If you pay 1% for one house, someone with 2 houses should pay 2%, and a company with 2000 homes should pay 2000%
That would make it increasingly difficult for mega companies to buy up everything and torture the housing market
Cool. Can I get a tax rebate for being too poor to own a home?
Zero homes = zero percent.
Cool. Never going to happen because it will fuck with basically the friends of every country’s leader.
I always said this.
Any home that is not a primary residence should be taxed four or five times normal rates
What constitutes a home? Does a property with multiple buildings mean multiple homes?
The rich will amalgamate all the lots together to avoid paying taxes.
That’s not to say do nothing but that the issue is much larger.
Does each apartment in a high rise count separately
Man, property taxes are such a weird fucking thing.
Back in the day, they used to tax based on frontage, which was essentially how much width the front of your house took up. So naturally, people responded by building ridiculously thin, ridiculously long houses. You can still find them in older cities like Charleston and in some of the older parts of Atlanta.
Nowadays, I can’t even figure out what the actual metric or system is supposed to be.
For example, the house I own is apparently worth around $500,000 now. We bought it for $220,000 in 2016. I can assure you that my house did not magically become twice as much house simply because Zillow or the county decided it was worth $500K. And yet, I’m being taxed according to that inflated valuation.
Some states don’t even charge traditional property taxes. They have completely different mechanisms. Florida, for example, is doing some kind of financial black magic that I still haven’t entirely figured out.
And honestly, why should my property taxes be based on the superficial market value of my house in the first place? If I bought the damn thing for $220K, why can’t that be the basis for taxation? That’s basically how cars work. You buy the car, pay your ad valorem tax when you register it, and then you don’t get an annual bill based on how much some guy thinks your car is worth now.
Why do we have to pay property taxes every single year on an asset we already bought? At some point, I would like to stop paying rent to the government for the privilege of owning the property I supposedly own.
And here’s another fun one: I drive an electric car. My annual registration isn’t $20 like it is for a regular gas-powered car. It’s around $250 because the state isn’t collecting gasoline taxes from me.
So essentially, the government looked at my electric car and said, “Congratulations on driving an environmentally friendly vehicle. That’ll be $230 extra.”
I’m beginning to think the entire tax system was designed by a committee of people who were locked in a room with a calculator and told to make everything as unnecessarily complicated as humanly possible.
Humanity is not long for this world.
I’m beginning to think the entire tax system was designed by a committee of people who were locked in a room with a calculator and told to make everything as unnecessarily complicated as humanly possible.
There’s a good chance that they chose the simplest method where “simple” means the easiest to understand change set, not the easiest to understand overall system. People usually have an easier time understanding small changes.
How about the good ol’ “nobody gets seconds until everyone’s had firsts” rule
No, it needs to multiply every time a new property is added
Agreed. And multiplied again for property owned by a corporation. Especially residential.
Bigger pockets = bigger taxes, proof. Every vent you have should go towards multiplying your liability.
And no loophole for multiple bank accounts, or offloading ownership into LLCs or some BS like that (no idea what the correct terms are for that, but I’m not an accountant). If you have any legal right to be able to touch money, that money counts.
Maybe separate personal and business accounts, since if you’re running a business correctly and aren’t getting obscene profits vs your workers, then having a big business shouldn’t necessarily increase your personal liability, but if you are hogging with profits, then it bleeds over. But tax the business more and more according to the money (in all accessible accounts (including savings) it has access to, same with people.
Also, we need to remove the possibility for money to make money. Maybe that would just be a side effect of making excess money too expensive to have, but if not it needs to be addressed too.
Why 1% each? If housing is a human right, and it is, then we need strict limits around one per person. Companies should not be allowed to have long-term ownership at all.
Just put in wealth caps
Nobody should be able to have of control over 10 million, for example
Home owners would complain about property values because they care about unrealized gains more than a working economy.
Um, no.
Im a homeowner and I want my property value to plummet.
I have no intention of selling this place in the foreseeable future, so all those unrealized gains just makes my insurance and taxes cost more.
This. I’m in a flood zone. The house has a cracked wall. It’s a duplex, but the water line broke on the other side. Roots are fucking the foundation. And somehow this is valued at 350k.
Few random gun shots into the ground… Random grafetti… Invite some black/brown friends over…
Get creative and you can lower your property value
Also, occasionally call the cops to report property stolen … property you never actually had in the first place. But it will increase reported crimes in your neighborhood and help decrease property values.
Or lower your property value and gain things by occasionally stealing from neighbors
Indicate a sinister gang is operating in the area by leaving a calling card, maybe leave the taps on in the homes you rob?
But what if the family went on a vacation and forgot to bring one of the kids with them?
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
I’d go further (current flat rate)^(number of houses owned -1)
Meh I wouldn’t go exponentially. I would go 1=1. 2=5-7 depending on size and availability, 3 = 20-150. 4=1500+
pass it down to renter
Luckily for the billionaires they don’t own any homes, their homes are part of a complex companies, or some bullshit.
All too true - laws are for people who can’t afford lawyers.
Or just ban mega corps from buying housing stock. It’s not difficult to enforce.
That being said, at least where I’m from, the biggest cause for expensive housing was bad zoning laws + suddenly increased demand due to immigration.
The government laxed zoning laws while (seemingly) temporarily reducing immigration. This has caused housing prices to drop quite a lot
- suddenly increased demand due to immigration.
You mean investors. Rich foreigners are called investors. Poor foreigners are called immigrants.
Get with the program.No, I don’t mean investors. Investors are too less for the amount of increase in housing costs.
In the period from the pandemic to 2025, the rise in immigration (note, the RISE in immigration , not immigration itself) accounted to about an 11% increase in the median house prices and rents (IRCC, 2025)
While other issues do exist, the biggest issue by far in terms of housing stock is the zoning laws that make the supply of new housing stock very very difficult. The increase in immigration simply showed how the market was failing to address this increased demand due to these laws.
the RISE in immigration , not immigration itself) accounted to about an 11% increase
I blame greed, not immigrants, but i see your point.
Me too! I’m in Austin
Or just ban mega corps from buying housing stock. It’s not difficult to enforce.
When the mega corps own the legislature and the courts it’s pretty difficult, when they own the executive branch then they de-facto will not have anything enforced upon them.
Legitimate problem that isn’t thaaat bad in my country. In Canada, corporate donations to election campaigns are either banned outright or severely restricted (different federal/provincial rules). But yes, corpos still exercise control through ownership over the media to influence campaigns. That being said, saying that they own the legislatures is a stretch.
What’s a mega corp? Lots of billionaires don’t have all their money in one big company, they spread it out over many small companies. They have friends and family members and trusts to spread the ownership around.
