this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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You're planning to tax on events like sales and hope there's enough churn to still fully-fund the things property tax provides for? That's really hard to make a case for.
Given bungalows rarely deliver a town enough to recoup on providing and maintaining services anyway, you're starting with a very tricky goal to maintain. Detroit happened, and that was with consistent, recurring payments.
Then you want to put a home sales tax on that is big enough to pay the back taxes plus borrowing cost to hold the debt and you think people are gonna go for this? What if you've owned your home 15 years, paid no taxes on the infrastructure maintenance, ambulance fire or police service, mail service, street lights and pavement, and then your house burns down? You could very well owe more than the lot is worth alone. What do we tell the homeowner about that? The town can't absorb the loss given margins are so low.
Nah. I don't think you can sell that idea to the voters.
You know what stops people from selling houses? Skyrocketing housing prices. Cuts out buyers, and makes loans against equity more appealing than actually cashing out.
You know what tax people can actually afford, that isn't based on the opinions of appraisers regarding the fickle whims of a speculative market? Income tax.