North Dakota Looking to End Property Taxes
I'm rather torn when it comes to deciding which is more evil between property taxes and income taxes. While income taxes are a direct theft of your labor, property taxes make it impossible for one to actually own property. When a locality implements a property tax they are turning you from a property owner to a property renter, and failing to pay the rent will lead you to losing your property. This is incredibly insidious when you apply it to a homeowner who falls on hard times. Being unemployed sucks but owning a home would at least ensure you have someplace to sleep. That is unless you fail to pay your property tax and your kicked out onto the street with no job.
Thankfully North Dakota is looking at ending property taxes in its state:
Since Californians shrank their property taxes more than three decades ago by passing Proposition 13, people around the nation have echoed their dismay over such levies, putting forth plans to even them, simplify them, cap them, slash them. In an election here on Tuesday, residents of North Dakota will consider a measure that reaches far beyond any of that — one that abolishes the property tax entirely.
I hope this goes through because it would be a step towards absolute property rights. The state shouldn't be able to take your property because you are unable, or merely unwilling, to pay an extortion fee.