Property Taxes, why EVERYONE is really just a renter.
***Warning!!! This one isn't even remotely funny***
Property taxes really bug me. While paying taxes is always a pain, its a necessary evil to ensure that our government has money to run. My problem with property taxes though is that it goes against the entire idea of ownership. Hear me out on this. The way property taxes work, is that you pay your local government a small percentage of the total value of your property every year. But what happens if you don't pay this tax? Well, it accumulates and adds late fees until the amount owed grows so large that the government gets to confiscate your land. So it would be fair to say that you have to pay this amount every year or your land/house will be taken. That sounds a lot like renting to me.
What that says is that the citizens don't really own anything. That it all belongs to the government, and that government can take it back if you dont play by its rules. That is not only un-American, it goes against the entire idea of a capitalist system. The whole basis of capitalism is self interest. A person works to earn money so that they can improve their place in life and pay for the things they want (food, shelter, material goods). Well, if we can't really own anything then the poor working sap is toiling in vain. The best he can hope for is to use that money to "borrow" some possessions for a while. He might easily make enough to keep them indefinetly, but they will never be "his".
Consider this example of my point: Eric gets a job designing software. He is a very motivated and bright fellow and becomes one of the highest paid men in his field. In addition to his yearly salary, Eric invests all that he can into the stock market. Within 15 years Eric's hard work and wise investing have made him 10 million dollars. He has lived the American dream and is now ready to retire and spend the rest of his life enjoying the fruits of his labor. Eric buys a house by a mountain lake, puts the rest of his cash into his investments and starts his retirement. As the years go by he uses the interest from his investments to pay the bills and whatever odds and ends he needs, naturally paying an income tax on that interest, and a sales tax on all his purchases. For some reason, Eric refuses to pay the local property tax though. Thirty years later he recieves a notice, the back taxes on his property have become so great that his land and house are being confiscated to pay for them. So what is the end effect? Eric's initial money apparently paid nicely for 30 years of use, but if he wants to live their anymore he'll have to pay for the house again. That is how property taxes run counter to the idea of ownership. If something is really mine, it will be mine 10 minutes from now, 10 days from now or 10 years from now, unless I decided to get rid of it.
I know local governments need to be funded somehow, but there has to be some way to do that without eroding one of the basic concepts of a capitalist society.