Which is Worse?

Which is Worse?

Eric Peters

Few people like taxes – excepting, of course, those who collect them (and get paid, via them). But which tax – i.e., which form of legalized theft – is the worst: The tax on income – or the tax on property?

Examination of the thing result in just one answer. The most abominable of all taxes is the one applied to property; that is, to the home you will never own on account of these taxes.

This fact encompasses the fact that you will never stop paying taxes on income, which you’ll need in order to pay the taxes on what is not your home and never truly will be. If it were yourhome, you wouldn’t be paying money to keep from being evicted, which is exactly what happens to renters who don’t pay and that is what you are in the sense that matters most. Which is that you can be kicked out of what you think of as your place by the landlord for failure to pay.

First, there is the knowledge of the fact that you can and will be kicked out of “your” place – no matter how many years ago you thought you paid for it – if you ever find yourself unable to pay the rent. This fact vitiates the security of knowing you own your place; or rather, it engenders a feeling of insecurity, because you know it will never be your place.

That you will always “owe.”

Then there is the fact that the landlord can raise the rent at any time and irrespective of the “homeowner’s” ability to pay it.

There are countless cases of “homeowners” who have been forced to sell what they thought was theirs because they could no longer afford to pay the rent. This happens most usually to older people who’ve stopped earning income or who are earning less, being retired and living on savings and the federal dole (i.e. Socialist Insecurity). But it can also happen top people who thought they had purchased a place in an affordable area. Not just the home – but also the taxes levied upon it. But such areas tend to be attractive to other people, who also move there for the same reason and – before you know it – the taxes go up to pay for the “services” you neither asked for nor use, such as the government schools for the children who aren’t yours.

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