Why does indiana need property tax

[ruger1800]

South Dakota's Unique Tax Landscape: No Income Tax

 

[88GT]

Apparently to pay for schools.

 

[pudly]

I don't get the thread title. South Dakota has a property tax just like Indiana and for roughly the same purpose. Check p. 35 of their annual tax report: http://dor.sd.gov/Publications/Annual_Reports/PDFs/2013%20Annual%20Report%20final%2001212014.pdf

 

[Captain Bligh]

Property tax is more constant. Sales tax is more dependent upon fluctuations in the economy. People spend less in a bad economy.

 

[Twangbanger]

(Please check your thread title vs. the subject of the linked article - it's about Income Tax, not Property Tax). I'll address my comments toward the State Income Tax.

Long story short, it's because the State Legislature needs as many revenue sources as possible that lie outside of local control, and Sales Tax is just too visible (people see it every time they buy something, and get pissed about it). Income Tax contributes to the pile of money in Indianapolis that is uniquely and totally under state control, for all the special interests to come there and fight over (if you don't have bread to toss out...the Pigeons won't come to you).

Why should local/county officials be the only ones who can bribe you with your own money?

 

[88GT]

Property tax is more constant. Sales tax is more dependent upon fluctuations in the economy. People spend less in a bad economy.

Not nearly as constant as you would think.

 

[snorko]

It's "progressive". Generally the more money someone earns, the more expensive a house they own. Sales taxes are considered to impact lower income folks more

 

[Captain Bligh]

Not nearly as constant as you would think.

Of course there is variation, but comparatively speaking not as much variation as sales tax.

 

[HoughMade]

The simple answer is that it's to make budget given that the state spends more money than it should....but that goes for every tax.

 

[Vigilant]

Because they can't steal the money outright at gunpoint...oh wait!

 

[MisterChester]

Smaller states can have no property or no income taxes because they don't have as many things to spend on. A place like South Dakota isn't very populated, so that's less schools and government expenditures. They can get by without having income, property, or sales taxes.

 

[CTS]

It's "progressive". Generally the more money someone earns, the more expensive a house they own. Sales taxes are considered to impact lower income folks more

People who have less money, spend less of it and thus pay less tax, that sounds pretty progressive to me.

It all ends up coming out of the collective pocket no matter what. My main reasoning for wanting something like a fair/flat/VAT single tax is that it keeps corruption at bay and allows people to be informed about their true tax burden. Right now I doubt a single person on this forum could correctly calculate how much of their income went to taxation last year, it's an impossible task.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Apparently to pay for schools.

Used to be the case. Money for schools actually comes from all revenue sources.

Schools submit budgets to the state, state adjusts tax rates to make it all balance. That's why podunk high can still have a really nice building.

With the way school funding is apportioned now, it could come from unicorn tax as likely as any other.

 

[Shadow8088]

People who have less money, spend less of it and thus pay less tax, that sounds pretty progressive to me.

It all ends up coming out of the collective pocket no matter what. My main reasoning for wanting something like a fair/flat/VAT single tax is that it keeps corruption at bay and allows people to be informed about their true tax burden. Right now I doubt a single person on this forum could correctly calculate how much of their income went to taxation last year, it's an impossible task.

Before I got married, I lost between 22-23% every paycheck to taxes. Take that, subtract the .gov refund and you get the figure that you're looking for. Unless you're talking about ALL forms of taxation. It's possible to do, but that would require strict bookkeeping and that's just way way too many numbers for my brain to crunch this early in the morning...

 

[cosermann]

Do you own your property or rent it from the .gov?
Are you a citizen or a serf? Is your wage a "profit" or an equal exchange for your time at a market rate?

The answers to these questions reflect the philosophical underpinnings (and frankly, deficiencies) of property and income taxes and why I think both should be abolished.

The .gov does provide a currency and facilitates trade, so I'd like to put all our eggs in the sales tax basket.

This would also have the added benefit of providing the .gov with an incentive to keep both currency and markets/trade strong.

 

[Leadeye]

Taxes these days fund the endless increase in public/private partnership scams, there are so many people getting their income from a tax dollar these days it's a fundamental economic shift.

 

[AtTheMurph]

Taxing incomes is a form of slavery, partial slavery but slavery none the less.

We accept the income tax today as just a part of working but it used to not be that way. Passing an income tax was a very difficult deal but it was finally done when everyone realized that only a few hundred people would actually pay it. Only the rich! Of course we know how that turned out, exactly as the anti-income tax people of the day predicted.

Perhaps we should go back to the Founders intent that ""...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be
such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be
oppressive to our constituents." as James Madison said. The original tax act placed taxes on "specific goods, and merchandise imported into the United States". Internal taxes were frowned upon!


Jefferson, in his Second Annual Message (December 15, 1802) states:

"In the department of finance it is with pleasure I inform you that the receipts of external duties for the last twelve months have exceeded those of any former year, and that the ratio of increase has been also greater than usual. This has enabled us to answer all the regular exigencies of government, to pay from the treasury in one year
upward of eight millions of dollars, principal and interest, of the pubiic debt, exclusive of upward of one million paid by the sale of bank stock, and making in the whole a reduction of nearly five millions and a half of principal; and to have now in the treasury four millions and a half of dollars, which are in a course of application to a further
discharge of debt and current demands."

Imagine...all this in consequence of "external duties"..... not a penny of income tax or sales tax or property tax......

In Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805) he points out: "At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to
their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property...

"The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles, is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboards and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, what farmer, what mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?"

 

[jamil]

People who have less money, spend less of it and thus pay less tax, that sounds pretty progressive to me.

It all ends up coming out of the collective pocket no matter what. My main reasoning for wanting something like a fair/flat/VAT single tax is that it keeps corruption at bay and allows people to be informed about their true tax burden. Right now I doubt a single person on this forum could correctly calculate how much of their income went to taxation last year, it's an impossible task.

Impossible, only because of hidden taxes. For example, not many people know exactly how much hidden tax they pay for cigarettes, booze, or gasoline above regular sales tax.

However, for all other taxes, I used to know that. Back in my younger, more idealistic days, I bought a fairly new personal finance program called "Quicken". Not long after installing it on my then state-of-the-art 286 PC clone, I adopted a personal finance policy of tracking EVERYTHING.

During that few months of frustratingly pedantic bliss, I could not have estimated how many hours I wasted entering EVERY cash receipt, pay check, bank draft, etc., (perhaps my young wife could). But I could have told you to the penny, exactly how much I paid out in local, state, and federal income taxes, and state sales tax. Regretfully, it took all of those few months for me to discover how unimportant it is to know that level of detail. That's when I discovered the freedom and power of the pragmatic concept, "eh, close enough".

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Not nearly as constant as you would think.

Yeah, don't more people default on property taxes in a bad economy? More closed down industrial and retail buildings and stuff?

 

[CTS]

Before I got married, I lost between 22-23% every paycheck to taxes. Take that, subtract the .gov refund and you get the figure that you're looking for. Unless you're talking about ALL forms of taxation. It's possible to do, but that would require strict bookkeeping and that's just way way too many numbers for my brain to crunch this early in the morning...

Say you buy a loaf of bread. A farmer paid property tax, fuel tax, probably some employment tax, paid to comply with EPA guidelines, etc...all of the suppliers he/she utilized paid taxes on everything they did, then it gets to the bakery, then distribution, then the store shelf. How much tax went into the price of the loaf...not a clue and I doubt anyone else could come up with the number either. None of us has a clue how much we pay in taxes.