And yet >15% of cars on the road are not insured, and those with insurance are punished by this fact. Functionally, the state is in the best position to capture the necessary revenue to support these services.

Let's "unbundle it" from the property tax in the way you suggest. How do the police and fire departments set the fees? Are they fixed for everyone in their area, which is extremely regressive, or do they set a variable fee based on your property value?

What about people who don't own property. Do they not get police services? Does the state pay if a park is on fire? The federal government if it was public land? Where does that revenue come from?

How do the police and fire departments assess your property value? Does someone make a fortune building a software system for police and fire departments to manage all of this?

Does your private insurance actually pay the local police and fire department, kind of like escrow? What about people who don't get any kind of insurance and pay no fees? Does the state now step in and take the property from them, effectively enforcing a monopoly that the state doesn't benefit from?

When a derelict building begins to burn on a block and threatens in-use buildings around it, who pays the firefighters for stopping the derelict building's fire?

Let's go back to the fixed fee idea - what stops the new police and firefighter businesses from raising the price every year on every constituent? Will there be competing police and fire departments that offer lower rates (for lesser service?)?

When grandma on fixed social security's fire fighting fees go up too much for her to afford to live there any more, and now the state comes to take her home from her, what has changed from property taxes?

Once you really sit down and think about it, the idea that you "own" any real estate is kind of a joke. Your ownership is fully dependent on the operating paradigm of the government and society which has a monopoly on socially accepted force to establish and defend your property boundaries for you. For that, you pay rent to the state. Every discussion I've ever had with a "true" libertarian about this has had them eventually twisted up in circles to reinvent the state, with the only difference being that money (which the state currently makes meaningful) or willingness and ability to use force matters more than votes, both of which create winner-take-all feedback loops.

▲ maxerickson 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I would subscribe to the police department that didn't have enormous legacy pension costs.

▲ sixo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Those are all good arguments one would have to deal with to implement this thing well!

I'm not sure the case for one-big-bundle-of-property-taxes is any better, though. Where does THAT number come from?

> Every discussion I've ever had with a "true" libertarian about this has had them eventually twisted up in circles to reinvent the state

Same!

▲ eightysixfour 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> I'm not sure the case for one-big-bundle-of-property-taxes is any better, though. Where does THAT number come from?

It isn't some mysterious, unknowable thing made up out of thin air. You can, in fact, dig into your local budget and find out what these things cost, how much you are paying for them, and the history of decisions that led to them being what they are.

	▲	sixo 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You really missed my point. All your objections either: 1. Also apply to the present day pricing of property tax: - "How do the police and fire departments set the fees?" - "Are they fixed for everyone in their area" - "how do the police and fire departments assess your property value?" - "Does someone make a fortune building a software system for police and fire departments to manage all of this?" - "Does the state now step in and take the property from them, effectively enforcing a monopoly that the state doesn't benefit from?" - "When a derelict building begins to burn on a block and threatens in-use buildings around it, who pays the firefighters for stopping the derelict building's fire?" - "what stops the new police and firefighter businesses from raising the price every year on every constituent? - "When grandma on fixed social security's fire fighting fees go up too much for her to afford to live there any more..." 2. Or pertain only to a version of my proposal where the insurance is not effectively required, and people can freely opt out `- "What about people who don't get any kind of insurance and pay no fees?"` 3. Or, are irrelevant to the specific question of how private property is taxed `- "What about people who don't own property." - "Does the state pay if a park is on fire?" - "Will there be competing police and fire departments that offer lower rates (for lesser service?)?" - "Functionally, the state is in the best position to capture the necessary revenue to support these services." (The state simply can be the insurer! I did not even propose private insurance.)` Literally every single one! It's like you were arguing with someone else who proposed something entirely different--the libertarian you cite, perhaps, someone you argued with in the past? I think in fact a well-executed insurance-like system would be functionally equivalent to the status quo, except that it would be far more efficiently priced. I suspect the only real difference is that property tax, due to the path-dependent history by which it got this way, has wound up being substantially progressive as a tax, compared to what you would get if you tried to rationalize it. And it therefore feels impossible to replace it, because you'd set back all that progressive taxation, only to run into the problems that lead to the status quo in the first place. We really don't like to admit what it is what we're the govt paying for; the lump sum of taxes is a way of protecting the revenue streams that support public benefits from too much individual scrutiny. But surely there is some other approach to keep moral-upside public goods in tact than this "security through obscurity". Surely. > Once you really sit down and think about it, the idea that you "own" any real estate is kind of a joke. I agree with this! It would be far better to model property ownership outright as renting from the public. People are awfully attached to the fiction of "ownership", though, and I think that deserves some credit.