Property Taxes are Wealth Taxes

First, bon voyage to Mister Mix and spouse as they head to Mexico. As the weather turns here in the mountain west (snow on the ground this morning), I envy the “drive down to warmth”.

Second, I had my Covid booster yesterday and I feel like shit today. Seems like I pay the price for 48 hours or so every time. Flu-like achiness. F*ck.

Third, in response to Mister Mix’s post this morning titled “Blackmail”, in which he wrote, “And it’s notable that Newsom says that wealth taxes are a non-starter.”, I’d like to point out that we already have a well-established wealth tax in this country. It’s called “property taxes”.

Think about it - we are taxed on the value of our property (fair market value where I live) even though we have not realized that “value” as long as we live in the home we own and even though the “value” of that home might decrease in the future. Even CA with Prop 13 still has some tax on unrealized property value. This is no different than the wealth of a billionaire oligarch that is primarily stored in company stock (that may have appreciated and that may go down someday).

We need to collectively start referring property taxes as a wealth tax whenever wealth taxes - and the argument that they are unfair because they are based on unrealized wealth - come up. if regular everyday homeowners have to pay a wealth tax, then billionaires can find a way to pay an augmented wealth tax as well.

Reminder - Musk and Ellison and Bezos are worth roughly $400 billion each. If someone earned $1 million tax free and was able to keep it all every year, it would take 400,000 years to amass $400 billion. No one should be that wealthy.