Think You Own Your Home? Think Again!
Most Americans realize, at least in principle, that government is necessary to protect the rights of citizens; rights that are granted to them under the U.S. Constitution, the fifty specific state constitutions, and the various other county and local charters. However, the necessity to maintain governments (at every level) has become a ponderous burden to the citizens whose rights are being protected. In fact, economists tell us that the average American works four or more months per year just to pay his federal, state and local taxes. When the federal government has found it impossible to operate within its budget, it has simply “borrowed” the funds by creating U.S. debt obligations. Although this method of obtaining funds is a lot easier (i.e. politically) than raising taxes on American citizens, the result will eventually be the same. There seems to be little doubt that at some point in time, the people of America will be working until May, or perhaps June, every year to cover their taxes.
Of all the taxes imposed on Americans from every level of government, the most insidious are taxes on property; in particular, real estate taxes. In essence, the imposition of real estate taxes ensures that nobody will ever really own their own home. No matter how long it has taken to purchase a home and the land it sits upon, and no matter how much income the property owner has to live on, the local municipality has the constitutional right to seize the property and evict the owner for non-payment of real estate taxes. Although property owners may think they own their homes, the sad truth is that “ownership” is fully contingent upon a steadily increasing stream of real estate tax payments. The deeds of ownership, that people work their whole lives to obtain, do not grant the unconditional rights of ownership at all.
Most cities and municipalities across the country use property taxes to maintain school districts. Since schools are very expensive to build and maintain, the majority of property taxes are used for this purpose. For my wife and I, school taxes amount to about 80% the total property tax bill. In April, our local School Board of Directors approved a $100 million program to rebuild the high school and to shore up the recession-weakened teachers’ pension fund. The cost of the project will be borrowed (of course), and the increase in property taxes will amount to about $100 per month for property owners. The higher taxes must be paid by the gainfully employed, the unemployed, the senior citizens , and all who reside herein. The citizens of our municipality were never asked to vote for this project, and a referendum was never held, yet the new school will be built. Oh well, although we paid for it, I guess we never really owned our own home anyway. I wonder if its possible to own anything that the government does not have the power to take away?
Rich
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Careful, Rich, you’re beginning to sound like one of those crazy radical anarcho-capitalists liberals warn us about! LOL!
My dad was making the same argument you are making some weeks ago…he lives in Massachusetts and his property taxes are very high. Property rights in America are a bit of a sham because the government really owns the land and even if you are free and clear of mortgage you still pay a rent of sorts via property taxes. If you can’t pay your property taxes, Uncle Sam will happily take it from your hands (at gun point) and sell it to pay off a small portion of the interest on all the loans it had to take out to cover all the promises it made but can’t keep.
Fun stuff.
Yes Rich, a reality people give not a second thought. I work in an RV community and see something of what you are talking about here. My clientel is NY and NJ, mostly average Joe Blow citizens. The shame of living in Long Island and the many bedroom communities around New York is that when people retire they can no longer hold onto their family houses they raised their families in all those years for the reason of the high property tax rates. Yes, we tend to think of our properties as ours, all it takes is hard times and in many cases many are left with just the street. I see it where I work, people losing their houses thinking well we will live in the RV but they do not realize these RV’s are hard to heat in the NE Pa climate. Two years ago I had a customer tell me that they stopped in an RV park and the kids from next to them came over and asked if they had any food. These poor peoples RV was covered in a big tarp and the cieling was being supported by 2×4′s. This is the America of many’s future.
We had a country that ran wonderfully from the 40′s to the 70′s, then corporate greed pushed our work over seas and wrecked havock on our tax system to their mega benefit. People want more and more and average American’s bought the Republican rhetoric because half of them thought that someday their boat would come in too and they wanted to keep what was theirs. I have a repulsion for Libertarians, to me they sound like eighteen year old kids sitting drunken around the keg talking about plans and big things like drunken kids will do. Too many Americans have sat around this keg.
Unless I am mistaken, if you own a home that is on the national register, your taxes go down every year. Of course, you cannot make any improvements to the property that is not strictly in keeping with the original materials that were used to build the home in the first place. They get you coming and going.
Here in Arizona, we have recently voted in a 1% hike in sales tax, the money to be used for the public schools. This is supposed to be only a “temporary” increase that “may be used for something other than schools.” I love my home here in Arizona so I simply put my fingers in my ears and sing “Lalalalalala!”
Guess that makes me a bad citizen.
Although property taxation has existed for a long time, the real major change occurred under the “saintly” Ronald Reagan. Ronnie has reduced the taxes on the super rich by a huge amount, leaving the rest of us to fund the government. The real estate taxes skyrocketed, the deficit started to increase, the Wall Street deregulation (to be completed at the end of the Clinton term and under Bush) was started under Reagan.
The next step was deregulating the oil and the airline industries, the effects of which are more than obvious.
VH,
When it comes to property rights and real estate taxes, I guess I’m a Liberal with a “libertarian” streak. It just seems wrong that real estate taxes should be based on the value of the property, and not on the ability of the property-owner to pay them. I would support an increase in state income tax (only if they were regressive in nature) to pay for the school systems throughout the state. Not only would that eliminate the great disparity in the quality of local school districts, it would help the unemployed and retired folks to keep their homes.
Kevin,
As the “baby-boomers” age and start to join the ranks of the retired, communities like Long Island may find themselves owning lots and lots of real estate. The deep recession, bequeathed to all of us by the Bush Administration, has left millions of people nearing retirement age with greatly reduced resources to live on (and to pay real estate taxes). At the same time, municipal governments are increasing taxes at an alarming rate to make up for teachers’ pension funds that are now deeply underfunded.
Judie,
I guess that we don’t have a “national registry” here in Pennsylvania, because our real estate taxes only go in one direction; up!
I find it very interesting that Arizona hiked the state’s sales tax to help fund the public school systems. Actually, I support the idea of increasing sales taxes and state income taxes to pay for schools. Arizona legislators probably realized that allowing municipalities to raise property taxes would only worsen the residential real estate crisis, and force yet more property owners into foreclosure.
Taxation Without Representation is a Coup.
Rich, my neighbor said something last week that I had not put any thought into. He said ” you watch the houses start going down for non-payment of the property taxes”. We that have been following the foreclosure crisis at this point sadly know he is right. We have three series of consecutively worse subprime home mortgage loans followed by the starting to fail commercial mortgage market and yes to follow we will see the not talked about home losses for failure to pay the property taxes. Realize also that as home values continue to fall more and more mortgages in all categories of prime and subprime will have pay offs that are higher then the value of the property and another wave of foreclosures will move through each category. The banks know this, this is one reason that foreclosures are taking up to two years now, banks are trying to slow the loss of property values. Each successive wave of foreclosures will be triggered by new lower property values not to mention what further unemployment will add to foreclosure rates and property tax delinquincies. If the deficit hawks have their way and kill unemployment benefits the dominoes will quicken their pace.
Rich I hate to say this, I am starting to feel the helplessness of hopelessness……………And finance industry executives are still taking increased bonouses…..it is the rape of the American people and the needless destruction of our country. Note George Bush is keeping a low profile.
I was feeling helplessly hopeless, then found this, I do not know what to call it….beautifully worded….realisticly worded…scarily worded???….A global Research article with a list of scary statistics.
Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don’t know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is. The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a “downturn” or a “recession”. What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Our greed and our debt are literally eating our economy alive. Total government, corporate and personal debt has now reached 360 percent of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era. We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base, we have shipped millions upon millions of middle class jobs overseas, we have lived far beyond our means for decades and we have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. A great day of financial reckoning is FAST approaching, and the vast majority of Americans are totally oblivious.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20100604&articleId=19539