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Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by chrisseaton on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:01AM (#21736169)
Property taxes aren’t fines or punishment - they’re to pay for the civilisation around your property which costs money to run.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by close04 on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:27AM (#21736327)
Indeed, taxes are not theft especially when people take full advantage of other things the state offers - simple example: the road to your house.

But it does highlights the asymmetry of power. The state holds the people to a much higher standard than what the state itself is willing or able to offer back. The state will never be held to this kind of standard when owing you money. Either by adjusting the law or by simply never applying the same strict outcome to themselves (imagine that no Government building would ever be subjected to this should their tax not be payed for any reason).

And in places where the people care little about righting some wrongs or are tricked into thinking this is what they actually want you end up with absurd situations like this. Losing a house for an $8 debt.

Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by anfilt on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:11AM (#21736241)
Whether or not it's BS. The reason why is more simple. The states never really have given people allodial titles to land. I think only Nevada has and it was still limited.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by exabrial on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:19AM (#21736277)
Does one have an option to consent? If there is no consent, it's one of punishment, fines, or theft.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by HarryHirsch on Sunday December 08, 2019 @12:17PM (#21736913)
You could settle in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, where much local business in conducted in Town Meeting. If you want even more local governance (albeit less competent governance), that settle somewhere HOA-encumbered.

But if the aim is to pay little tax then come to Alabama! The natural lowtax experiment has been run in Alabama. The 1901 constitution was written by the wealthy industrialists and landowners with the express goal to disenfranchise black freedmen and white sharecroppers. The wealthy don't need local services paid through taxes, they can fund their own schools and other facilities and disregard the life of everyone else, so they made it very much impossible to raise local funds without going through the legislature in Montgomery, which they controlled. Now look at the shape of the state today. There is no decent infrastructure, education and roads are awful, no opportunity to profit from investment. Everyone who could leave left long ago.

Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by gshdg on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:20AM (#21736282)
You consent by buying / not selling your property. Besides which, where do you think your “rights” to “own” property come from?
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by anon84759392 on Sunday December 08, 2019 @03:16PM (#21738009)
It's my natural right to own property, with the caveat that such ownership is defined by my ability to defend it by whatever means necessary: socially, physically, logically, legally, etc.

Or at least that's what my country's founders might have believed and tried to establish. We might argue they're still correct in some sense even in spite of a government or society that insists otherwise.

Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by perl4ever on Sunday December 08, 2019 @06:40PM (#21739273)
"Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master."
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by gshdg on Monday December 09, 2019 @01:07PM (#21744839)
To whom is that attributed?
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by perl4ever on Tuesday December 10, 2019 @07:03PM (#21758183)
Adam Smith.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by anfilt on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:44AM (#21736427)
What constitutes consent to be governed is still debated. Although, the fact there exists practically no unclaimed habitable territory left on earth. In theory means someone no longer can choose not to be governed. So in some sense it can be argued that people can't fully consent any more.

Although, you could still choose a different government by moving so not all choice is removed. However, you have odd things like the US taxing based off citizenship instead of location. Although the US is one of the few countries that will let you relinquish your citizenship and even become stateless (bad idea don't become stateless).

Also if you purchase land in the US your not getting allodial title. Also I doubt any state or country today would let you get a complete allodial title, it would probably be limited in some form.

The bigger problem here though is it really just to seize all value of property for failing their obligations by 8 dollars. I would argue that is clearly unjust considering the scale of things.

Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by 904baf11 on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:20AM (#21736286)
Sure you do; don't live in the place with the tax.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by notahacker on Sunday December 08, 2019 @12:07PM (#21736864)
You consent when purchasing the titles to land to a far greater extent than the rest of humanity consents to your purchase preventing them from using that land...
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by tantalor on Sunday December 08, 2019 @10:57AM (#21736496)
Semantics.
Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by robocat on Sunday December 08, 2019 @01:36PM (#21737332)
If I own two properties, I pay twice the taxes, but I don’t receive nearly 2 x the civilisation. (Wage taxes are even worse at proportional benefit).

That said, I really like the benefits from taxes - a good government and social cohesion: there are plenty of places in the world with less taxes and less government that appear extremely unappealing to live in.

Re:Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes by yongjik on Sunday December 08, 2019 @01:39PM (#21737356)
If you reserve two hotel rooms, you have to pay twice the fare, even though you can't enjoy twice the amenity. That's just the way hotels work.