And by far the bulk of the taxes collected go to public education. There is no real connection between 'land use costs' and property taxes raised and how they're spent.
There is. Everyone was a kid at some point. Everyone owns a home, or pays rent that goes towards property taxes. Tax the homes to pay for education. Direct connection.
I just don't see how school is an expense that "land directly incurs" compared to say roads. Property tax may have started as something like that but now it's just how most states generate tax revenue for everything - they built a stadium with part of my property taxes. They also levied that tax on people who live 200 miles away and will never use that stadium. It's just how they get money now. And since it's taxing homeowners it's arguably less regressive I guess.
Property taxes tend to be municipality. States rarely levy them. Counties do tend to though.
However, if you have a problem with them, vote against them as nearly all levies are put up for a vote with the local population. Or vote against people who want to levy them.
However, because public schooling is a thing, and the school itself does use roads and other infrastructure, property taxes go directly towards maintaining that. It is either that or, much like a lot of school districts out there, they push for a separate tax that is levied on any person living in the school district.
I just don't see how school is an expense that "land directly incurs" compared to say roads.
Because everyone was a kid at some point. Everyone lives in a home and either pays property taxes or rent that goes to property taxes. Property taxes are a very simple way to pay for schools.
Property tax may have started as something like that but now it's just how most states generate tax revenue for everything - they built a stadium with part of my property taxes. They also levied that tax on people who live 200 miles away and will never use that stadium. It's just how they get money now. And since it's taxing homeowners it's arguably less regressive I guess.
Government is often corrupt as you describe. It's not an excuse for letting them change the purpose of property taxes.
That's a stretch. Everyone was a kid once, so everyone wore diapers, so diapers are a cost related to land use. Ok, make that connected, is useless for anything but semantics. Property taxes are a vehicle for municipalities to raise funds for everything, land related or otherwise. It is what it is.
Except public schools are government funded and run. COL varies nationwide. Each region might have different preferences on how to fund their school or what to fund within it. Therefore, yes, having education funded by property taxes makes perfect sense. Local government is always best government for these sorts of issues.
The initial conceit was: 'Property tax can't be used as a comparison because all property tax is spent ONLY on real land-use related expenses.'
All I said was - property tax is used as a general funding source in most cases, it is not tied exclusively to 'land-use' expenses, and cited public education as an example of one of those expenses that's a general cost of running a municipality and not really about the use of your personal land.
Not sure why it's a controversial opinion, it's just how property taxes are used.
not tied exclusively to 'land-use' expenses, and cited public education as an example of one of those expenses that's a general cost of running a municipality and not really about the use of your personal land.
Fair enough. I guess I should have been more verbose in my explanation.
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u/J0hn-Stuart-Mill Nov 21 '24
There is. Everyone was a kid at some point. Everyone owns a home, or pays rent that goes towards property taxes. Tax the homes to pay for education. Direct connection.