[larsiusprime]

Higher property taxes and low income taxes is preferable actually, it keeps the housing market from getting massively distorted.

[munk-a]

Ideally you're correct - but it does have the very large side effect of making real estate fraud much more lucrative. This isn't to say that the potential of people breaking a law means we shouldn't have the law at all - but higher property taxes necessitate a much large spend into property value auditors and require a lot more stringency around property improvement permitting to ensure that increases in property value are captured and recorded accurately.

[calmoo]

How much fraud we talking? I like to think along Matt Levine's ideas that at least some amount of fraud is acceptable - there will always be some amount of it and under or over-regulation creates a net-negative.

[gnopgnip]

Except the property taxes aren't based on the actual price paid. The tax assessment and appeal system is more prone to corruption than most states.