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Originally Posted by brianna
I don't own a house but i am desperately saving so that someday i might and the fact that i'll be paying property taxes does not in anyway change my mind. Homeowners are better off than renters. That's the main reason that you're going to have a tough time convincing me that homeowners are being mistreated.
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It will be interesting to see if your opinion stays the same if there comes a time when you're struggling to come up with the monthly payment, and some group of concerned citizens wants to raise your property tax to pay for low-income housing, or a treatment center for drug addicts in your neighborhood.
For that matter, in a few years, you might be trying to save for an education for your children. Property tax increases are particularly unwelcome then.
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People will pay for utilities that will directly benefit them but not all homeowners value contributing to the community that their home is in. this is especially the case in neighborhoods where most of the residences are rentals. these are often also poorer neighborhoods. if property owners are allowed to dictate what they are willing to spend property taxes on these neighborhoods will further suffer. Then you end with a system that fails the poorest among us in favor of making the wealthy more wealthy. how can you expect the poor to better themselves when their forced to go to the least well funded schools and live in neighborhoods with inadequate utilities?
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Well, I favor school vouchers. And I need to know your definition of "adequate utilities."
When I was a kid, it was not unheard of for someone to say, "We don't have a phone, but you can call my neighbor and they'll come get me."
Now, cable TV seems to be classified as a necessity.
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I actually make a decent amount of money for a 27 year old single woman and while sometimes i glance over at the amount of money that i send to the tax man every pay period and dream about the home i could own, the vacations i could take and the swimming pool i could fill with change I know that taxes make a society work. and while i don't agree with some of the ways that the government has chosen to use my money i respect the system and I know that i have benefited from it. I went to public school, i take the subway everyday, i like having policeman and I want those who are less fortunate than me to have a chance to better their position. I am willing to pay for those things and so too often all of this complaining about taxes being too high (in a country that has one of the lowest tax rates in the developed world) sounds like so much greedy whining.
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The problem, as I see it, is that everyone who wants to help the less fortunate always wants to do it with other people's money.
If I've interpreted your post correctly, you support a lot of government giveaways, but your support for some of them is only in name, since at present, you are not paying property taxes. You do seem, however, to think that houses are expensive. Have you given any thought to the reason, i.e. developer fees, taxes, permits, etc., which also allegedly support schools, roads, utilities, and the like? The above add between $50 and $100k to the cost of a house where I live.
It's no secret that property taxes exist because they're such an easy target--you can't pick up land and move it out of the country. They're also the only thing I can think of that's taxed EVERY YEAR, instead of at the time of purchase or use. I don't think the two are unrelated.
I will probably have to repeat this multiple times, but I'll reiterate: I am not advocating the abolition of taxes. I am saying that people who don't pay property taxes don't have any business voting for a property tax increase.
It's like a resident of Florida voting for someone running for Senator in New York.
Ooops. Bad example since that's already happened so much, but you get what I mean.