Lmfao old people living in their homes is a bigger problem than corporate landlords? That’s absolutely ludicrous. And you want to keep harping on these expensive ass houses when I already demonstrated that you can spend half your Social Security on a barely over median value home AND agreed with you that it shouldn’t apply to particularly lavish homes. You’re not interested in facts. You’ve found your enemy to hate, and somehow, you chose elderly retired people instead of the moneyed interests routinely fucking us all over. I’d devote the time to explaining why that’s wrong and providing evidence, but you’ve clearly demonstrated that your clown ass will just ignore it.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 month ago
SPECIFICALLY concerning the abysmal lack of housing, yes. Not generally. Don’t twist my words.
And these precious poor old homeowner people you keep defending ARE MILLIONAIRES. Fuck em. They’re dragons sitting on their hoards, and the fact that it’s a smaller hoard than the corpo fucks does NOT make them our friends or allies or deserving of our pity. Their greed is making things worse for all of us.
So what they want to live in their community? So does Zuckerburg, and we’d be well within our rights to drag him out of his home and onto the street. Taxes are your debt that is owed to the community, and everyone who doesn’t want to contribute their fair share, based on the wealth they have, can get fucked. No exceptions just because they’re old. Pay your damn taxes.
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I literally did the math to prove that isn’t always the case. This is why I didn’t bother providing more facts, you’re just going to prioritize your feelings over hard facts.
And even if a barely over median home value DID make them a millionaire, that’s a gross condemnation of the housing market, not a literally barely above average home owner. The idea that someone living in the home they bought and owning no other properties might be responsible for the housing problems is absolutely ludicrous because that’s the fucking point of housing. If you think people living in their own homes is the problem with the housing market, I really have no idea how to address the utter void of reasoning required to reach that conclusion.
Yeah, my point still stands. Housing is for people to live in. People living in their own housing will never be the cause of the problem when that’s the whole fucking reason we build housing. I really don’t understand how you could blame someone living in their only home MORE than you blame corporations who buy homes for the express purpose of renting it out for profit, the literal fucking definition of rent seeking behavior.
I’m not advocating for exceptions for the elderly. You expressly avoided quoting my actual proposal, no taxes on a primary residence of a reasonable value in relation to state home values. That’s not saying people shouldn’t pay taxes. That’s saying that their home shouldn’t be a tax burden so long as it’s a reasonable property.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 month ago
When old retired people are able to hold on to houses they shouldn’t be able to afford, it lowers the supply of housing in the area, which likely has higher house values because it’s an area with jobs, attracting young working people. San Francisco, Seattle, Cincinnati, Austin, hell practically every mid to large city. Lower supply = higher prices. In addition, old homeowners paying lower taxes means a greater tax burden on new homeowners, again meaning higher prices.
The math is inescapable, and no emotional screeching will change that truth. You may not LIKE it, it may not give you the warm fuzzies, but that does not mean it’s wrong. Don’t call your emotional response “fact”. It’s wrong.
Prop 13 and its variants are absolutely an exception for the elderly. And their heirs, which is just blatant bullshit, but that’s a whole other conversation.
When property values go up, taxes should go up proportionally. If a proportional tax increase means you can’t afford your home anymore, then you can’t afford your home anymore.
That IS saying people shouldn’t pay taxes. Unless you disagree with the entire concept of taxing wealth. A home’s value is wealth. You may not want to think of it that way but it’s worth money the same way a stock portfolio is worth money. The same way a yacht is worth money. If you believe those assets should be taxed, then a home should be taxed. And I do believe that wealth should be taxed entirely separately from and irrespective of income. The tax RATE should obviously be progressive and not a flat tax. But no blanket exemption, especially not for poor pitiful millionaires, whatever their social security check dollar amount is.
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Only because you want to tax them while letting them live on a poverty income. I might see your point if Social Security payouts were substantially increased, but they aren’t, and you aren’t proposing that we change that, either.
Once again, you completely ignore that under my proposal, those young people wouldn’t be paying the property taxes, either. So this is a completely irrelevant point to what I’m proposing.
Now try applying this to rent seeking scalpers, too, not just people trying to live in the homes they bought with their own hard work. How’s it impact the housing market when the guy buying up homes doesn’t even want to live in them? You think maybe a little more heavily than someone just trying to not be homeless?
That’s a really fucking bold claim to make when you’re the one who hasn’t done any math here and completely fucking ignored my math. I at least actually did my own research and math on tax rates and Social Security to make an informed conclusion that they are NOT all millionaires. You just keep screeching about irrelevant millionaires even when I already said multiple times that exorbitantly valued homes shouldn’t be tax exempt.
Yeah, you’re 100% right, it is a whole other conversation, one I’m not part of. I haven’t mentioned Prop 13 once, nor did I even know what it was. And at a glance now that I’m aware, it’s not what I’m fucking advocating for. You wanna try actually addressing the points I’m making instead of just ranting at me about whatever pissed you off?
That sure is a blind logical leap you’re making there. Especially when I already agreed to property taxes on high value homes, multiple times. I SPECIFICALLY said no property taxes on homes of a reasonable value, as defined by semi-local values. I say semi-local because living in a particularly town or area shouldn’t exclude you from taxes just because your neighbors are rich, too, but I’d be willing to make some locality concessions because of how home values vary by region, probably averaging out to at least some extent with the whole state. Hell, you could also do it as a sort of minimum threshold like we do with tax brackets. Properties valued under $XXX,000 get no tax with XXX dependent on region, anything above that pays full taxes on the value above that threshold, double taxes on value above a secondary threshold, and double it with no minimum threshold if it’s not your primary residence.
Ah, yes, because a home providing shelter in line with local averages and basic human needs is definitely the same thing as a luxury item that serves no true need in life. Because we should tax luxury yachts, we should also tax basic necessities like homes? That’s the clownest of clown takes.
I think we agree here but disagree on implementation. Personally, I see a wealth tax as a means to prevent wealth consolidation at the top, so I do not see it as reasonable to apply to someone who simply owns their home and has a respectable retirement fund because that’s not making a significant contribution to wealth consolidation. I would obviously include an exemption for a primary residence of reasonable value. Extra emphasis on “of reasonable value”, because you seem to need a little assistance with your reading comprehension since you’ve ignored it literally every single time I’ve said it, which has been many times at this point. I’d probably set the minimum threshold for a wealth tax substantially higher than you, though. Norway, for example, taxes wealth above ~$110k USD, I think it is, and they only consider 1/4 of the value of the home. This may sound like a reasonable starting point until you realize the average home price is around $500k, which means you’re already often looking at taxes on an average home. At a first guess with minimal research behind it, I’d say the threshold should probably be 2x-4x as high and with a bigger carve out for homes, again only if they’re reasonably valued. I don’t think you should start getting hit with a wealth tax the instant you actually start getting ahead.
And at the risk of wasting my time by typing out only to have it ignored yet again, I’m going to reiterate that I’m NOT SAYING THEY SHOULDN’T BE PAYING TAXES. People should generally pay taxes. I just don’t think we should be levying taxes on basic human necessities, and even states with a sales tax often acknowledge that to some extent by making basic food items tax exempt. A wealth tax with reasonable exceptions for things like reasonably valued homes and a large savings that still don’t make them rich are fine. Income taxes are fine and should be higher at the higher end of the brackets, probably with another new bracket or two on top.