That pack of beer doesn't require an entire infrastucture of services to maintain... when you buy a house (really the land) you are buying a stake in the community, a community that requires upkeep and you are agreeing to pay your share of the upkeep... think local law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical services, infrastructure maintenance (sewer/water/roads), and I think the biggest one, local education.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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Explain Like I'm Five
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I was curious, so I looked up a couple large cities. New york has a long budget document that really lacks charts, but talks a lot about schools. Somebody made this visualizer (which lacks pie charts! Why?!) for LA. Montreal has some reasonable pie charts for where their tax dollars go.
Your yearly property taxes are for the services provided by your town, county, or state. Depending on where you live, those services may include police, fire fighters, paramedics/EMTs, road paving and maintenance, flood control, wildfire training and response, trash pickup, snow plowing, public schools, teachers, local libraries, parks and parks services, dam control and maintenance, a community center, the town hall, salaries for the mayor, town clerk, local judge, purchase and maintenance of all the equipment needed for the above - fire trucks and outfits, ambulances and medical supplies, computers and specialized software, school buildings and supplies - the list is nearly endless. That's what your property taxes go to, and that's why you have to pay them every year.
This is the answer, your property taxes are not for your property alone but all the services provided for you, your children and your community.
If you don't pay those taxes then that road infront of your home never gets built, the street never get plowed, the bus never picks up your kids.
You're paying taxes for the land your house sits on. These taxes go towards things like road construction on your street, sidewalk maintenance etc. What sucks though is the homeowner is often responsible for the pipes under the home. Which I think should be covered by taxes as well.
pipes under the home. Which I think should be covered by taxes as well.
Why? They belong to the city up untill the border of your yard and from there it's your pipes, not the city's. They didn't install those - the builder hired a plumber for it.
About 75% of my property taxes go to schools. They are currently spending $18,000 per child per year.
That's an expensive Chromebook
Ok so I pay taxes on daily goods . These taxes go to road construction, schools, sidewalks and whatever. And that tax is about 10% of my receipt I get. How come they don't use that money and piss off me?
The choice is between sales tax or property tax. Different counties and states can have different policies regarding that. What it comes down to is who should be paying more in taxes given the overall amount collected stays the same. If you put more emphasis on sales tax, then more of the tax burden is put on people with less wealth who don't own properties. If you put more emphasis on property tax, then more of the tax burden is on wealthier people who do own properties. So the question is who should have a bigger tax burden, rich or poor?
Some communities choose a different balance, lower property taxes and higher consumption taxes for example. The fact is that you expect certain services when you buy a house and that money has to come from somewhere. Generations of homeowners before you have voted to set things up the way they are, and you’re free to vote for someone with different ideas!
Lower taxes and higher consumption tax I am totally for.
You missed the biggest one that most anti-tax arguers don't think about. It's not the fact that you're paying taxes to support society that's the problem, it's how that money is being applied correctly. A tax based on use/demand makes sense in some instances, like road maintenance and development tied to gas tax. But things like schools and utilities should be based on what they need to support the community, not how often it gets used.
But if your taxes in any area is being wasted or misdirected, that is where you should be angry, not at the fact you're paying a tax for something. Better utilization and less fraud mean lower taxes with the same application, which is what you were wanting.
But how many citizens are even aware of where the money goes? They just see their bill and think they're paying too much, not why.
Toy model economics wise, you'll note that consumption tax means less consumption means fewer jobs means less consumption means even higher consumption tax, until you've got no city.
Tax on capital isn't great, in that people choose other capital or avoid keeping + improving it. But tax on land is the 'least bad tax', see georgism (by the guy who invented monopoly!).
Taxes on foods goes to your state, which is then used for schools, construction, libraries etc etc.
There are many kinds of taxes, not just sales tax. There was sales tax on your house, but you've already paid that.
The other taxes you're asking about are property taxes. As a resident of the area, these taxes go to fund the local services. Schools, firefighters, police, roads etc. As long as you are part of the neighborhood, you are expected to keep pitching in for all of the benefits that living in that neighborhood provides.
Think of it as your yearly subscribtion fee to the services of the firestation.
Because we have to tax something. Taxes are for ongoing services. You have to keep paying them because roads keep getting potholes and kids keep being born and needing education.
Only taxing income, or sales, or payroll, or imports, or property, or capital gains, or whatever would disproportionately affect one population or another. Spreading out to multiple sources of taxation is an attempt (with mixed success) to make sure that everyone pitches in. Property taxes in particular (assuming a reasonable homestead deduction) are a good way to make sure that rich people pitch in.
You pay taxes so that we all can have roads and schools and other shit paid for by tax money. At least you own the land you pay taxes on. You could be a medieval serf and pay taxes for land you don't even get to claim as yours. You keep paying taxes on it because it's the most reliable way to get funding. Sales tax isn't consistent nor is it everywhere.
Without property taxes, land hoarding would be even worse. That six pack of beer is something they can just manufacture more of, you aren't displacing other people who would otherwise get to drink beer by holding on to it, nor do they need beer to live, so it is not a problem if you put it in a corner in your basement and forget about it. With real estate, the supply is limited, and people can't do without a place to live, so it's better off being something that will be financially corrosive to hold on to (IMO making property taxes conditionally much higher would be a good solution to the housing crisis). Plus it's easier to keep track of in order to impose ongoing tax compared to consumer goods, being a geographical feature that isn't going anywhere.
I feel like you shouldn't have more than 1, maybe 2 properties you don't live in that are tax free and no corporations should ever own property; they should only be allowed to rent unless the business owner owns the property. So if you're super wealthy you can have like one maybe two and or one each vacation house / business location. And if you are renting out your second / third property, you have a LOT of competition just by design. Anything more than that should be legal, but get taxed at an exponential scale. Honestly if we left all assets where they are and just portioned all business assets to their owners then taxed like that they'd have to sell to not be taxed to death and it would all equalize pretty quickly. What counts as "one property" should be in terms of population over acreage in suburban and rural areas, and population over square footage in urban areas. HOAs should only exist as shared governance of buildings that are physically attached to each other.
Corporations only allowed to rent AND rent being taxed reasonably AND rent being legally bound to be proportional to value would solve some problems 🤔 Not sure how many new problems this would create, especially in transition periods and with foreign countries not all doing the same.
Counting properties is difficult for bigger lots though. Is that a big shed or an extra house at the other end of your farm? Or maybe that doesn't really matter unless you rent it out.
Housing taxes provide money for local governments to provide services like local roads, garbage disposal, water and waste services. Things that are generally required to make an area livable. Those are ongoing expenses unlike the beer you purchased.
Taxes on goods generally go to the state to provide state based services and supplement local governments.
The community that your house is in taxes you for all the services that your house benefits from. Fire and police coverage, roads and infrastructure, schools and hospitals, yadda yadda yadda
Property taxes aren't sales taxes, they are more like fees. Used to fund libraries, roads, schools, public transportation, all the stuff that makes a city better plus cops and, well, you can read your millage paper to see what it's spent on. If there was not property tax the sales tax would have to be so high, and that is regressive. I do think the exemption should be higher and rates higher so that lower priced houses paid less to nothing and the million dollar houses paid more, but as it stands I get my money's worth from that particular tax.
I'll answer in a different way from others. Property taxes, in theory, ensure that the property within a jurisdiction is being used productively. Since you have to pay for the land no matter what, it's a good idea for you to do something with it that's productive. Even homes - it ensures that someone is loving theee and not just letting a house be empty.
In practice, that breaks down - speculation, tax writeoffs, taxes that haven't been adjusted in decades all mean that people/corporations don't give a shit and let property rot.
Mostly due to racism and classism, and I'm not even kidding.
In the US, property taxes fund public infrastructure and schools for the community you live in.
This was set up so rich white communities (who pay more taxes) benefit from better infrastructure and schools, while poor black communities and schools crumble under a lack of funds.
This isn't a natural law, and other countries do it differently. Funding all the nation's schools from everyone's income taxes would mean that rich people pay their fair share into the system and everyone profits equally.
well, note that property taxes are present in plenty of other countries. They just don't get spent the same way.
In order to fund the military industrial complex and prison industrial complex so that schools and social programs don't need to be funded.
It depends exactly where you live but generally it's to pay for things that your society has deemed to be better spent together. There is the obvious stuff like roads, schools, pensions, police, fire, health, prisons, court systems, bin collections etc. Then there is defence/war, immigration controls, overseas embassies, security services, postal services, plus regulations (health and safety, food standards, restaurants, barbers, doctors, dentists, construction, fire safety etc.) - somebody has to make the rules and check they're being followed. Often local property taxes are collected for local needs (e.g. police and education).
As much as it feels painful, you do benefit from a lot of collective activity that needs to be paid for.