Hey, @galenkp.
I actually read your post around the time it came out, and I absolutely agree. It is expensive (more so than it really should be), and in reality, what's good for one may not be so great for another.
I think the thing about the different streaming services and where this is heading for now is essentially an a la carte system, where you end up picking and choosing based on what you like and what you can afford.
Then, I would imagine we'll see a consolidation and/or failing of systems as competition carves up the number of subscribers, and we'll be back to three or so choices again.
I don't think that's a good thing in the long run, but that's been happening with the mobile sector over the last decade or so (although piggyback carriers have been popping up like crazy).
The one thing I really want to downsize is my property tax bill, but alas, there's a megamonolopy with absolutely no competition there. :)
You hit the mark on this comment and there's little to add really although...Please enlighten me a little on the property tax bill. We have land tax here, but I'm not sure what yours refers to and how it works. As someone who works in the property industry I'm curious.
Okay, so property tax is due on any property really that doesn't have some kind of exemption. They vary mostly form state to state, but can include land designated for agriculture, forestry, etc., and in some cases, there are exemptions for the elderly. I'm not aware of all of them, but there could be many more.
As far as our tax bill is concerned, there are several taxing authorities that combine to create our bill. The county we live in takes care of the billing and collecting, and then distributes the appropriate amounts out to these authorities.
In our case, the county is actually one of them, along with the city we live in, the school district, the fire district and the community college. There's actually one or two others on the list.
Also included are local options or levies that any of those entities may choose to float which are mostly for renovating or building new structures, such as schools, firehouses, sheriff or police departments, etc. It can alos include increasing the budgets of these districts. These local options happen quite frequently, but must be voted upon by the residents of said district in a formal election in order to become taxable.
Sometimes, there are multiple levies from the same district simultaneously, but they do have built in sunsets. For example, the school district wants $5 million to build a new high school/middle school campus, which will then be recuperated over a 10 year period via property taxes, but then they decide they need an additional $2 million to build another elementary school five years into the other one.
Within the county's purview, there could be the sheriff's office, along with roads and other types of infrastructure, land mitigation, etc, that doesn't fall under some other jurisdiction.
The total amount paid by a property owner each year is based on the real market value of the property, less any exemptions. For the most part, the RMV keeps increasing, so then, too, the taxes, along with whatever gets added into the mix. The tax rates on these RMVs vary, too.
Wow, that's pretty complicated, a lot of moving parts.
It sounds similar to ours, the purpose of land tax anyway. It goes towards paying for public services like education, health and public safety.
Ours is a little simpler in that there's one basic way of determining it.
A person's primary residence is exempt, all other property is subject to it. Site Value (SV) must be $280,000 or more to incur the tax and one must have $450,000 of value in total SV to be subject to the tax. Multiple properties are aggregated.
So, if you have three properties with SV's of $400,000, none of which are your primary residence you don't pay. Once over $450,000 you pay. This is for commercial, rural, industrial, residential etc. The Valuer General assesses the SV and it changes, mostly upwards as years go by.
There are different rates for properties owned in a Trust and not. I'll not get into that though.
As an example:
This is for my State only, each has their own laws around land tax. My State is the highest in the country though.
The idea is it penalises the people they feel can afford it most, although that thinking is a little skewed in my personal and professional opinion.
Anyway, it's a complicated subject. Thanks for enlightening me about what goes on up your way.
Well, and the same thanks to you. Very interesting. My guess is that property (primary residence excluded) often is above $450,000? Wouldn't make sense as a tax if most properties are exempt. :) Although it sounds like they get you by adding together multiple properties.
And the idea of paying $250 for a $500,000 property is absolutely amazing. Currently, we're above 20 times that much, with no ceiling in sight. When we started, our property tax was about nine times. The RMV has gone up about double in nearly 16 years, though, so that's definitely part of it, and good for us, I guess, except that most comparable homes built within the last 20 years will cost the same to buy around here, so if we stay in Oregon with our next/last move, we'll end up more or less where we are now, with a smaller mortgage then what it normally would be for the cost of the home. So still some debt and no profit.
re: land tax
What you just described sounds an awful lot like estate tax, except it doesn't happen annually, but when the property is sold. But, the similarity is you have to sell for a certain amount above what the property was originally bought for in order to incur the tax when you sell. And the fact that it's supposed to be against the rich, when its quite possible that it might affect the not-very-rich but those who stay in their homes long enough.
The whole idea that anyone needs to be penalized is a little skewed in my very personal and wholly non-professional opinion. :) Especially when the wealthy tend to know about the loopholes and what to do with this or that while Farmer Joe still living in the house he grew up in might not.
It's interesting to note that the average three bedroom house here in my city is about $500,000, but that's the entire thing, not just the site value (SV). That means that a person with a single investment property (over and above their primary residence) would avoid land tax as the SV might only be $300,000-$400,000. Of course there's many factors to that also like age and size of house. On the one I just moved out of the SV makes up about 60% of the total value.
With land tax here multiple property owners almost always have to pay it and as it's aggregated it ramps up there pretty quickly. The most I ever had at one time was 5 investment properties and my land tax bill was pretty sizable. Like I said, they want to tax those who they feel can afford it but I was an average Australian, hard working and I went without a lot to have those investments. I wasn't rich. So I disposed of them and realigned.