Property Taxes - A debate

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by JWB, Dec 4, 2014.

  1. I just pay in to escrow every month for my mortgage payment from there I pay principle on interest, property tax and home owners insurance and I only pay 755$ a month sounds like someone is getting screwed and not paying attention.
     
  2. I know word. Except I'm not really complaining. I just wanted to spark a debate. Active topics was rather lame so I decided to spark interest in at least some forumers.

    Don't like the thread, don't read it.  it's pretty simple.
     
  3. Except you pay council tax on rented properties also, i believe mine would be around £120 per month
     
  4. Police? Fire service? I pay taxes so they get payed. Ambulance? I pay medical insurance. Roads? Here in Europe you pay road taxes everytime when you put gas in your tank. Is included in gas price. And again, if I keep my savings in a drawer I'm taxed only one time. If instead I invest my savings in a property and therefore giving a small contribution for economy to move forward I'm taxed. Again and again.
     
  5. No matter of taxes

    People will still need jobs, things will still need to get done, so private organizations will pop up to take over government jobs
     
  6. This made me have a good laugh. Belgium and France aren't too fun when it comes to taxes. Belgium must have one of the most creative tax systems.

    In some european countries you do pay property taxes on your house as if it were income taxes on a rent you'd get for renting that house. In my opinion, totally silly. You have to be able to trace back what your taxes are used for or you won't buy into that system.

    In my country, I pay a silly low amount of money (less than 100$) of property taxes. But I am paying taxes to my commune (county) for specific services like trash, sewer, water,... And the communes do get taxes from commercial activities as well as from my income taxes (via the state).

    On my car, I do pay immatriculation taxes. I do pay VAT, high additional taxes on gas, income taxes, social security, pension taxes,... but I don't complain about all those as I do get something in return.

    Taxing property because you just own something is in my opinion just stupid. You have to name it differently if it is a tax taken from you to offer you a certain service in return.

    Now how about inheritance taxes (as high as 70% in countries like France)? How do you feel about taxing something that already has been taxed once? Or a tax on your fortune?
     
  7. As a self-employed individual hoping to own a property within the next few years, I have been looking into the aspects of owning a property and taxes and such, and in my opinion it is bs. I don't see the justification behind taxing something that is owned, especially after the pile of taxes that are paid when it's bought in the first place.
     
  8. I to pay my taxes through an escrow acct. that way the tax is divided up over 12 months instead of getting hit with 1large payment a year. I don't mind paying property tax so much, monies for road repairs ect.. has to come from somewhere.
    But a tax I hate, and not many states have any longer is the "Death Tax" or inheritance tax. A few years ago my grandfather died. My family had to pay a tax on everything left to us. Which thankfully was not much, and he was not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. But after all taxes were paid, it equaled out to a 48% tax. My family had to sell his home in order to pay the tax. My grandfather worked hard his whole life for what he had, had already paid owed taxes on it, and his family gets taxed again to inherit it? Just imagine a relative leaving you $100k, and you only getting $52k
    After this tax. That is crazy.
     
  9. The governments money doesn't come from nowhere. If property tax goes down, other taxes have to be raised or the government will suffer a deficit and services would be discontinued. The basic question is, where should the tax be? All things considered, the tax doesn't hurt the low income group as much as say, a general increase on electricity etc.
     
  10. Property tax is for local governments to generate income. Like where I am from I have four property taxes to my city, to my county, to the local school district, and to to the local community college. All of these taxes are based on appraisal rates done every year by the city appraiser which I think is a little bs they have never lowered the worth on my land once. But I think that you need to pay taxes every year on what I payed on my house not what some guy says my house is worth.
     
  11. America a country with one of the lowest taxes in the developed world complaint that there taxes are to high 
     
  12. I believe luxembourg is better
     
  13. This has nothing to do with comparing other countries, or complaining about a tax percentage. Simply a certain tax that Op feels makes no sense.

    @orbofdell- You ask where would the tax be if it wasn't on property? A better solution in my mind is to find ways to cut spending instead of finding more places to take money from.
     
  14. Property taxes in the states aren't too bad as you can deduct it from your income taxes. In France for instance you don't have that luxury. The worst tax got to be the resident taxes "la taxe d'habitation", not sure how it works anymore since I don't leave in France anymore but I doubt it changed, in short you pay a tax to the city you live in wether you own or rent.
     
  15. I think the real problem is all the money being given to the natives from my hard earned money
     
  16. Anony's comment was sarcasm.

    And yes, I can confirm you that Luxembourg is a lot better tax-wise, though I still pay a nice part of my income as taxes. Hell, I might even have paid more taxes than Amazon or Apple did in my country last year 
     
  17. You want to live in a civilised society where there is law and order, street lighting, refuse disposal etc then you have to accept a big chunk of your income is going on taxes.

    As regards whether it be property tax or not ..... well if it isn't property tax it will be some other kind of tax. People avoid tax though so shift it onto income tax there will be folk in the black economy who don't pay. Good thing about property tax collection ............. they know where you live .......
     
  18. I agree TNT. Cut out wasteful spending like obamacare. There is so much wasteful spending through different areas of governmentally funded programs that it is unreal.

    Cut taxes, cut spending, and it equals out. Instead they raise spending and taxes. The only thing that I wouldn't cut spending on would be the military. I would actually increase military spending. Not in the sense that we buy 50 more aircraft carriers, but to raise wages for military personnel. An E4 nuclear engineer in the navy makes like 28k a year tops. A nuclear engineer in the private sector can make over 200k.