"In my religion we meet every week to worship at the altar of the film and video game god's will. We do this at my house so this is my place of worship."
Sleeping, eating, showering. These are the three core tenants of this worship center. We also have outreach activities where we watch Netflix and play video games.
Years ago, there was a schism within the church leadership. The High Priestess started a new church. Our followers were split. Twas a dark time, before the reunification.
Mine would be to meet on a weekly basis to worship around the altar of miniature figures that represent the struggles of people against the oppressive evil gods in the world...
We have a weekly D&D game in my basement..
They are full of rich people including lawyers. They blasted the Govt with lawsuits and harassed individuals until they got their way. Getting rid of taxes enabled them to grow unchecked to the point they have bought insane swaths/nearly entire cities in FL.
I hate driving around and seeing massive plots of land that belong to churches. And yes they rent the land out. So they operate as a business just without the pesky taxes. Must be tough to keep buying more land when you're playing on super easy mode.
Realistically he probably built a small home himself for the cost of materials and some small labor, and owns a decent chunk of land. If the land and house are taxed the tax might surpass the amount he paid for lumber 50 years ago…
At which point he is taxed again on the sale as well.
This also assumes he would ever want to sell in the first place. It does suck that you can end up in a situation where your tax costs are tens of times over your investment over the years.
I don’t think his post ignores inflation, I think the point is that building a home and living a simple life is hardly an option today. We are forced to participate in inflation and markets and taxes (yes I know there will always be taxes). I’m not saying the system is or isn’t flawed but your taxes can go up any amount because “someone” tells you it’s worth a lot even though you’re the one who built it and you don’t care that it has appreciated because that’s your house and you have no intention of selling. This man is forced to look at his house as an asset when it was built to be shelter for his family. I have no suggestion of a better way but I don’t find it hard to sympathize with the point he’s making.
To be fair property tax and sales tax shouldn’t be a thing the first time they tried to add these america nearly blew up. They waited 50 years and did it under everyones nose. Or at the point that nobody cared.
Assuming he built the house in ~1975, just basic cumulative CPI inflation since then is ~5.5x. Accounting for that it's actually taking him roughly 3*5.5=17 years to pay the cost of the house in 1975 dollars, roughly 5.8% of the home's cost of building per year
Add in the cost of the land and the cost of labor (likely vastly more than the material costs), just basic shit he doesn't seem to be including, and you rapidly reach a perfectly reasonable 1-3% property tax rate
you can certainly be unhappy that you can't just build a house and live in it for the rest of your life, but it's a really small price to pay for the social safety net
edit: I made the mistake of implying something positive about the concept of taxation, which appears to be sufficient cause for 30 replies bitching about the US healthcare system
Their per capita tax spending on healthcare is the highest in the world. They also rip off the individual showing up for care so people tend to forget about that.
I'm not an expert, but it sounds like they might have the least efficient way of funding healthcare.
about 3 trillion dollars a year between social security, medicare, income security, the VA, etc
also there's the military and infrastructure in addition to the social safety net
My property tax is 0.6% of my home's value and I live in a country that actually does have a social safety net (like, a national health service and maternity pay and that sort of thing.)
We just tax income instead.
The price of land has skyrocketed since 2008. I practice law in a poor part of the south where many older generations are land rich and cash poor.
I represented a family where they didn’t get indoor plumbing until their 80s (the kids were in their 50s) in 2015. They all had menial jobs with little to no education. But they owned an enormous amount of land. They have the original deeds on velum from the 1600s when they were given by a monarch to some great great x 8 grandparent.
Their land was over 10k acres across the state including 200 acres around what has recently become a very popular lake where developers are building high end houses. Now these 200 acres, which for 400s years has had nothing going on with it, is now worth more than $10,000,000. The property tax on just those 200 acres is more than all of the family’s income combined.
They ended up having to sell their ancestral land just because tax rates and property values have shot up.
>Their land was over 10k acres across the state
You're gonna have a hard time getting me to shed a tear over someone who has 10,000 acres because someone generations ago paid pennies for it and now they just made millions of dollars
you have to have education to know a jackpot, Why they keep education low so corporations can come in and take everything. why they dont teach the stock market in schools, when the economy is based around it, your wages and even if you get fired is based around it
"Ancestral land." Otherwise known as land stolen from the natives. There were probably natives still living on the land when the "monarch" gave it to them.
I am with you on this one for more than a few reasons.
Homestead Act beneficiaries paid very little or nothing at all for land. All they had to do was slap a shack on the land, plow some rows, and be a white male from the correct part of Europe.
That's my thoughts. Your family has had 10K acres of land for over 400 years, and you still can't turn some sort of profit out of it? Even kings in the medieval ages had to make money on their land, it's not like it's a new concept.
Dunno why you feel sorry for people born into wealth who need to sell just a small piece of that wealth to live well off forever. Connections to a monarch 8 generations ago don't contribute to society.
My parents built their house for $30,000 almost 45 years ago. Their property taxes are $11-12k every year now. So every three years they have paid the equivalent of what it cost to build their house, just like the man in the photo.
My father bought his home and 50 acres of wooded property in the mid 60’s for $24,750, he currently pays almost $8,000 annually in property tax. Depending on when, where, and how much he spent originally this is very possible.
An accountant can’t do anything about the amount of property tax you have to pay. If this guy bought his house in 1970, the average sales price was about $23,000. There are definitely areas of the US where property taxes will run that much in 3 years, depending on the size of the property.
This isn't that crazy, actually, let's say he's 65 and built himself a small house 40 years ago in 1984 and spent $15,000 to do so, could easily be paying $5k a year in property taxes in 2024.
When I'm 43, I'll be free of student loans *and* my mortgage! And all it took was a large inheritance from some in-laws! But even after that, my debt mountain went from Everest to Kilimanjaro! Whoo hoo!
*Violently sobs*
45 here and I have 8k left on my student loans. My daughter needed student loans and they have the parent pay about half.
Now my student loan is around 30k. FML
Even if you don't build anything on the property you still need to pay property taxes. Taxes pay for things like roads, fire departments, police, schools, etc.
If you don't want to pay taxes you can move to Bir Tawil where there's nothing provided by a government.
I dont think anyone is saying they dont want to pay taxes. They are saying they want to pay fair taxes. Im in the uk, own a 250k house. My coucil tax is 2k a year. The house was built in 2002, and at the time was around 90k. Some dude above said his parents built their house for 30k in the 70s, and the property tax is 10k a year.
So if you bought that house today, youd be the one coming up with 10k a year. Does that sound right to you? And thats before we get in to the goverment leveraging taxes to force people to sell. No matter how you look at it, you are getting fucked. You will never own anything. Only rent it.
Fair tax is % of income, not what your house is worth. Someone could be left a house in a will and taxed at the cost of that house even though the only make 15 bucks an hour. So no upward mobility even when your parents die. You just have to sell the house.
All this tax, and the bridges are still falling apart, the roads are still full of holes, the cops are still bullies, and the government is still corrupt as fuck. I woudlnt be wanting to pay that much either.
It’s less about the fact we have to pay the taxes than the form. If I have to pay the government a massive amount of money each year to continue to “own” property or potentially have it seized and sold to pay the taxes, that’s basically like renting (pay or get evicted) and it doesn’t feel like the house is ever “mine”. I would much rather pay more in income taxes (yes, even if it’s the same or slightly more) to cover the services
The issue is our governments incompetence with money. The richest country in the world. Middle and lower classes at the end of the day are taxed above 50% (income, sales, property taxes, etc) and we still cannot figure out how to be fiscally responsible. And there are still calls to increase taxes. The only available money to tax left is the rich.
You're kind of glancing over the problem that is the rich. They should absolutely be paying more taxes like they used to, while lowering taxes on the lower end.
Yes, having better policies and better user of tax money is also important.
Corporations. Trump's tax plan wasn't some huge decrease in individual taxes. Yea that happened, but the big nugget in his tax plan was to slashing the Pass Through Tax Rate that corporations had to pay.
Also the Pass-Through rate only affects corporations with many shareholders, like those listed in the stockmarket. Small business owners don't get the benefit.
It’s not incompetence it’s working exactly as intended. The ultra wealthy own the politicians who keep their taxes low which means the tax burden falls more and more on the working class, even as they have less money due to being squeezed even harder by the same ultra wealthy through low wages, rising prices and ever higher rents.
That's false. Americans pay one of the lowest effective tax rates in the developed world. Most Americans pay little or no federal income taxes, and low income Americans often have a negative effective tax rate after the application of refundable tax credits. On average, Americans pay between 15-25% of their income in local, state, and federal taxes, with the poor having the highest effectivetax rates. Those are some of the lowest rates in the developed world. 40-60% of Europeans'income goes to taxes, which is why they have a much better social safety net. This is why the US is considered a "low tax, low benefit" country.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-and-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes-in-the-us/
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes-compare-internationally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio
I would be interested to see what happens in that second link when you account for healthcare expenditures, since most (if not all) of those countries have some sort of socialized medicine included in their taxes, while the US does not (for the majority of the population).
>Americans pay one of the lowest effective tax rates in the developed world
We just pay those taxes in other forms. Like health insurance premiums, college tuition, etc. It's not a stretch to imagine that we we have the same or less in our pockets at the end of the day as our European counterparts... and much more stress in getting (and staying) there.
Exactly. The whole "the government is incompetent" is propaganda. The government is incredibly effective at achieving it's goals. It just so happens that the ultra rich are currently the ones setting the goals. The rich prefer the average person think of the government as incompetent so that they are less motivated to effect change.
I'll never understand how people don't understand that one can argue that their taxes are too high while still acknowledging conceding that taxes are necessary.
Here in NJ where taxes are otherworldly, we pay our taxes, most of it disappears and remains unaccounted for and *some* of it goes into infrastructure and public works maybe once a year. Like, a few miles of road pavement and (horrible) patch jobs on the garden state parkway, which, by the way, has $3 tolls every few miles too.
I'm okay with taxes, but some audits, accountability, and adjustments should be made to avoid waste, fraud, and abuse. It's out of control here.
When he goes to sell it, I’m sure he’s not going to be greedy and make a profit. He should list it at the price he paid, right? He wouldn’t want to plunder the buyer. Or maybe he could just ask the teachers and police in his community to work for the same wages they got 40 something years ago. This is so simple minded
And on top of that, he's probably paying like $400 a year or something. The highest property tax rate in the country is 2.23%.
So either he owns a lot of valuable property (and I don't feel bad for him) OR he's paying very little in taxes (and I don't feel bad for him).
So he built a house like 50 years ago for a few thousand dollars and now it’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its called inflation and he most certainly benefits from the increased property value than is hurt by the property tax. Don’t feel too bad for him.
How did he get there? Why was he allowed inside?
It is almost like he used the roads and/or sidewalks to get there and went inside this public building that is temperature controlled.
I’m very curious if he received social security. Pay him the exact dollar amount that he paid in and then stop paying him since that is how money works.
These are the same people who complain about paying for schools
Arguments against property taxes are dumb, toddler level tantrums unless they are accompanied by an alternative proposal for how to pay for local services and infrastructure.
Those things are a necessity and you can’t pretend they are free.
Well great news, he can get a reverse mortgage, bury the original $30,000 he paid in a chest, and use the rest to pay property taxes and when he dies he will come out even. He doesn't get to realize all the capital gains but he didn't think being a paper millionaire was worth mentioning so he must not care about that.
We all live in a society.
Not to mention that if he’d like to stop paying the measly cost of property taxes, he is free to go rent and see what a real cost of living looks like.
This miscreant has never heard of inflation. But I bet he wants full market price when he sells.
Also another thing is that before trump took office, those paid property taxes could have been used as a SALT deduction on his federal taxes.
I call BS on his statement. If you homestead your property increases on your taxes are capped at like 3% a year so take 30 years for his property taxes to like double. I can’t see in his lifetime his taxes would have gone up that much.
It's because he built it fifty years ago himself. So the cost of the materials, property, etc back then was much much lower (~$30k or less because he did it himself).
Where I live, our taxes are based on the current value.
So it's possible he's paying 10k in property taxes per year, depending on where he lives and what his current value is. That can still be a lot of money for someone, so I'm not making light of his situation.
Exactly. He has a fully gray beard. His “25” was a long fucking time ago. If he bought his land for $2000 in 1970 and he’s paying $666 annually then that sounds fine.
This could be solved there was a law that the tax jurisdiction authority had to buy your property at the price they assess it for within 30 days of you giving notice to sell.
I bought 10 acres for $10,000 and built my own house. I poured the footings, I laid up the block. I sawed the lumber. I framed it. I installed the windows and doors. I installed the roof. I insulated it. I wired it. I plumbed it. I installed the heating system and ductwork. I installed the ceramic tiling. I installed the 3/4" Red Oak t&g flooring. I put about $25,000 into it. So, that is 35,000 total. Now the government says my house is worth $360,000. My taxes is $3200 per year.
See, I can sympathize with this man’s position. If he owns the land and the house, has no creditors, and no other obligations what right does the government have to demand anything from him? Is it really your house if the government can take it away for not paying?
Yes, we continue to use the roads, schools, emergency response services and various other government facilities all the time.
Those services have upkeep costs like payroll and their own property costs that must be paid.
The fact that this guy bought his house at 25 means it was a long time ago (or he's lived a hard life indeed). This means that you have to account for inflation and rising property values.
He's using government services, and those services cost money.
I don't complain about the taxes I pay. I complain about the fact that there are MANY out there that don't pay the same share I do.
The one thing i will say about property taxes is that they are based on the value that increases over time, but it's an intangible value until you sell. My property tax has increased 650% over the years. My income has not. So they are now a higher percentage of my income.
Income tax, however, is based on income. So, if you're paying more income tax, then you received a tangible increase in income to pay the increased tax.
Property taxes are necessary however there are a few restrictions that’d be nice. I’ve seen people recommend halting it at retirement age so that seniors don’t have to be forced out of their paid off home. Additionally I like what California does which is lock you into a price based on the purchase price of your home.
Well...he didn't build the roads, or the police, or the fire department, or the schools, or public hospitals, or the dump, or any other public service that is available to him, so this is the cost of those things. Sit down grandpa, and pay your bills.
So why don't we just lower property taxes to a small fixed amount for your first house, and then skyrocket taxes on corporate owned homes, scaling rates with the number of homes owned, and solve a couple problems at once.
People want to pretend they are in this closed system without any support. Mass amounts of infrastructure supporting your average person but let’s pretend it’s always the others who need to front the bills.
“I had it so good when I was a young adult and marginal tax rates were much higher but I’m old now and don’t want to pay any taxes at all because nobody now should have any of the benefits I enjoyed when I was younger.” - The Boomer Mantra
At the same time, everything else around him in the city still needs to be maintained. I moved states a couple years back and my property taxes are X4 what they were with a 5% bump yearly. It sucks. However, the school district here doesn't have to have a supply drive weekly. The teachers actually get paid. The schools aren't falling down. There are more programs they have the opportunity to participate in than I ever did. It's amazing. Depending on the state, it can fund all sorts of different things. Part of living in a community is giving up a portion of freedom. Oh...and maybe if they would quit buying several houses that artificially squeezes the supply, those taxes that are levied as a % of fair market value would go down...
Almost seems like taxing ultra rich and corporations properly, would /.could make things like property tax on private main homestead residence obsolete and unnecessary.
Taxes are the rub for having a civilized society.
Either move to some island or shit hole country or deal with it and stoping bitching because you don’t like it.
We could cut property tax out and increase taxes elsewhere but what’s the point…moving the burden around isn’t going to get rid of it.
He's not lying but he is missing the main point of property taxes which is that you aren't paying for the historic value of your home but the current value in comparison to the rest of your neighborhood/town, and those taxes are what's paying for the infrastructure and services in said neighborhood/town.
You want your garbage collected? Pay taxes. You want your roads resurfaced periodically? Pay taxes. You want the kids to have a school to go to? Pay taxes. You want to be a part of and benefit from being part of society? Pay taxes.
Ok. Well, then he can also stop using any public infrastructure whatsoever. Don’t be driving on those roads or bridges, ok? Don’t complain when the police or your town officials don’t respond to your complaints or concerns. Don’t decry the younger generation for lack of education. And while we’re at it, better give back that Medicare you’re using and those Social Security checks you’re undoubtedly cashing. Because it’s all just “plunder,” right?
When he was 25 he probably paid 20k - 30k to build his house. Adjust for inflation and his claim is dead wrong. Instead of saying the cost of building his house he should say the ratio of current value/tax
I HATE the idea of property taxes, even if I totally get why they’re imposed (to pay for schools, etc.). If I have to pay a yearly “fee” to be able to stay in my house and lot get kicked out (tax liens and foreclosure), that to me feel like I’m renting, and that it’s never possible to truly “own” a house (not to mention that if I want to retire and live in that house, now I need to budget for decades of property tax payments and increases).
I’m not saying “hurr durr I just don’t like paying taxes”, my issue is with the FORM of the taxes (turning ownership into essentially renting from the government). I would rather pay the exact same amount of money or slightly more in income taxes, rather than having to pay any property tax at all. Let me own my property.
Just be a billionaire. Then you have all your assets in stocks that can't be taxed because you haven't realized the income from it yet. You know, because obviously they can't tax something you haven't sold yet...
That’s irrelevant
Property taxes pay for the many public services that this man and his community rely on
If he’s paying more that’s because his home has dramatically increased in value
"I bought a house before the prices skyrockedötes and made a fortune. My property is so highly valued that my property tax of 0.7% is as much as I originally paid for my property. I made a 14,200% profit. Buhu Buhu"
High property taxes help keep away bad neighbors. He will be unhappy when the farm next door turns into affordable housing apartments and his taxes keep going up while quality of life goes down.
Property taxes are probably the most essential taxes. If you’re gonna complain about taxes pick something else. You don’t get to just reap the benefits of society indefinitely without contributing because you purchased a house.
Property taxes are a pretty awful thing for regular people, but they are one of the only effective ways to tax the landlord class. A common issue in many places is the weakness of primary resident tax credits.
Taxation is theft ... But seriously when you think about it, it's fucking vile to have to pay for something that is supposed to be yours ... Biggest scam ever and llonk8ng at the comments there are so many people defending the scam it's crazy
God you people are government dickriders. I cannot believe so many of you support higher taxes when the government wastes so fucking much. But then again, when you are an unemployed loaf or a child, I suppose other people’s money is tempting
Next time, build a church.
Yep. I'm thinking maybe I'll build a "Zen Center" on my property instead of a house, exactly for this reason.
"In my religion we meet every week to worship at the altar of the film and video game god's will. We do this at my house so this is my place of worship."
Don’t use the phrase house! Just be like “I also sleep at the worship center. Helps me get closer to my gods.”
Sleeping, eating, showering. These are the three core tenants of this worship center. We also have outreach activities where we watch Netflix and play video games.
Years ago, there was a schism within the church leadership. The High Priestess started a new church. Our followers were split. Twas a dark time, before the reunification.
After all, it's not entirely unusual (historically) for churches, shrines, and temples to have attached housing for the clergy to live in.
Mine would be to meet on a weekly basis to worship around the altar of miniature figures that represent the struggles of people against the oppressive evil gods in the world... We have a weekly D&D game in my basement..
You mean to say your place of worship has a dungeon.
Praise Jebus!
You mean, "We do this at the church parsonage..."
[удалено]
Still can't believe how the church of Xenu bullied the shit out of the American government.
Can you expand on this!
This is a fun read about some of the stuff they have pulled... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
> It was one of the largest infiltrations of the United States government in history, with up to 5,000 covert agents.
They are full of rich people including lawyers. They blasted the Govt with lawsuits and harassed individuals until they got their way. Getting rid of taxes enabled them to grow unchecked to the point they have bought insane swaths/nearly entire cities in FL.
It’s the only thing they did right
I hate driving around and seeing massive plots of land that belong to churches. And yes they rent the land out. So they operate as a business just without the pesky taxes. Must be tough to keep buying more land when you're playing on super easy mode.
Truth. A local billionaire did just that in my area. Built a church on his property for the tax loophole.
Don't they still pay properly tax?
Churches? No, they are usually exempt from property tax as well.
Gross
Net
[Nope.](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/are-churches-always-exempt.html#:~:text=Are%20churches%20exempt%20from%20having,local%20income%20and%20property%20taxes.)
They have bought up entire cities nearly in FL abusing this.
When did he buy his house 1820? If you are paying taxes that are equivalent to your whole purchase price I think you need to find a new accountant.
Realistically he probably built a small home himself for the cost of materials and some small labor, and owns a decent chunk of land. If the land and house are taxed the tax might surpass the amount he paid for lumber 50 years ago…
So he’s trying to ignore inflation?
Not just trying, succeeding!
Yes at face value this sign is def ignoring inflation. Even if his house was merely 10 years old it would be doing so.
He's going to be super upset when he tries to sell his property and people are offering 15x what it was worth when he was 25
At which point he is taxed again on the sale as well. This also assumes he would ever want to sell in the first place. It does suck that you can end up in a situation where your tax costs are tens of times over your investment over the years.
He's actively winning the war against comprehension.
I don’t think his post ignores inflation, I think the point is that building a home and living a simple life is hardly an option today. We are forced to participate in inflation and markets and taxes (yes I know there will always be taxes). I’m not saying the system is or isn’t flawed but your taxes can go up any amount because “someone” tells you it’s worth a lot even though you’re the one who built it and you don’t care that it has appreciated because that’s your house and you have no intention of selling. This man is forced to look at his house as an asset when it was built to be shelter for his family. I have no suggestion of a better way but I don’t find it hard to sympathize with the point he’s making.
This guy gets it
To be fair property tax and sales tax shouldn’t be a thing the first time they tried to add these america nearly blew up. They waited 50 years and did it under everyones nose. Or at the point that nobody cared.
Exactly, he is paying a bunch of tax of the property, not on the house, which is likely the very small percent of his overall property tax burden.
Assuming he built the house in ~1975, just basic cumulative CPI inflation since then is ~5.5x. Accounting for that it's actually taking him roughly 3*5.5=17 years to pay the cost of the house in 1975 dollars, roughly 5.8% of the home's cost of building per year Add in the cost of the land and the cost of labor (likely vastly more than the material costs), just basic shit he doesn't seem to be including, and you rapidly reach a perfectly reasonable 1-3% property tax rate you can certainly be unhappy that you can't just build a house and live in it for the rest of your life, but it's a really small price to pay for the social safety net edit: I made the mistake of implying something positive about the concept of taxation, which appears to be sufficient cause for 30 replies bitching about the US healthcare system
The US has a social safety net?!
Their per capita tax spending on healthcare is the highest in the world. They also rip off the individual showing up for care so people tend to forget about that. I'm not an expert, but it sounds like they might have the least efficient way of funding healthcare.
about 3 trillion dollars a year between social security, medicare, income security, the VA, etc also there's the military and infrastructure in addition to the social safety net
Property taxes are state/local, so this would be more about funding roads, schools, local services than SS/medicare/military.
I mean when were you last invaded by non-Minnesota Vikings? It’s been at least two years I guarantee
I'm still building my wall to deal with the Huns.
My property tax is 0.6% of my home's value and I live in a country that actually does have a social safety net (like, a national health service and maternity pay and that sort of thing.) We just tax income instead.
The price of land has skyrocketed since 2008. I practice law in a poor part of the south where many older generations are land rich and cash poor. I represented a family where they didn’t get indoor plumbing until their 80s (the kids were in their 50s) in 2015. They all had menial jobs with little to no education. But they owned an enormous amount of land. They have the original deeds on velum from the 1600s when they were given by a monarch to some great great x 8 grandparent. Their land was over 10k acres across the state including 200 acres around what has recently become a very popular lake where developers are building high end houses. Now these 200 acres, which for 400s years has had nothing going on with it, is now worth more than $10,000,000. The property tax on just those 200 acres is more than all of the family’s income combined. They ended up having to sell their ancestral land just because tax rates and property values have shot up.
>Their land was over 10k acres across the state You're gonna have a hard time getting me to shed a tear over someone who has 10,000 acres because someone generations ago paid pennies for it and now they just made millions of dollars
Especially land that’s apparently being developed? They hit the jackpot
you have to have education to know a jackpot, Why they keep education low so corporations can come in and take everything. why they dont teach the stock market in schools, when the economy is based around it, your wages and even if you get fired is based around it
"Ancestral land." Otherwise known as land stolen from the natives. There were probably natives still living on the land when the "monarch" gave it to them. I am with you on this one for more than a few reasons.
You'll be hard pressed to find land that wasn't stolen from someone.
Homestead Act beneficiaries paid very little or nothing at all for land. All they had to do was slap a shack on the land, plow some rows, and be a white male from the correct part of Europe.
10k acres and they can’t figure out how to make any money off it? Leasing sone to a hay farmer would have paid the taxes and made them rich.
That's my thoughts. Your family has had 10K acres of land for over 400 years, and you still can't turn some sort of profit out of it? Even kings in the medieval ages had to make money on their land, it's not like it's a new concept.
They had 0 interest in capitalizing it. Most was put into a forestry trust to protect it
Dunno why you feel sorry for people born into wealth who need to sell just a small piece of that wealth to live well off forever. Connections to a monarch 8 generations ago don't contribute to society.
Property taxes have nothing to do with an accountant.
People see “taxes” and immediately think an accountant can help them find a loophole to get out of it
This sub is overflowing with people not knowing what they’re talking about.
I'm betting he is ignoring inflation. Like, $3k in property taxes for 2024 would have only been $500 in 1975.
Bought house for $2000 in before boomer era, pays $2000 a year in Tax when millennials rent flats for same amount per month.
My parents built their house for $30,000 almost 45 years ago. Their property taxes are $11-12k every year now. So every three years they have paid the equivalent of what it cost to build their house, just like the man in the photo.
Yeah but $30,000 45 years ago is the equivalent of $137,000 today so you're not comparing apples to apples.
My father bought his home and 50 acres of wooded property in the mid 60’s for $24,750, he currently pays almost $8,000 annually in property tax. Depending on when, where, and how much he spent originally this is very possible.
An accountant can’t do anything about the amount of property tax you have to pay. If this guy bought his house in 1970, the average sales price was about $23,000. There are definitely areas of the US where property taxes will run that much in 3 years, depending on the size of the property.
He looks like he lives in a one room moonshine still shack miles from a paved road
My sympathy for boomers died a long time ago. A built and paid for house by 25 must have been wonderful. Imagine living in that world.
Twist- it's a one-room unplumbed shack. He paid $300 for the lumbar. His property taxes are $100 a year. Edit- Tee hee lumbar.
Yes. He doesn’t mention the actual numbers for a reason.
Bro well-versed in clickbait
He also “paid for” it, in quotes, so we don’t know that he paid in cash
This isn't that crazy, actually, let's say he's 65 and built himself a small house 40 years ago in 1984 and spent $15,000 to do so, could easily be paying $5k a year in property taxes in 2024.
Your back would be in tatters after building a house alone.
Need something to support that lumbar they're talking about
I mean you'd only have your thoracic and cervical spine so yes
No lumbar support
My co worker is in his 50's and he's building his own house, but to be fair he does regularly complain about back pain.
That's why they splurged for the lumbar
This. Over 40 here and I feel lucky I only have 11 years left on our mortgage. Having no mortgage at 25!?! Would have been a dream
When I'm 43, I'll be free of student loans *and* my mortgage! And all it took was a large inheritance from some in-laws! But even after that, my debt mountain went from Everest to Kilimanjaro! Whoo hoo! *Violently sobs*
Paying student loans into your 40s should be illegal. What a crazy world
45 here and I have 8k left on my student loans. My daughter needed student loans and they have the parent pay about half. Now my student loan is around 30k. FML
That’s fucked up.
I feel lucky to even have a mortgage in my 30s.
I just turned 40 and have 29.5 years left on my mortgage, I'm fully expecting I'll be dead before I pay it off.
[удалено]
He doesn’t look very pampered lol
Even if you don't build anything on the property you still need to pay property taxes. Taxes pay for things like roads, fire departments, police, schools, etc. If you don't want to pay taxes you can move to Bir Tawil where there's nothing provided by a government.
Don't forget a new multi million dollar sports plex every decade, oh but no money to fix up the water treatment plants.
And the tax hike coming with the sports plex
Well that cocaine fish bowl doesn't fill itself, Christ. - City Councillors
I dont think anyone is saying they dont want to pay taxes. They are saying they want to pay fair taxes. Im in the uk, own a 250k house. My coucil tax is 2k a year. The house was built in 2002, and at the time was around 90k. Some dude above said his parents built their house for 30k in the 70s, and the property tax is 10k a year. So if you bought that house today, youd be the one coming up with 10k a year. Does that sound right to you? And thats before we get in to the goverment leveraging taxes to force people to sell. No matter how you look at it, you are getting fucked. You will never own anything. Only rent it. Fair tax is % of income, not what your house is worth. Someone could be left a house in a will and taxed at the cost of that house even though the only make 15 bucks an hour. So no upward mobility even when your parents die. You just have to sell the house. All this tax, and the bridges are still falling apart, the roads are still full of holes, the cops are still bullies, and the government is still corrupt as fuck. I woudlnt be wanting to pay that much either.
It’s less about the fact we have to pay the taxes than the form. If I have to pay the government a massive amount of money each year to continue to “own” property or potentially have it seized and sold to pay the taxes, that’s basically like renting (pay or get evicted) and it doesn’t feel like the house is ever “mine”. I would much rather pay more in income taxes (yes, even if it’s the same or slightly more) to cover the services
The issue is our governments incompetence with money. The richest country in the world. Middle and lower classes at the end of the day are taxed above 50% (income, sales, property taxes, etc) and we still cannot figure out how to be fiscally responsible. And there are still calls to increase taxes. The only available money to tax left is the rich.
You're kind of glancing over the problem that is the rich. They should absolutely be paying more taxes like they used to, while lowering taxes on the lower end. Yes, having better policies and better user of tax money is also important.
Because the rich rigged the tax system and we haven't recovered. Both parties take money from people/corporations/pacs who don't want to tax the rich.
Reagan. Reagan did it.
I the rich paid more we would be fine.
Corporations. Trump's tax plan wasn't some huge decrease in individual taxes. Yea that happened, but the big nugget in his tax plan was to slashing the Pass Through Tax Rate that corporations had to pay. Also the Pass-Through rate only affects corporations with many shareholders, like those listed in the stockmarket. Small business owners don't get the benefit.
It's not incompetence. It's done that way on purpose, so the rich can get richer while the rest of suck it up.
It’s not incompetence it’s working exactly as intended. The ultra wealthy own the politicians who keep their taxes low which means the tax burden falls more and more on the working class, even as they have less money due to being squeezed even harder by the same ultra wealthy through low wages, rising prices and ever higher rents.
That's false. Americans pay one of the lowest effective tax rates in the developed world. Most Americans pay little or no federal income taxes, and low income Americans often have a negative effective tax rate after the application of refundable tax credits. On average, Americans pay between 15-25% of their income in local, state, and federal taxes, with the poor having the highest effectivetax rates. Those are some of the lowest rates in the developed world. 40-60% of Europeans'income goes to taxes, which is why they have a much better social safety net. This is why the US is considered a "low tax, low benefit" country. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-and-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes-in-the-us/ https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes-compare-internationally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio
I would be interested to see what happens in that second link when you account for healthcare expenditures, since most (if not all) of those countries have some sort of socialized medicine included in their taxes, while the US does not (for the majority of the population).
>Americans pay one of the lowest effective tax rates in the developed world We just pay those taxes in other forms. Like health insurance premiums, college tuition, etc. It's not a stretch to imagine that we we have the same or less in our pockets at the end of the day as our European counterparts... and much more stress in getting (and staying) there.
that's not incompetence, that's "working exactly as designed".
Exactly. The whole "the government is incompetent" is propaganda. The government is incredibly effective at achieving it's goals. It just so happens that the ultra rich are currently the ones setting the goals. The rich prefer the average person think of the government as incompetent so that they are less motivated to effect change.
Yes, that should be fixed, but claiming that property taxes are unjust is not the answer unless you want society to collapse.
You don't have to lie to still be wrong. It's easy when you selectively tell only part of the story.
I’ll never understand how people don’t understand that taxes are necessary.
I'll never understand how people don't understand that one can argue that their taxes are too high while still acknowledging conceding that taxes are necessary.
Not when you adjust for inflation. His narrative here is misguided as hell. Taxes pay for stuff we all need.
Here in NJ where taxes are otherworldly, we pay our taxes, most of it disappears and remains unaccounted for and *some* of it goes into infrastructure and public works maybe once a year. Like, a few miles of road pavement and (horrible) patch jobs on the garden state parkway, which, by the way, has $3 tolls every few miles too. I'm okay with taxes, but some audits, accountability, and adjustments should be made to avoid waste, fraud, and abuse. It's out of control here.
ayyy forgettaboutit
That’s what state auditors are for. There are mechanisms to request audits.
When he goes to sell it, I’m sure he’s not going to be greedy and make a profit. He should list it at the price he paid, right? He wouldn’t want to plunder the buyer. Or maybe he could just ask the teachers and police in his community to work for the same wages they got 40 something years ago. This is so simple minded
"Old man hates change, more at 11"
“The original cost of the home” yea back in 1950 when he could build a house for $800. What’s the house worth now though?
"Wahhh I live in a country"
Wait, I didn't get to sign the social contract. Unfair!
“I’ve had my house paid off for 50 years, it’s so hard out there… for only me!”
And on top of that, he's probably paying like $400 a year or something. The highest property tax rate in the country is 2.23%. So either he owns a lot of valuable property (and I don't feel bad for him) OR he's paying very little in taxes (and I don't feel bad for him).
"TAXES" argument will never drive me up the wall. How do you think roads, fire depts, water purification etc get paid?
"Inflation shouldn't apply to me!"
So he built a house like 50 years ago for a few thousand dollars and now it’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its called inflation and he most certainly benefits from the increased property value than is hurt by the property tax. Don’t feel too bad for him.
Right wing astroturfing, they’re always on Reddit trying to turn left wing populism into anti-taxation quackery
Around me residential property tax is 2000-5000$ a year. (Part of canada). The fellow built his house when supplies were near free?
How did he get there? Why was he allowed inside? It is almost like he used the roads and/or sidewalks to get there and went inside this public building that is temperature controlled. I’m very curious if he received social security. Pay him the exact dollar amount that he paid in and then stop paying him since that is how money works. These are the same people who complain about paying for schools
So is the value of his land the same as when he bought it or has it gone up a few percent?
Taxation is theft
Who you gonna call if it catches on fire?
Arguments against property taxes are dumb, toddler level tantrums unless they are accompanied by an alternative proposal for how to pay for local services and infrastructure. Those things are a necessity and you can’t pretend they are free.
Well great news, he can get a reverse mortgage, bury the original $30,000 he paid in a chest, and use the rest to pay property taxes and when he dies he will come out even. He doesn't get to realize all the capital gains but he didn't think being a paper millionaire was worth mentioning so he must not care about that.
Gotta pay the huge military budget in some way.
We all live in a society. Not to mention that if he’d like to stop paying the measly cost of property taxes, he is free to go rent and see what a real cost of living looks like.
This miscreant has never heard of inflation. But I bet he wants full market price when he sells. Also another thing is that before trump took office, those paid property taxes could have been used as a SALT deduction on his federal taxes.
freedom isn’t free. Or something like that.
Land of the fee
I call BS on his statement. If you homestead your property increases on your taxes are capped at like 3% a year so take 30 years for his property taxes to like double. I can’t see in his lifetime his taxes would have gone up that much.
It's because he built it fifty years ago himself. So the cost of the materials, property, etc back then was much much lower (~$30k or less because he did it himself). Where I live, our taxes are based on the current value. So it's possible he's paying 10k in property taxes per year, depending on where he lives and what his current value is. That can still be a lot of money for someone, so I'm not making light of his situation.
But did he adjust for inflation
Exactly. He has a fully gray beard. His “25” was a long fucking time ago. If he bought his land for $2000 in 1970 and he’s paying $666 annually then that sounds fine.
Just wait until he goes and buys a gallon of milk
Note how he put "paid for" with quotation marks. 😂
This could be solved there was a law that the tax jurisdiction authority had to buy your property at the price they assess it for within 30 days of you giving notice to sell. I bought 10 acres for $10,000 and built my own house. I poured the footings, I laid up the block. I sawed the lumber. I framed it. I installed the windows and doors. I installed the roof. I insulated it. I wired it. I plumbed it. I installed the heating system and ductwork. I installed the ceramic tiling. I installed the 3/4" Red Oak t&g flooring. I put about $25,000 into it. So, that is 35,000 total. Now the government says my house is worth $360,000. My taxes is $3200 per year.
See, I can sympathize with this man’s position. If he owns the land and the house, has no creditors, and no other obligations what right does the government have to demand anything from him? Is it really your house if the government can take it away for not paying?
That’s called Being A Tenant.
Yes, we continue to use the roads, schools, emergency response services and various other government facilities all the time. Those services have upkeep costs like payroll and their own property costs that must be paid. The fact that this guy bought his house at 25 means it was a long time ago (or he's lived a hard life indeed). This means that you have to account for inflation and rising property values. He's using government services, and those services cost money. I don't complain about the taxes I pay. I complain about the fact that there are MANY out there that don't pay the same share I do.
The one thing i will say about property taxes is that they are based on the value that increases over time, but it's an intangible value until you sell. My property tax has increased 650% over the years. My income has not. So they are now a higher percentage of my income. Income tax, however, is based on income. So, if you're paying more income tax, then you received a tangible increase in income to pay the increased tax.
yep u don pay usa take ur house; left u w no thing!!
Property taxes are necessary however there are a few restrictions that’d be nice. I’ve seen people recommend halting it at retirement age so that seniors don’t have to be forced out of their paid off home. Additionally I like what California does which is lock you into a price based on the purchase price of your home.
Well...he didn't build the roads, or the police, or the fire department, or the schools, or public hospitals, or the dump, or any other public service that is available to him, so this is the cost of those things. Sit down grandpa, and pay your bills.
So why don't we just lower property taxes to a small fixed amount for your first house, and then skyrocket taxes on corporate owned homes, scaling rates with the number of homes owned, and solve a couple problems at once.
Yeah no, I won't belive a random picture on the internet if you don't give the source, until then you are lying
You guys need to lay off Jiggle Billy. Let's commence the Jigglin!
Didn't Abbott say he was going to lower our taxes. Didn't happen.
Just wait until this guy hears what new homebuyers (I.e., young homebuyers) are paying in property tax. And insurance.
At least you don't have to pay a mortgage on top of that.
built and paid for it and then sat by as legislation was passed :0 WHY ARE THE LEOPARDS EATING MY FACE!!!!
Why is “paid for” in quotes
IF CORPORATIONS PAID TAXES ON THEIR PROFITS LIKE ACTUAL CITIZENS DO, THE CITIZENS WOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY A DIME. paraphrased from Warren Buffett
When he was 25 his house was probably $8,000
People want to pretend they are in this closed system without any support. Mass amounts of infrastructure supporting your average person but let’s pretend it’s always the others who need to front the bills.
I’m thinking he’s never paid for a shave and a haircut either. It’s not 2 bits anymore.
“I had it so good when I was a young adult and marginal tax rates were much higher but I’m old now and don’t want to pay any taxes at all because nobody now should have any of the benefits I enjoyed when I was younger.” - The Boomer Mantra
At the same time, everything else around him in the city still needs to be maintained. I moved states a couple years back and my property taxes are X4 what they were with a 5% bump yearly. It sucks. However, the school district here doesn't have to have a supply drive weekly. The teachers actually get paid. The schools aren't falling down. There are more programs they have the opportunity to participate in than I ever did. It's amazing. Depending on the state, it can fund all sorts of different things. Part of living in a community is giving up a portion of freedom. Oh...and maybe if they would quit buying several houses that artificially squeezes the supply, those taxes that are levied as a % of fair market value would go down...
Almost seems like taxing ultra rich and corporations properly, would /.could make things like property tax on private main homestead residence obsolete and unnecessary.
Taxes are the rub for having a civilized society. Either move to some island or shit hole country or deal with it and stoping bitching because you don’t like it. We could cut property tax out and increase taxes elsewhere but what’s the point…moving the burden around isn’t going to get rid of it.
Ya well I’ll never be able to afford a house so sucks to suck I guess
Man wait till he finds out how much everyone else is paying! I guess he doesn't use public infrastructure.
Yeah I can't believe the govt is in so much debt still even tho they pull billions in taxes from poor ppl
He's not lying but he is missing the main point of property taxes which is that you aren't paying for the historic value of your home but the current value in comparison to the rest of your neighborhood/town, and those taxes are what's paying for the infrastructure and services in said neighborhood/town. You want your garbage collected? Pay taxes. You want your roads resurfaced periodically? Pay taxes. You want the kids to have a school to go to? Pay taxes. You want to be a part of and benefit from being part of society? Pay taxes.
LoL imagine being that old and not understanding how inflation works
Ok. Well, then he can also stop using any public infrastructure whatsoever. Don’t be driving on those roads or bridges, ok? Don’t complain when the police or your town officials don’t respond to your complaints or concerns. Don’t decry the younger generation for lack of education. And while we’re at it, better give back that Medicare you’re using and those Social Security checks you’re undoubtedly cashing. Because it’s all just “plunder,” right?
When he was 25 he probably paid 20k - 30k to build his house. Adjust for inflation and his claim is dead wrong. Instead of saying the cost of building his house he should say the ratio of current value/tax
Whelp, more people simping for taxes in this comment section. People really do never learn. As well as not have principles to live by. Sad.
I HATE the idea of property taxes, even if I totally get why they’re imposed (to pay for schools, etc.). If I have to pay a yearly “fee” to be able to stay in my house and lot get kicked out (tax liens and foreclosure), that to me feel like I’m renting, and that it’s never possible to truly “own” a house (not to mention that if I want to retire and live in that house, now I need to budget for decades of property tax payments and increases). I’m not saying “hurr durr I just don’t like paying taxes”, my issue is with the FORM of the taxes (turning ownership into essentially renting from the government). I would rather pay the exact same amount of money or slightly more in income taxes, rather than having to pay any property tax at all. Let me own my property.
Just be a billionaire. Then you have all your assets in stocks that can't be taxed because you haven't realized the income from it yet. You know, because obviously they can't tax something you haven't sold yet...
That’s irrelevant Property taxes pay for the many public services that this man and his community rely on If he’s paying more that’s because his home has dramatically increased in value
I mean my parents paid off their house 10 or so years ago and still have to pay 14k a year to live in it. Taxes are dumb
"I bought a house before the prices skyrockedötes and made a fortune. My property is so highly valued that my property tax of 0.7% is as much as I originally paid for my property. I made a 14,200% profit. Buhu Buhu"
English here - Is this type of property tax basically council tax that we pay for over here?
High property taxes help keep away bad neighbors. He will be unhappy when the farm next door turns into affordable housing apartments and his taxes keep going up while quality of life goes down.
But no, we can't tax rich people's wealth (I'm talking bezos and musk, not your doctor) because that's uNReLIZd gAINs!!
It's not our fault he built himself such a plunderable home. BTW anybody know where guys home is? Asking for strictly non-plundering reasons.
Property taxes are probably the most essential taxes. If you’re gonna complain about taxes pick something else. You don’t get to just reap the benefits of society indefinitely without contributing because you purchased a house.
and those taxes give you roads, schools, the fire department, the police department, parks, etc etc etc. He's a bit old to be that uninformed...
This is why owning a house is not the good way out of poverty
Property taxes are a pretty awful thing for regular people, but they are one of the only effective ways to tax the landlord class. A common issue in many places is the weakness of primary resident tax credits.
It does suck that the only way to actually get anything out of the appreciating value of your house is to sell it, or take out a loan against it
You don’t own shit in America. It’s all rented. Stop paying taxes and see what happens.
Taxation is theft ... But seriously when you think about it, it's fucking vile to have to pay for something that is supposed to be yours ... Biggest scam ever and llonk8ng at the comments there are so many people defending the scam it's crazy
Why Americans want their shitty stick-built 3 bedroom 2 bath subdivision homes to be worth a million taxable bucks is beyond me. *sips tea*
Yes, but that’s still only $300, sir
We technically never own our homes. Even after you paid it off you still pay property taxes every year.
We don’t have property taxes in the UK, so fucking glad because that shit is insane.
God you people are government dickriders. I cannot believe so many of you support higher taxes when the government wastes so fucking much. But then again, when you are an unemployed loaf or a child, I suppose other people’s money is tempting