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Comment by thatfrenchguy | Hacker News Reader

Aren’t taxes highly regressive in Texas with sky high property taxes which exempt rich people ?

The property taxes are sky high, yes, but they most definitely do not exempt the rich. There is no state income tax. I wouldn’t call the state’s general tax structure progressive or regressive.

Property taxes are inherently more regressive than income taxes, since since property (either directly or through rents) nearly always consumes a larger portion of the income/wealth of lower-means individuals.

It's not obvious to me that you can't also have a progressive / marginal tax system for property taxes based on home valuations (e.g. home values >$1MM taxed higher than those worth $200K). So, I don't think property taxes are inherently regressive.

That said, I don't think it's enough to just look at one tax. We have to consider taxes and regulations as a whole to understand whether a place is overall regressive or not. This leaves room for different implementations of tax policy which if done correctly will benefit the people.

I would say overall California’s high income and sales taxes and low property taxes are far, far more regressive, see this at the extreme:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-proper...

Huh?

California’s income taxes are super progressive. They’re only high for high earners.

Here is a recent comparison:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/11/taxes-are-sur...

Short answer: yes, Texas is regressive, with tax rates being lower in California for the bottom 60%.

The problem is that the cost of housing (to purchase and rent) is so out of line. I would guess that the "bottom 60%" pay more for housing in ca than they would in taxes in Texas. That payment is wealth transfer to people and not taxes for services.

I was responding to someone asking narrowly about taxes, not chasing moving goalposts.

> I would guess that

That's why I posted data; it works better than guessing.

The commenter guessed at something your article did not address yet is not unrelated. Saying it's moving goalposts to discuss housing costs in relation to property tax percentage and then quoting the first part of the sentence pretending your link addresses the unquoted part is disingenuous at best.

I pretend nothing; the first part of my response made it obvious I'm not responding to housing-related issues.

I'm guilty of being a little snippy, which I'll own. I just get sick of these unmoored "housing sucks in California well no, it is taxes well really is is about..." conversations. The issues are complex, there's real lives and lots of money on the line, and yes, fully two thirds of these conversations involve moving goalposts, whether or not people realize that's what they're doing.

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