It would be a lessor ill for the county to forgive the 8 dollars or add it to the next years tax bill.
The government shouldn't be in the business of maximizing profit at the expense of the well being of the people.
There is not one correct thing in your entire post.
We have no proof that said notice was actually received. When you take legal action even as a private citizen the onus is on YOU to ensure communication is received not on them to ensure they received it. If you are going to take a property worth 10s of thousands you can spend a few dollars paying someone to serve a notice.
You may correctly discern that nobody that had actually been thus notified would fail to pay the $8 and thus such service would certainly result in a financial loss. Tack the cost of said service onto the bill or just take the $8 onto the next years bill.
You incorrectly claim that their is either anarchy where nobody pays their taxes or a punitive dystopia where 83 year olds lose their properties over Less than the cost of a value meal at McDonald's and exclude the entire middle ground where virtually all sane governments reside.
A dullard could design a functional middle ground and if you look at the array of imbeciles that work in local government they in fact largely have all over America. A few thoughts from yours truly.
- Require onerous process prior to actually taking a house to ensure that all takings are a result of actual decisions not to pay rather than mischance. Example paying people to actually serve notice to the person and prove receipt or that such service is impossible in extreme cases where someone is missing or impossible to contact. You can reasonably charge someone for this service.
- A fine for nonpayment
- Minimum principal due before you can take a property to ensure that no matter of 8 dollars results in a house being taken. This ensures that you can't simply keep piling on fines until it reaches the minimum.
- A lien on the value of the house for the money due when the property is sold or transferred so that the government gets paid its due.
- A policy of forgiving small discrepancies or miscalculations say under 10 bucks to ensure more money isn't spent on collection than is worthwhile.
The government could affect a net decrease in homelessness by literally taking away properties from wealthy people who own multiples and giving them to the poor. In fact any action that takes away from some and gives to the other makes someone better off. That being the general case doesn't make the specific case of this old fellow losing his house to a predatory system better or said system reasonable.