In message , John Williamson
writes
hugh wrote:
In message , John Williamson
writes
I know a number of people who have been in the same house for over
thirty years. Are you suggesting that their property taxes should be
based on a value from the 1970s?

Why not? Their property value now is determined by what other people
can afford to pay for it, whereas they may well could not now afford
to buy it themselves.
The reality is the whole principle of a property tax is largely
"unfair". But first you must define what criteria for assessing
"fairness".

One fair method would be to calulate that each person in a town
generates on average X kilos of rubbish per year, uses a certain anount
of street lighting as they move round, and so on, then charge each
person for what they use...

You say fair without first defining fairness.
The biggest items of expenditure for local government are social
services and education, neither of which are directly linked to
properties.
Oh, didn't they try that? It was called the Poll Tax, IIRC, and got
thrown out very quickly. Or you could charge a local income tax, but
that would be too complicated to work out....

Poll tax was unpopular simply because suddenly people who had never paid
anything found themselves with a tax bill.
Bring back the rates. At least they were based on a nominal rental
value for each property, which meant that bigger homes paid more rates
on average than small ones.

But the nominal rental values varied enormously within the same town.
Generally under the present system residents of larger homes pay more.
--
hugh