Monday, Feb 01, 2010
Private property is essential for freedom
Debra Medina for Texas Governor: Issues
Eliminate property tax: We must eliminate property tax in Texas. We can fund necessary government services more efficiently and fairly using a broader based sales tax. Eliminating property tax and deriving that revenue from a sales tax will mean a $3 billion increase in net personal income in Texas and will add 125,000-175,000 new jobs.
Debra argues that we do not own our properties if we have to pay property tax, rent on it. Government can take your property if you loose your job and can't pay Council Tax, so we are serfs. Would the UK economy turn around if we could muster somebody like Debra? She jumped from 5% to 20% in the poles, maybe she can win, this will be a great experiment to see, maybe Texas can show us the route to prosperity?
11 Comments
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1. freemanphil said...
2. d'oh said...
Council Tax and property taxes mean that you MUST be part of the system, otherwise your house will be taken away from you. "The Good Life" is no longer a possibility. (Felicity Kendall...sigh!)
3. Crunchy said...
The USA needs more Madinas. Texas first.
4. mark wadsworth said...
Stealth taxes and double taxation of incomes in order to further inflate property prices? This may be electoral gold, but economically it is nonsense. Taxes on incomes and production have massive deadweight costs; taxes on property have no deadweight costs and may even have benefits (encouraging more efficient use of land).
5. icarus said...
Now why did I think mark would say that? He's right - the three biggest govt revenue earners in the UK are income tax, national insurance and VAT, and the OECD claims that "among taxes, corporate taxes are the most harmful for growth, followed by personal income taxes, then consumption taxes, with recurrent taxes on immovable property having the least impact".
6. Crunchy said...
3. mark wadsworth
You so don't get it! Do you know what is happening in America/ Texas, NO. One day it will dawn on you and make sense.
Go Madina.
7. shipbuilder said...
I wonder whose personal income would be increased and whose proportionate tax burden would increase?
The government can take your property if you lose your job? Does the bank let you keep your property if you can't pay your mortgage? Should they?
A correctly implemented land tax is not in fact a tax, but a payment to the community for their land. Anyone who believes in equal opportunity based on merit would surely not agree to the advantage from birth of ownership of a finite natural resource?
Crunchy - somehow, I don't think Ms. Medina is thinking along the same lines as you.
8. shipbuilder said...
Crunchy - I assume that you are talking about the government taking your land off you? Maybe we should be thinking of why we have no land in the first place. Did you get a fair share of your country when you were born, or did you have to work for a landowner to get it? Did you have the land to grow your own food and build a home on or did you have to work for a landowner to get those things? Is that freedom?
9. Crunchy said...
Shippy, we have 'some common ground' but I fear to elaborate as it would be a shame for this thread to disapear along with some of the best, thus depriving some of the more subtle contibutors to indulge. I'm on borrowed time as it is. Enjoy what you have left ship.
10. d'oh said...
Shipbuilder - The difference is that once you have paid off the bank, they cannot take your house from you. You can also choose how much you want to spend on your mortgage, with the obvious market constraints. With the government, you have to pay council tax every year and you have no say in what it is.
Whilst there is a real issue of landownership etc., and LVT is logical, human institutions would distort it. There is no way that the landed classes would allow it in its ideal form, in which case it would become just another instrument for government theft. Therefore, I'd much rather get rid of regressive taxes such as council tax, property tax etc.
11. 51ck-6-51x said...
Taxation is legitimised theft no more, no less. If the people are to allow a system of taxation the best way is to tax unproductive or environmentally destructive usage of resources. Some property taxes are better than others. Sales tax is not efficient, even though it is cheap to collect (as is a "toll" at a "police" checkpoint in Venezuela).
Property rights, especially land and associated rights, are extremely hard to distribute fairly under any known system, but capitalism does a pretty good job - that is until government gets involved and starts meddling by allowing certain entities excess rights.