Spanish land grants, and you will find that there is a lot to this.
At any rate, if we got rid of property taxes (i.e. recognize property rights) we’d never have the f-ed up situation we have today across society.
Property rights equal freedom.
How would local governments make up the lost revenue?
Once we ditched the Lords and such, the property rights in the U.S. were no longer allodial. Why are you babbling about shit like that? Do you think the English King and Lords still have a valid claim to America East of the Mississippi ?
The real problem is taxing wages and salaries as” income”.
AS with most “progressive” alterations to the Constitution, the 16th amendment tries to change reality by warping the meaning of common and commonly understood words.
Can you see that prior to the deceptions of the 16th A., it was virtually impossible to tax the fruits of one’s labor? Because such a tax was understood to be a Direct tax requiring apportionment.
Taxing the property I create or earn by working is absolutely and unforgivingly Direct.
Yeah, heaven help us if we actually owned our own property like the lords did, instead the same old serfdom as it has always been. And the same old aristocracy too.
The English Lords owned property at the whim of the King.
Our property is titled to us and guaranteed by law, with some few exceptions, which as everything else, are now being abused.
And we own property now at the whim of the local government on up. I’ve had my property taking repeatedly, including a paid for house and a near life time of work. We have very few property rights left.
“Once we ditched the Lords and such, the property rights in the U.S. were no longer allodial.”
All take the allodial rights you accredited to the lords having any day what we have today, which is not just beholding to a king, which would be bad enough, but to any person, or government with the power to take it from you by hook or by crook.
“ALLODIAL-Free; not holden of any lord or superior; owned without obligation of vassalage or fealty; the opposite of feudal. Barker v. Dayton, 28 Wis. 3S4; Wallace v. Ilarmstad, 44 Pa. 499. Black’s Law Dictionary”
As the inverse of ALLODIAL, we have feudalism by definition as stated.
I don’t give a rat’s where one lives, reaching 94 years old there should be an “exemption” to property tax. I’d say by age 70 anyway.
No one should have to pay rent/extortion money for privately purchased and legally “owned” property at any age. It is the abolition of private property just as recommended in the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto.
Actually that’s how it works in La Florida de las De Santis.
If someone is 65 or over, has homestead their home, and has owned their home for at least.25 years, then they get such an exemption.
Crumbs from master’s table.
In Ohio it doesn’t matter how long you have owned it. Seems pretty shitty to put a 25 year stipulation on it. I have property that was left to my by my mother, and it has been with us for well over 25 years, but I will be dead before I have owned it for 25 years most likely (though I can hope).
Off topic, but great news from France today.
https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/37836655/novak-djokovic-wins-french-open-record-23rd-grand-slam-men-title
He is now back to #1 in the world despite getting screwed by the petty, vindictive losers that kept him out of Australia and America for being unjabbed. If he wins Wimbledon next month, he will head to the US Open with a chance to sweep all 4 of the Grand Slam tournaments in the same calendar year.
More great news from France
https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/ferrari-topples-toyota-in-return-to-24-hours-of-18146546.php
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/motorsports/nascars-garage-56-entry-completes-24-hours-of-le-mans/ar-AA1cpwEn
Thanks for posting that, wasn’t aware.
Very great champion of Freedom as well as on and off the court. A hero.
God bless and protect Novak Djokovic.
Meh, “he’s” prolly a fag
IDK about other states, but here in Ohio, must the property tax if not all, is determined by vote at the local level, the majority of it being for the schools. You can also get an exemption for being disabled or I think also being over 65?
Which in theory if you took over a county or even a township / school district, you could actually vote your way out of the majority of the taxes.
Yes, that’s the way it is probably in most every state. And yes, you could in theory defund your local government completely. If the voters at large got to set policy too, they could perhaps defund the schools and keep the garbage collectors, maybe even law enforcement… That would be “democratic” enough to produce some really terrible results.
I know being free isn’t for everyone. Some like being community serfs.
What do you mean by “free”?
What you advocate is serfdom which is the opposite of freedom. It means not having to pay for the exercise of basic rights. Like owning property (once paid for, etc) and / or traveling upon the public byways with said property. It means not being milked for every little thing you do because some special interest got a law passed. Like your government trash collection you seem so fond, and an 1001 other things. It means being free to use your property to sustain oneself and family and better their lot, without having it taken from them and charged or told because you neighbor doesn’t like it.
I know you probably think that a foreign concepts or horror of horrors, ANARCHY! But that just shows how domesticated you (don’t worry you aren’t in the minority) are and how far we have strayed from the intent of the FFs.
Had the founders not believed taxation was necessary, they would not have granted Congress the broad and inclusive powers of taxation that they did.
Had they not known that the power to tax is a dangerous power, they would not have included the strict limitations on the taxing power that they did.
Do you think anything that local governments (funded by property taxes) do is useful or necessary? Police? The county jail? Courts?
The board powers of taxation simply didn’t exist until 1917.
That’s why the system has to burn down. There’s simply no other way to start over.
You have a plan for afterwards?
In case you didn’t know, the Deep State has a plan, and there is nothing they want more than to have idiots like you tear things down for them.
Too…..Build Back Better
Too? Really?
Do you have a plan for the “building back”? “Progressives” seem to think it will occur magically.
So, how to prepare? Perhaps a bulleted list of some ideas?
Or just bullets
You start. We’ll watch to see how it works out.
Seriously, did you mean to say building back better can be done with bullets?
Side note,interesting and entertaining read,
perhaps soon a reality.
I hope so
And people in the USSA think they aren’t slaves.
Fiction , but for how long ?
Read it at the link.
westernrifleshooters.us/2023/04/18/bracken-sends-boarders-without-borders/
” The government split our house up into apartments after I couldn’t pay the vacant room tax….A new law. The property tax appraiser said that I had too many bedrooms for just one person to be living here. Too many square feet, there’s a formula. Since I couldn’t pay the vacant room tax, I had to take in boarders, boarders that the state assigned to live here “
When “refugees” and “migrants” are assigned to live in your house if you can’t pay the new “vacant room tax.”
Otherwise know as an albatross around one’s neck.
“Sad” to think peeps in a state with an income tax and oil would vote themselves continuation of property tax.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, peeps in the Lone Star state still be waiting those promised reforms.
C’mon Tex, don’t ignore our illustrious, magnificent and fabulous Guv G. Abbott, and Speaker “Dade” Phelan (sounds like feelin’, BTW), plus the other 149 state Reps. I despise my state rep. the loathsome David Spiller, P.O.S. LAWYER/ASSHOLE, the Jacksboro jackass that identifies as an elephant, some kind of trans thing apparently.
Wow, it’s been a long time since I was in Jacksboro.
Checked the Spiller dude’s bio. Another RebublicOn.
And to think he’s a representative of the Jacksboro district. We used to live in adjacent Parker County. See that mindset it isn’t just in the Urban Utopias, it has spread to every corner.
The libertarian view of taxes is simply that taxes should not exist in the first place. There should be no tax code because taxation is theft and violates the non-aggression principle. I cannot improve upon the late, great Murray Rothbard, who wrote in The Ethics of Liberty:
It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist.
The libertarian view of life is:
You’re not the boss of me!
I’ve got mine, f-you!
There is no libertarian solution to any problem except taking “their” ball, going home, and ignoring everyone else, no matter how in need.
You mischaracterize libertarians. “Progressives”/collectivist/communitarians love to do that.
Which are you?
Their is a radical wing of anarchists calling themselves “pure” libertarians. I just call them fools and useful idiots.
Most libertarians live in the real world and understand the need for limited government to perform certain specific limited tasks on our behalf.
As long as there is property tax you never own property.
Abolition of private property. It seems I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Nonsense.
That is just a polite way of saying “your stupid.” It is not a reasoned argument. I’d be willing to bet though that you probably think living in an HOA or condo (or maybe assisted living) is the best thing since sliced bread?
I own my home and the property it’s on. Also my car, which in my state is subject to property tax.
Nevermind that I pay taxes on their assessed value, I still own them. I have clear titles to both.
This-” As long as there is property tax you never own property.”- has no reasoned argument.
I would never live in a residential community with a condo association, though I might get to a point where I think I need some assistance with living. I expect to pay for the service if the insurance I have for that purpose disappears…
Odd concept of ‘ownership’.
You rent. Don’t pay your rent (tax) and see how long you own them.
My property taxes are quite low, and they fund the county Sheriffs, the Court, the jail and partly fund the volunteer fire department. From time to time, those things are useful, even needed.
I’ve read many proposals to fund these things “privately”, and all of them amount to having rich people having their own private police and courts…
Do you think that’s a good idea?
“allodial Free; not holden of any lord or superior; owned without obligation of vassalage or fealty; the opposite of feudal. Barker v. Dayton, 28 Wis. 3S4; Wallace v. Ilarmstad, 44 Pa. 499.”
Note the word own.
“3. The idea of tenure; pervades, to a considerable degree, the law of
real property in the several states; the title to land is essentially
allodial, and every tenant in fee simple has an absolute and perfect title,
*yet in technical language, his estate is called an estate in fee simple, and
the tenure free and common socage.”*
“socage also soccage noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from soc soke
Date: 14th century
a tenure of land by agricultural service fixed in amount and kind or *by payment of money rent only and not burdened with any military service “*
*”(ten-yər), n.1. A right, term, or mode of holding lands or tenements in
subordination to a superior.”*
Note that the word own is absent and you are subject to a superior.
“2. Opportunity or right to harvest, extract or use resources from a plot of land. ”
Do you have those rights? Most people today aren’t even afforded even that, which IS the most important reason to hold land, as such most are not even afforded the same privilege or rights as a serf.
“feu·dal·ism (fyo͞odʹl-ĭz’əm)
n.
1. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the *holding* of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and *forfeiture.*
*2. A political, economic, or social order resembling this medieval system.”*
I had an idea to buy a piece of privately owned property in a national forest, and transferring it to the National Forest service, while retaining a 99 year lease on the land, with a small token rent. Then you wouldn’t ever have to pay property taxes again.
While you would need to own the land free and clear of a mortgage to.do so. Because your ownership interest is longer than 30 years, you can still borrow against the property.
A middle step might be to level property taxes only on land that is mortgaged.
Or to level a sales tax prorated upon the mortgage payments.
Either way, if your property is paid in full, there are no further taxes.
Even that half step would destroy the current gov’t paradigm. The banksters would get less interest, people would own ancestral homes, and the “edumacation” system would go tits-up.
Government funded indoctrination camps have been failing kids for decades now.
It’s stunning to me people are stupid enough to keep voting them more money.
It is stunning to me that people are too corrupt to question the system of education.
Because most Boomers are flipping morons without a single decent bone in their decaying corrupt bodies and they were told by the government that you have to have property taxes and so they are never going to change their feeble perverted little minds.
Rofl. I guess when something bad happens and u need the fire department fpr Your House” …… rofl. Ridiculous.
There are two types of taxation. Voluntary taxation such as a sales tax or excise tax in which you have a choice to pay or not. You can choose not to buy any item on which there is a sales or excise tax. Then there is involuntary taxation in which you do not have a choice such as the income tax and property tax. Because you must earn a living and you must have a place to live, you have no choice.
Voluntary taxes are moral, because you do have a choice. Involuntary taxes are immoral because you do not have a choice. In addition, this effects your status as a sovereign individual. If you are truly a sovereign individual, your labor belongs to you 100% and the government cannot place any claim upon it. Likewise you can also own property in allodial, meaning no one can place claims on that ownership without due process of law showing rightful ownership .
Income and property taxes cannot be levied upon free and sovereign individuals, only upon subjects of the State.
By placing income and property taxes upon the people, the State is in fact claiming ownership of the people.
I like Trump’s idea of eminent domain for private gain. /s
When governments rig the game, you can expect people to take advantage of it.
The two types of taxes are in fact Direct taxes and Indirect taxes.
According to our Constitution, Direct taxes must be Apportioned (as Representation must be Apportioned), and Indirect taxes must be Uniform.
SCOTUS has intentionally muddled the meaning of “uniform”. In reality, if Congress wishes to levy an excise tax on imports, it must apply uniformly to all imports. In like fashion, a sales tax must apply uniformly to everything that is sold.
Taxes levied on property, being Direct, must be Apportioned, and since your wages and or salary are your property, the taxation of them must also be Apportioned. Think of that in the same way you think of apportioned representation: If I earn a very high salary, Congress can take as much of it as they desire, but, they must take the same amount from someone who earns very low wages. The intent of the Rule of Apportionment for all Direct taxes was to make it very difficult (or impossible) for Direct taxes to be levied.
The Founders didn’t like taxation and felt that Indirect taxes were the most fair, and they certainly didn’t want sellers of one product to be taxed at a different rate that sellers of other products.
“Sin” taxes may be popular, but they are unconstitutional.