The state property tax in Greece is 0% for property up to €200K. Then 0.2 to 1% from €200K to €5M. Then 2% above €2M.
Property taxes are hardly killing the Greek economy and especially not for the poor or the middle class. On the contrary, Greeks are paying very little. The problem is that Greeks used to have much more property than for example Northern Europeans.
For comparison, in Denmark the property tax is 1% up to €406,961. Then 3% for values above that. In addition to this there is a local tax on land value, which is generally 1.6-3.4%.
Numbers don't really say anything if you don't explain who decides them.
Here are two scenarios for you
1)I live in Greece and get 400 Euros a month and barely break even. I live in a house (inherited by my parents) that would fetch probably 90.000 in the market. Government says that it really costs 300.000 euros. I get taxed for it even though I cannot really afford it.
2)I am unemployed and live with my parents. They have a pension of 600 euros a month. My parents die. I inherit their house. The house was built in the 60's and is on an expensive island. Government says that the house values 500.000 and I get taxed even though I have no money at all on my own.
Basically the Greek government is unable to tax you directly (i.e. on the money you really make) and instead tries to guess your income by looking at the house. There are several cases however where your current house says nothing about how much money you actually make.
Let's get facts straight. The state property tax in Greece is calculated on a nominal value far removed from market value. This means that a 300K nominal value property cannot sell today for 150K (I know, I have tried.) In practice, as the article mentions property value approaches zero as the market is incredibly shallow. Recalculate on the basis of that and then make the comparison.
In Greece, when most people refer to property taxes they mean a tax called ΕΝΦΙΑ in greek (another user already mentioned it) which is a different tax than the one you mention.
ΕΝΦΙΑ is not restricted by property value (but is defined by it), meaning that even low valued properties have to pay (for houses it ranges from 2,50-16,25 €/sqm) and is a tax that was introduced at first as a "temporary" measure around 2011 or 2012 I think.
The tax you mention above is a different tax that is indeed 0% for property up to €200K. Keep in mind the €200K limit is not per property but for all your properties combined.
I won't agree with you just because you are presenting "some" numbers.
I know for a fact that my parents that live in Greece, and do not rent and own 3 flats and 1 house all of them divided equally to a different person within the family including me have to pay an "emergency" taxation on the electrical bill which is a lot of money. (A LOT OF MONEY!)
Atm my parents are pensioniers and they don't rent neither have any money in the bank. They are called out to pay 4000 euros / 2 months tax on the property they own. Eventually they will have to sell their property in order to be able to afford to live. Issue is that the market has crushed and the money they gonna make if they sell their property that has been with them from grandgrand parents and more which means sentimental value as well, is gonna be sold for pennies.
The problem is that people around the world don't understand that middle class Greeks are suffering for what "RICH" Greeks and politics have caused. Sure its middle class people that voted those politicians in and didnt hang them up including rich people but meh...
Seriously Rich people in Greece pay no tax and they don't care as well.
Dictatorship has been governing Greece for a very long time including now.
Btw sorry for coming strong on you, its just that your facts are literally off.
You're not wrong. Greece experienced a property bubble that is bursting painfully slowly. Homeownership is high in greece; it's part of the culture and successive governments protected it despite its heavy cost as a populist measure (e.g. by instituting laws that disallowed foreclosures). The bubble has not yet burst completely, that's why rent prices are very cheap.
There has been an emergency additional property tax (called ΕΝΦΙΑ) and at some point will be merged with other property taxes. For an appartment or a house, the tax amounts to about one or two months of rent, if the property was rented.
I live in Greece and things are bad but as a matter of fact, the real problem is that we ,the Millennials, feel that we're screwed because we compare ourself with our parents. Our parents and our politicians really scammed the whole europe into believing that we have a strong economy but the truth is that everyone avoided paying taxes, they got huge loans that could never pay of and our politicians where really corrupted ,as well. The result was that our parents made a fair amount of wealth without having the skills and the education of the rest of europeans. They worked hard, but they lived in a bubble. I believe that the biggest problem in Greece is that right now we are in a declining economy and probably wont succeed economically as our parents did. We are going from high to low and we cant see whats following.
Went to Crete a few years ago and was surprised by the number of (what seemed residential) buildings with unfinished roof/terrace, but otherwise being used and perfectly normal. You could see the concrete pillars with the steel bars coming out on top.
Imagine it is some kind of way to dodge taxation since it is still considered unfinished?
Have also read Michael Lewis' "Boomerang", which also has a lot of similar anecdotes about Greece (and Iceland, Ireland, etc).
I was wondering whether some Greeks saw through the surface. Your opinion seems the right to me: The older generation didn't know what paying taxes feels like. In France, if you have a company, 63% of the company's income goes into taxes before it lands as purchasing power to you (mostly, our VAT is 20%, mandatory insurances are 46% of the remainder, income tax is 23% and so on). When I hear outrage from the Greek people, it's often that their taxes are getting aligned with the norm and are still lower.
But the problem isn't taxes or respect of the law. The problem is that there are no jobs, partly because high taxes require a reorganization of the job market, and partly because no-one wants to trade with Greece, given they seem capable of switching to Communism any day from now.
I'm sorry for your situation. I hope you can find a remote job in programming, and bring a bit of business into your country.
...And I pray that France doesn't fall into this situation in 15 years. Too few people in France are invested in making businesses run, and most people believe employers are thieves, with barely any knowledge of how the economy works.
> "And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory “energy performance” certificate and a civil engineer’s assurance that there are no illegal constructions."
Not an expert, nor a citizen/resident, but these seem like a basic things to do. Parents back home had to provide same things recently just for renovation, and much more.
There are laws to address this, albeit considered kind of a joke in southern Europe for a long time. People would build whatever they wanted, hack together unsafe constructions to cut costs, then bribe an official to validate all of that. Then earthquake comes and people die. Standards for buildings are reactions to disasters, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Energy performance certificate, non-toxicity certificate, surface certificate, non-pledge certificate... The basics of a real estate sale in France - they make the transaction more transparent and I'm glad they are mandatory, both as a former buyer and a former seller... They remove a lot of the friction that distrust creates. Framing it as "red tape" that “threaten to turn the country into an endless ‘property graveyard’ where nothing will be sold, nothing will be bought and nothing will be rented” is laughable !
In the middle of selling/buying here in Scotland and energy performance certificates are mandatory and actually very useful - this was a significant factor in helping us choose a property.
Similarly sellers have to get a professional surveyor to do a survey which is that available to all potential buyers.
More often than not, most high-rise construction (that means... anything above 2 floors when it comes to Greece) is good, especially after the changes to the seismic code after the 1999 earthquake. A small drop in building quality came during the 80s.
More problematic are single homes where the owner of the land who contracts their construction decides to take shortcuts, as well as industrial buildings (the RIKOMEX building at the 1999 earthquake
Seriously, I live in Croatia (so not exactly a paragon of bureaucratic efficiency, quite the opposite) and recently bought an apartment.
Can't imagine how I would do that if energy certificates were optional, I would have to bring with me a construction engineer while looking for apartments?
There is no 'Greek' system or 'English' system - it's all the same, it's all interconnected - so someone in Europe must live the consequences of political decisions in China or the United States or any other country, really.
And that's to be expected, because the system was not 'engineered', but hacked together in time - sometimes in response to crises, sometimes influenced by insane political promises or compromises, sometimes by greed or fear.
Yet we try to fix the problems in each individual 'state' - this might work for some problems, but for others - the ones faced by countries such as Greece - it's hopeless - the solution (if any) might not be in Greece at all.
This is the rare case when refactoring just doesn't cut it, we need a complete rewrite of the whole thing.
I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them?
Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it should function.
The other problem is that the Economists who try to control it and debug it are terrible at understanding it. Every countries economy is subtly different, but they have a one size fits nobody, and doesn´t even have the right number of sleeves approach to it.
Expand it out to the max - this is an old style, US Great Depression monetary collapse. Their money supply has dropped by about a third since 2009. Some of that is loan write-offs, a lot of it is money being withdrawn from the country, either by rich people who want their money in safer banks, or as debt repayments to european banks. Cost of being in the Euro, very hard to stop this.
Knowing that the money supply has dropped by 1/3, we also know that the lending supply has dropped by 1/3, loans create money etc. Knowing that credit influences prices, we know that property prices are dropping through the floor. Knowing all that, we also know that tax revenue has dropped, because there´s less money circulating to be taxed. (Well, it´s a bit more complex than that but not much.)
The big issue in this kind of monetary collapse is very simple. In a market based economy, most prices can adjust to changes in the money supply and production over time. The one exception is debt, which keeps its coupon value until people default.
Revalue Greece debt though, and there goes a whole bunch of European banks with greek debt on their books, and a GFC style cascade failure to who knows where in the system.
It probably could still all be sorted out if we put some decent computer scientists on the case, but I certainly don´t expect the economists to get there in time.
So I guess Greece will just have to invade Germany.
I found the OECD's executive summary for Greece (2016) for context:
#The economy is gradually recovering from a deep recession but high social costs persist
Following a deep and prolonged depression, during which real GDP fell by 26%, the economy is projected to grow again in the course of 2016 and 2017, but a full recovery will take time. Competitiveness has improved markedly, but exports and investment remain weak. The unemployment rate, at 25%, is still high despite a moderate decline since 2013. The depression has pushed many people into poverty and income inequality has increased. Tax and benefit reforms have materially improved the budget position, but the burden of adjustment has been uneven and public debt is still very high. The banking sector has recently been recapitalised, but credit creation remains weak due to the high burden of non-performing loans on banks’ balance sheets, and reduced demand for loans.
#Significant structural reforms have been legislated, but their mix and implementation were uneven
Greece has implemented significant labour market reforms, but progress has been less on reducing oligopoly power, the regulatory burden and weaknesses in the public administration, due to administrative capacity constraints, little ownership of past reform programmes and vested interests. The depressed economy, lack of bank finance and remaining structural impediments are holding back the modernisation of the Greek economy.
#Stronger exports and investment are a key to sustained recovery
Remaining structural barriers and administrative burdens raise costs of exporting. Greece’s integration in global value chains is low due to insufficient investment in human and knowledge-based capital, low inward FDI, the small size of enterprises and the manufacturing sector and weak infrastructure. Network industries have been liberalised but the still restrictive regulation of the energy and transport sectors reduces trade in both goods and services.
Some examples of inheritance would be either old houses at the village or small olive groves.
Many old houses at the village are derelict and the small olive groves have little financial value.
The olive groves are generally small because they have been divided among the children through the generations. If an olive grove is not tended for 5-10 years, it becomes unusable and costly to fix.
So overvalued property in the current economic context combined with unprecedented (for Greece) property taxes is making home ownership a burden? Plus the maintenance costs wipe out what remains of the value.
Gee, in the US, all property is debt as well. (Property tax.) So you don't really own your property--if you fail to pay, you will ultimately lose possession.
This is what happens when you allow uncontrolled and unregulated asset transfers. There's a reason that pretty much any index/stock in the world freezes when the daily drop exceeds a certain threshold (i.e. Japan, JPX, has a limit of usually ~7% [1]).
This prevents panic selling and even though seems like a "delaying-the-inevitable-drop" cop-out, it really does work.
Greece Government are stupid as hell for letting everybody sell their homes all at once. Mass selling off in a region will just cause the housing market to death spiral, just like it does with stocks.
Apart from inheritance, the parents can also set up a form of "parental donation" of their property to their children, but continue to make full use of the property (live on the property or keep all the rent) as long as they are alive.
And the difference between "inheritance" and "parental donation", is that the latter was set up decades ago when it was cheap to do so.
What you are reading in this article is cases where they did not plan for the future.
In addition, the article does not provide information about the condition of the property. In many cases, the property would be an old house at a village that may not habitable or small olive groves that have little value.
On the subject of "law courts", I wanted to ask: Are Greeks able to even (practically) read the codified laws and regulations of their country online?
I ask because this is still pretty difficult in America, as most state and local law publishers do not publish them as (free) ebooks and make it hard to use their websites for anything but a reference. (I.e., it is difficult to read the law through and through online, as versus looking up individual sections.)
Half of Europe has dreamworld house prices which are unsustainable. As the boomers die out, the demographic changes are going to annihilate the fools today, taking out 450k for a bedsit. I have to say, I am looking forward to the peasants-turned-property-magnates getting a rude awakening :)
If you have no money even to pay the property taxes, what money do you have to even improve the economy with that property? Should we praise that the lands just stay there with no output?
Property taxes have this interesting economic plus side: It stops being profitable to just amass wealth, instead, you have to use it to create wealth in order to keep it.
Also, unlike what people in the comments are trying to make of it, countries high property taxes in EU are in good economic condition, like Luxembourg and the UK where they are respectively 1.5x and 2x what they are in Greece. In fact all the countries with high property taxes from OECD are amongst the top economic performers of OECD.
Funny to see so many commenters here making suggestions (e.g. "just sell the property") that assume Greece has a well-functioning economy, when the problem is that Greece doesn't have a well-functioning economy.
If the tax is more than the sale price, clearly the tax system. Tax should be limited to a fraction of the sale price, say no more than a third. That seems like a common-sense reform to do.
Contrary to what most people would have you believe, the EU has asked Greece to bring its economy in line with certain KPIs. The Greek governments have decided the best way to do that is tax the populace.
Austerity (deep cuts to government services) and tax rises were the conditions imposed on Greece as part of a series of financial bailouts from various national banks around the EU. The Greek people had riots over them, and a change of government in September 2015, before there was a consensus that there was absolutely no other option but to go along with the steps required in order to get the bailout money.
NYT == Paywall == they don't want me to read the story.
I'll gladly enjoy the comments, but this is my protest at allowing sources that are paywalls (except, perhaps, if a given story is in a fully public section).
This is not only about Greece, a house is a basic necessity of live, wether you can find a job or not. Governments should cap the price per square meter so a house will always be available for everyone.
As it is now you cannot really buy a house, you need a mortgage for live and work your entire life to pay interest. If this continues every house in the entire world will become unending debt and ever more unattainable, except for the rich of course.
This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..
Price controls are a terrible solution except in special and temporally limited circumstances, e.g. total war. Much better to make construction as easy and cheap as possible, i.e. no quantitative limits on it.
> This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..
If that actually happens, then it's pretty simple to fund basic income entirely from property taxes.
[+] [-] flexie|9 years ago|reply
The state property tax in Greece is 0% for property up to €200K. Then 0.2 to 1% from €200K to €5M. Then 2% above €2M.
Property taxes are hardly killing the Greek economy and especially not for the poor or the middle class. On the contrary, Greeks are paying very little. The problem is that Greeks used to have much more property than for example Northern Europeans.
For comparison, in Denmark the property tax is 1% up to €406,961. Then 3% for values above that. In addition to this there is a local tax on land value, which is generally 1.6-3.4%.
[+] [-] kkapelon|9 years ago|reply
Here are two scenarios for you
1)I live in Greece and get 400 Euros a month and barely break even. I live in a house (inherited by my parents) that would fetch probably 90.000 in the market. Government says that it really costs 300.000 euros. I get taxed for it even though I cannot really afford it.
2)I am unemployed and live with my parents. They have a pension of 600 euros a month. My parents die. I inherit their house. The house was built in the 60's and is on an expensive island. Government says that the house values 500.000 and I get taxed even though I have no money at all on my own.
Basically the Greek government is unable to tax you directly (i.e. on the money you really make) and instead tries to guess your income by looking at the house. There are several cases however where your current house says nothing about how much money you actually make.
[+] [-] cgio|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imarg|9 years ago|reply
ΕΝΦΙΑ is not restricted by property value (but is defined by it), meaning that even low valued properties have to pay (for houses it ranges from 2,50-16,25 €/sqm) and is a tax that was introduced at first as a "temporary" measure around 2011 or 2012 I think.
The tax you mention above is a different tax that is indeed 0% for property up to €200K. Keep in mind the €200K limit is not per property but for all your properties combined.
[+] [-] muse900|9 years ago|reply
I know for a fact that my parents that live in Greece, and do not rent and own 3 flats and 1 house all of them divided equally to a different person within the family including me have to pay an "emergency" taxation on the electrical bill which is a lot of money. (A LOT OF MONEY!)
Atm my parents are pensioniers and they don't rent neither have any money in the bank. They are called out to pay 4000 euros / 2 months tax on the property they own. Eventually they will have to sell their property in order to be able to afford to live. Issue is that the market has crushed and the money they gonna make if they sell their property that has been with them from grandgrand parents and more which means sentimental value as well, is gonna be sold for pennies.
The problem is that people around the world don't understand that middle class Greeks are suffering for what "RICH" Greeks and politics have caused. Sure its middle class people that voted those politicians in and didnt hang them up including rich people but meh...
Seriously Rich people in Greece pay no tax and they don't care as well.
Dictatorship has been governing Greece for a very long time including now.
Btw sorry for coming strong on you, its just that your facts are literally off.
[+] [-] return0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simosx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wutangson1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_mitsuhiko|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yagodragon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|9 years ago|reply
And Goldman Sachs as well!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-debt-cr...
[+] [-] SocratesV|9 years ago|reply
Imagine it is some kind of way to dodge taxation since it is still considered unfinished?
Have also read Michael Lewis' "Boomerang", which also has a lot of similar anecdotes about Greece (and Iceland, Ireland, etc).
[+] [-] tajen|9 years ago|reply
But the problem isn't taxes or respect of the law. The problem is that there are no jobs, partly because high taxes require a reorganization of the job market, and partly because no-one wants to trade with Greece, given they seem capable of switching to Communism any day from now.
I'm sorry for your situation. I hope you can find a remote job in programming, and bring a bit of business into your country.
...And I pray that France doesn't fall into this situation in 15 years. Too few people in France are invested in making businesses run, and most people believe employers are thieves, with barely any knowledge of how the economy works.
[+] [-] saiya-jin|9 years ago|reply
Not an expert, nor a citizen/resident, but these seem like a basic things to do. Parents back home had to provide same things recently just for renovation, and much more.
There are laws to address this, albeit considered kind of a joke in southern Europe for a long time. People would build whatever they wanted, hack together unsafe constructions to cut costs, then bribe an official to validate all of that. Then earthquake comes and people die. Standards for buildings are reactions to disasters, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Or am I missing something?
[+] [-] liotier|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|9 years ago|reply
Similarly sellers have to get a professional surveyor to do a survey which is that available to all potential buyers.
[+] [-] ferongr|9 years ago|reply
More problematic are single homes where the owner of the land who contracts their construction decides to take shortcuts, as well as industrial buildings (the RIKOMEX building at the 1999 earthquake
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] emptyfile|9 years ago|reply
Can't imagine how I would do that if energy certificates were optional, I would have to bring with me a construction engineer while looking for apartments?
[+] [-] delegate|9 years ago|reply
There is no 'Greek' system or 'English' system - it's all the same, it's all interconnected - so someone in Europe must live the consequences of political decisions in China or the United States or any other country, really.
And that's to be expected, because the system was not 'engineered', but hacked together in time - sometimes in response to crises, sometimes influenced by insane political promises or compromises, sometimes by greed or fear.
Yet we try to fix the problems in each individual 'state' - this might work for some problems, but for others - the ones faced by countries such as Greece - it's hopeless - the solution (if any) might not be in Greece at all.
This is the rare case when refactoring just doesn't cut it, we need a complete rewrite of the whole thing.
[+] [-] DickingAround|9 years ago|reply
Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it should function.
[+] [-] neffy|9 years ago|reply
For example, Greece.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/money-supply-m3
Expand it out to the max - this is an old style, US Great Depression monetary collapse. Their money supply has dropped by about a third since 2009. Some of that is loan write-offs, a lot of it is money being withdrawn from the country, either by rich people who want their money in safer banks, or as debt repayments to european banks. Cost of being in the Euro, very hard to stop this.
Knowing that the money supply has dropped by 1/3, we also know that the lending supply has dropped by 1/3, loans create money etc. Knowing that credit influences prices, we know that property prices are dropping through the floor. Knowing all that, we also know that tax revenue has dropped, because there´s less money circulating to be taxed. (Well, it´s a bit more complex than that but not much.)
The big issue in this kind of monetary collapse is very simple. In a market based economy, most prices can adjust to changes in the money supply and production over time. The one exception is debt, which keeps its coupon value until people default.
Revalue Greece debt though, and there goes a whole bunch of European banks with greek debt on their books, and a GFC style cascade failure to who knows where in the system.
It probably could still all be sorted out if we put some decent computer scientists on the case, but I certainly don´t expect the economists to get there in time.
So I guess Greece will just have to invade Germany.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nannal|9 years ago|reply
Does anyone have access to the world government dev environment?
I mean the code may need re-writing but we could probably use the same infrastructure.
[+] [-] elcct|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tormeh|9 years ago|reply
#The economy is gradually recovering from a deep recession but high social costs persist
Following a deep and prolonged depression, during which real GDP fell by 26%, the economy is projected to grow again in the course of 2016 and 2017, but a full recovery will take time. Competitiveness has improved markedly, but exports and investment remain weak. The unemployment rate, at 25%, is still high despite a moderate decline since 2013. The depression has pushed many people into poverty and income inequality has increased. Tax and benefit reforms have materially improved the budget position, but the burden of adjustment has been uneven and public debt is still very high. The banking sector has recently been recapitalised, but credit creation remains weak due to the high burden of non-performing loans on banks’ balance sheets, and reduced demand for loans.
#Significant structural reforms have been legislated, but their mix and implementation were uneven
Greece has implemented significant labour market reforms, but progress has been less on reducing oligopoly power, the regulatory burden and weaknesses in the public administration, due to administrative capacity constraints, little ownership of past reform programmes and vested interests. The depressed economy, lack of bank finance and remaining structural impediments are holding back the modernisation of the Greek economy.
#Stronger exports and investment are a key to sustained recovery
Remaining structural barriers and administrative burdens raise costs of exporting. Greece’s integration in global value chains is low due to insufficient investment in human and knowledge-based capital, low inward FDI, the small size of enterprises and the manufacturing sector and weak infrastructure. Network industries have been liberalised but the still restrictive regulation of the energy and transport sectors reduces trade in both goods and services.
[+] [-] simosx|9 years ago|reply
Many old houses at the village are derelict and the small olive groves have little financial value. The olive groves are generally small because they have been divided among the children through the generations. If an olive grove is not tended for 5-10 years, it becomes unusable and costly to fix.
[+] [-] dualogy|9 years ago|reply
Ooh, damn, that might require some time investment and manual labour! What is this, the 20th century? Dump this rotten crap!
> If an olive grove is not tended for 5-10 years, it becomes unusable and costly to fix.
Ooh, damn, that might require some time investment and manual labour! What is this, the 20th century? Get outta town.. ;D
[+] [-] return0|9 years ago|reply
Also olive trees are very easy to cultivate, very durable and last for centuries! disagree strongly on this.
[+] [-] webscaleizfun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpr|9 years ago|reply
http://taxation.lawyers.com/property-tax/when-you-cant-pay-y...
[+] [-] SamUK96|9 years ago|reply
This prevents panic selling and even though seems like a "delaying-the-inevitable-drop" cop-out, it really does work.
Greece Government are stupid as hell for letting everybody sell their homes all at once. Mass selling off in a region will just cause the housing market to death spiral, just like it does with stocks.
[1]http://www.jpx.co.jp/english/equities/trading/domestic/06.ht...)
[+] [-] simosx|9 years ago|reply
And the difference between "inheritance" and "parental donation", is that the latter was set up decades ago when it was cheap to do so.
What you are reading in this article is cases where they did not plan for the future.
In addition, the article does not provide information about the condition of the property. In many cases, the property would be an old house at a village that may not habitable or small olive groves that have little value.
[+] [-] imaginenore|9 years ago|reply
How bad is it?
[+] [-] esbranson|9 years ago|reply
I ask because this is still pretty difficult in America, as most state and local law publishers do not publish them as (free) ebooks and make it hard to use their websites for anything but a reference. (I.e., it is difficult to read the law through and through online, as versus looking up individual sections.)
[+] [-] kkapelon|9 years ago|reply
Lawyers are the ones who have all the power on this aspect.
[+] [-] Fifer82|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbmorgado|9 years ago|reply
Property taxes have this interesting economic plus side: It stops being profitable to just amass wealth, instead, you have to use it to create wealth in order to keep it.
Also, unlike what people in the comments are trying to make of it, countries high property taxes in EU are in good economic condition, like Luxembourg and the UK where they are respectively 1.5x and 2x what they are in Greece. In fact all the countries with high property taxes from OECD are amongst the top economic performers of OECD.
https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-property.htm
It should be clear just from that, that there is absolutely no correlation between high property taxes and a bad economy.
[+] [-] rcthompson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kartickv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdponx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mfukar|9 years ago|reply
The results are well understood.
[+] [-] onion2k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalore|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kkapelon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjevans|9 years ago|reply
I'll gladly enjoy the comments, but this is my protest at allowing sources that are paywalls (except, perhaps, if a given story is in a fully public section).
[+] [-] anovikov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thght|9 years ago|reply
As it is now you cannot really buy a house, you need a mortgage for live and work your entire life to pay interest. If this continues every house in the entire world will become unending debt and ever more unattainable, except for the rich of course.
This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..
[+] [-] hx87|9 years ago|reply
> This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..
If that actually happens, then it's pretty simple to fund basic income entirely from property taxes.
[+] [-] jseliger|9 years ago|reply
If only someone had thought of that before! http://econlib.org/library/Topics/College/pricecontrols.html