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Re:The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It by ant6n on Friday April 08, 2016 @01:03AM (#11452663)
Or we could just move beyond property taxes as a means of funding municipalities. Trying to tie the market values of one's house to taxation, then trying to untie them from market fluctuation, is simply a poor heuristic for measuring a person's capability to pay taxes. A much better heuristic is progressive income taxes. So here's an idea: make real estate taxes more equal, more nominal, and more predictable long into the future. Then close tax loop-holes and use income taxes on state level to fund municipalities. Nice side effect is that funding could be based on need rather than how rich your neighborhood is, which would improve the equality and fairness in social services provided. And no more moving to the rich suburb because you want your kids to go to a good school.
Re:The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It by Gibbon1 on Friday April 08, 2016 @02:16AM (#11452877)
Personally I think the market price for housing tends to reflect carrying costs. Which is take what a home buy can afford subtract taxes and insurance and that's the mortgage payment. The price is how big of a loan that will buy. So the yin and the yang, lower property taxes and the housing prices rise to compensate. The only difference is property taxes tend to pay for stuff that makes your home intrinsically more valuable. Where your mortgage payment doesn't. (Probably used to before we had national/international banking, but not today)
Re:The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It by ant6n on Saturday April 09, 2016 @11:51AM (#11461766)
If you shift from property taxes to income taxes, then the total taxes come out the same, so the purchasing power of the home buyer stays approximately the same.