Property taxes mean you never own your home: you just rent it from the government.

You "own" the property because people agreed on that people can "own" land. Same people agreed on tax ownership. Like they agreed on other kind of taxes.

That's like saying that you never own your car because you have to put fuel in it for it to run, or need to have it registered / tested, or you need a licence to be able to operate it.

If you redefine "own" to mean whatever suits you, yes, you're right.

There has to be tax. It’s probably better and fairer to tax wealth than to tax income where possible. So yes tax homes more and income less.

Renters end up paying the property tax as well. Sure, the landlord handles the money at some point, but there’s a solid argument that the tax is ultimately paid by the user rather than the owner.

That's true of all taxes. It doesn't mean there shouldn't be any taxes. We should also be able to agree that taxing wealth is preferable to taxing income, at least morally, because hard work should pay a little bit more, and simply owning things should pay a little bit less.

I'm simply arguing that work is taxed too much in comparison to wealth. I am not saying taxes should go up even more in general, necessarily.

The point of a progressive home ownership tax is to make it a better deal for more people to own their own homes.

I'm sorry to be this blunt, but this is a stupid argument. You already "renting" your plot of land from the government. Without government, your home has no protection at all and you own nothing.

You should be able to protect your home yourself, but the government doesn’t let you. It’s simple blackmail.

I have no idea where you live. As a European, I think that what you just said, is batshit insane.

I trust, and I have to trust, that my government acts (mostly) in my interest. If I stop doing that, I'm at war with my own government and I leave the "moral territory" of democracy. Nothing good can come out of that.

You have chosen to put yourself in a position where either you think the government acts in your interest or you have to be at war with your government. The answer lies somewhere in between.

> Domain ownership should be progressively taxed. House ownership too for that matter. With houses it's easy to prevent tax evasion by splitting the ownership between multiple entities (because companies shouldn't own housing), but it would be almost impossible with domains...

Taxes aren't the answer for everything. And they are already taxed in the EU, it's called VAT.

Emphasis on progressively. Tax is just a placeholder word, we can call it fee if that helps and just burn the money if you don't trust anyone to handle it well. Your first domain is $10/year, your 1000th domain could be $100k/year.

> Emphasis on progressively. Tax is just a placeholder word, we can call it fee if that helps and just burn the money if you don't trust anyone to handle it well. Your first domain is $10/year, your 1000th domain could be $100k/year.

More taxes isn't the solution to every problem, that's reasoning is absurd. Who's going to force every country to apply a tax on domain names? Which government? That whole idea is stupid.

I said as much in my original comment. It's not possible. But it would solve the problem of domain squatting. But it won't, because it's not possible to implement.

‘Progressively taxed’ means tax it until the masses can’t afford it anymore. No thanks, there’s been nothing progressive about progressive taxation in decades.

The abuse of the term has made the very idea repulsive.

It doesn't apply to the masses by definition. Just whoever has "too much" of anything, where "too much" can indeed be defined in a problematic way.

that’s not true, or requires being dim towards the economic reality.

The UK is a great example of how progressive taxation hasn’t really worked out - our former PM paid about 20% while earning millions while someone earning £100k can be hit with 60%[1]

These ‘great ideas’ require economically illiterate proponents to pass muster.

[1] https://www.buzzacott.co.uk/insights/exposing-the-60-income-...

The problem there is that the UK doesn't apply the progressive taxation to everyone, not that progressive taxation is a bad idea.

Who decides when one has too many of something?

Democratically elected people?

Either we as a society decide on these matters or "the market" does. Turns out the market always decides there's no such thing as too much.

Who would've guessed it?

The people who have less of it.

That’s what I thought. So level to the bottom. This website starts turning into garbage. Everyone’s robin hood here.

At the point where you’re against Robin Hood, you should be asking yourself “am I the bad guy?”.

“You want to stop me monopolising medication to sell at the maximum possible cost? Everyone’s bloody Mother Theresa in this utter hellhole.”

It may surprise you to learn that we do live in a society.