Chris Guida on Nostr: >I'll concede that the purchase price of your assets affects the calculation of an ...
>I'll concede that the purchase price of your assets affects the calculation of an unrealized gain, but in my mind this makes the unrealized gain tax less intrusive than a normal property tax. It's essentially a property tax with a write-off.
Again, property tax can be seen as a *fee for protecting your property*. It therefore doesn't make sense to charge you based on the difference between what you paid for it and what it's currently worth now. The cost of protecting your property, to the people protecting it, is an *ongoing expense*, for the duration of your ownership of it. Absurd situations would result from charging you based on the gain, such as the government owing you money if you damaged your property.
>At any rate, the justification of a property tax that you're using is fun philosophizing, but the revenue that property taxes generate go into the same pot as any other tax. The state isn't demarcating police or firefighting services and saying "property taxes pay for this, income tax for everything else".
Fair enough, but I do actually believe that other taxes besides the property tax are immoral and should be eliminated. So I'm picturing that future, and in that future property taxes are perfectly normal and just.
>You can believe in a land value tax or something as a justifiable tax, but that isn't exactly what a property tax is, since improvements you make to your property increase your tax liability. If you're justifying a property tax by pointing to government services that you consider legitimate, that's fine, but this works for any tax, so it's really a non sequitur to talk about property taxes like this.
Again, property tax is not properly viewed as a land value tax. Both the cost and the benefit of protecting your property are proportional to the *total value of the property*, not just the land. Thus, the most sensible way to charge for protection of property is proportionally to the total value of the property.
Again, property tax can be seen as a *fee for protecting your property*. It therefore doesn't make sense to charge you based on the difference between what you paid for it and what it's currently worth now. The cost of protecting your property, to the people protecting it, is an *ongoing expense*, for the duration of your ownership of it. Absurd situations would result from charging you based on the gain, such as the government owing you money if you damaged your property.
>At any rate, the justification of a property tax that you're using is fun philosophizing, but the revenue that property taxes generate go into the same pot as any other tax. The state isn't demarcating police or firefighting services and saying "property taxes pay for this, income tax for everything else".
Fair enough, but I do actually believe that other taxes besides the property tax are immoral and should be eliminated. So I'm picturing that future, and in that future property taxes are perfectly normal and just.
>You can believe in a land value tax or something as a justifiable tax, but that isn't exactly what a property tax is, since improvements you make to your property increase your tax liability. If you're justifying a property tax by pointing to government services that you consider legitimate, that's fine, but this works for any tax, so it's really a non sequitur to talk about property taxes like this.
Again, property tax is not properly viewed as a land value tax. Both the cost and the benefit of protecting your property are proportional to the *total value of the property*, not just the land. Thus, the most sensible way to charge for protection of property is proportionally to the total value of the property.