This is the part that struck me: "According to the local government’s property records, the building was worth $1.6 million for tax purposes. The tax liability on the property was $46,000 a year."

Do I read this right that the owner of that building would be owing 2.875% tax per year on the market value of the building?

Because that would be in line with what I hear about US property tax and seems insane to me. At that rate you're not owning anything, you're renting. At that rate that's not the land of the free, that's a lifetime of indentured servitude.

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jdlshore 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Texas has no income tax. It makes up the difference with sales tax and an unusually high property tax.

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MichaelRo 2 days ago | parent [-]

That seems nice. I'm not sure why some guy says on a different comment "People think TX is some libertarian utopia because it has no personal income tax on a W2 salaried person, but do the full cost of living comparison with property taxes and other taxes, vs what you would calculate as a total in states that do have income taxes (such as OR).".

For reference, I pay about 0.1% property tax (live in Romania), while income tax is about 43%. For $100 I make, I get to take home $57, forget all the "you're only paying part of tax, employer pays another. No, I pay everything because without me there's no income, I can't believe some people still fall for "Out of $100 I take home $1 but I live in a tax paradise because I only pay 1% tax although company pays 98%. But that's the company, not me".

So while the level of income tax is definitely nothing I'm happy about, at least once I draw a net salary, it stays on me. At least I don't have to rent my own apartment from the state after I already paid an arm and a leg to the bank for it in real estate mortgage. Same goes for land and I mean arable land, of which I own some 10 hectares (well shared with my 2 brothers). Not only I'm not losing money on it, I actually get subventions for cultivating it (again, outsourced, I'm not working it myself but lending it to someone who does it, while the terrain retains / increases in value - never in the history of humanity has arable land in a viable area decreased in value over time).

"A 10-hectare (about 24.7 acres) piece of land in Texas typically costs between $40,000 and $430,000, depending heavily on the location and region." says Google AI. Well, where I live it's around $100k. At least I wouldn't sell it for less, not that I would sell it. If I sell it, I have money for a day then inflation and bad investment makes it disappear. Not to mention that it's a highly asymmetric market: I can sell the land in no time but even if I have money, A LOT OF MONEY, people won't sell. Maybe for 3x-5x the market value, some might be tempted. Which suddenly raises my non-liquidation value of the land to about how much it values in Texas.

	▲	mitxela a day ago \| parent [-]
		Income tax scales to your income, so you can always pay it. No income, no tax. Property tax is unforgiving.

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BobbyTables2 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s also a quite a shock as the property value doubles over a short time (which happened in the past few years).

Counties are very aggressive at updating appraisal values.

Property tax used to be deductible for Federal income tax purposes but effectively no longer — from a bizarre effort to spite the “blue” states.

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Loudergood 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, or you can sell.

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protocolture 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Please tell this to your local georgist thankyou.

	▲	mitxela a day ago \| parent [-]
		Pure Georgism probably wouldn't work, but it might work if limited to commercial going concerns, excluding nonprofits and main residences (and a landlord is a business). Of course, then every business would try to weasel out of being classified as one.