• alvvayson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I, too, have retired parents.

    You should have a look at their income tax. You apparently have no clue what it looks like.

    Spoiler: they are still paying tax, well into retirement.

    In a typical example they might have a $60K per year retirement income (social security plus pension), paying $20K income tax, owning a $500K house (if they downsized after the kids moved out). A 2% property tax on that would be $10K and leave them with $10K income tax + $10K property tax = $20K total tax, just as they have now.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      You don’t get what I’m saying. Your tax reform happens, house are now flooding the market. Their house would lose so much value that what they had saved for their retirement (i.e. the money they put in their mortgage) will now have disappeared and if they ever needed to sell before paying off more of their mortgage they might have to go bankrupt instead because they wouldn’t be able to sell for what they owe on the house.

      And you wouldn’t need to own a big expensive house for that to be the situation you would be put in.

      Heck, you’re just recreating 2008 but now it’s the government/municipality that’s responsible instead! A house is worth less than what’s owed on it? Might as well stop paying and go bankrupt instead of paying off your mortgage!

      • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ok, you are just opposed to houses becoming more affordable too quickly.

        That won’t happen. Some math geeks working for the government would have to work out the details, but these type of changes are always engineered to not disrupt markets.

        So what would realistically happen is that property tax rates rise by a certain percentage per year until the target is met. Property prices will grow at less than inflation, but won’t stagnate.

        What happened in 2008 was an uncontrolled subprime crisis that imploded, not the controlled introduction of a tax reform.