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you still are paying ungodly income and sale taxes.

If you own property and don’t pay (or pay very few) income taxes that means you probably wouldn’t be able to keep your house if your property tax base is reset.

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Our sales taxes are 8th in the nation, and, importantly very few states are much lower at all. Almost no states are 6% or below, to our 8.68% combined average.[1]

We've already discussed income tax in this thread, but the parent to your post was talking about "if you were rich > 25 years ago" .. implying the person is probably retired, and isn't paying the highest income tax rates. House paid off, don't need to draw a lot from your retirement, low property taxes.

1. https://taxfoundation.org/state-and-local-sales-tax-rates-20...

Buy. Borrow. Die.

Those successful property investors never have to lift a finger or pay a dime

Worse, I understand you can pass the property and low tax rate. on to your children when you die.

Grandchildren, even.

If your property is worth that much more, you can sell it and get a smaller place in the same area and pocket a nice profit. Prop 13 discourages new development in much the same way that rent control does.

Sales tax (VAT) in most European countries is around 20%. The top rate of income tax is typically 50% or more. That's just what it costs to have decent public services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax...

We pay 50% income tax in California and don’t have any decent public services.

No argument there! But 50% + 8.6% sales tax vs 50% + 20% VAT is definitely a difference.

Of course, the area under the curve matters, too. I have no insight into what effective tax rates people are paying in 50% top-bracket tax countries in Europe.

As a double-income no kids couple in Silicon Valley, I think we're still paying something like 18% effective tax rate federally.

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