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Speaking from the perspective of someone who has had his house smashed into an all of his stuff stolen, none of which was recovered and no meaningful attempt to do so was made, I don't particularly buy the argument that government enforces property rights. In certain cases, maybe. But mostly property rights exist because we all kind of agree they exist, and we generally don't go burglarizing each other.

The point being made above about property rights is much bigger than “does my local police do a good job finding burglars?”.

The point is that the government maintains an entire system for tracking, resolving disputes, and enforcing ownership. Think about who has the final say in a dispute over whether you own your car or your house or your company. The government adjudicates ownership disputes and then enforces that adjudication via people with guns.

It’s easier to notice this system if you imagine the counter-factual: if you lived in a failed state, and you wanted to keep your your home or car you would probably need to hire some guys with guns.

(When you think about it this way, you notice that the “value” of the government’s “service” is much higher for people who own a lot rather than for those that own a little.)

Or, alternatively, you'd need to buy a gun and defend your property yourself. Which many people do, and has become even more prevalent with the spate of looting in major cities with no police response last summer. You seem to be approaching this from a highly theoretical and ideological position, but that ignores the reality of the current situation, and the fact that the proposed law does not exist in some hypothetical world. The problem with tax impositions is rarely the theory (there's always a reasonable justification), it's the practical realities surrounding policy.

Self defense with a firearm can be part of a plan to avoid being the victim of violence, but it works a lot better in a society where crime is rare, serious crimes are likely to be punished, and the probability of profiting from major crimes is low. When skilled and motivated criminals attack unsuspecting victims, they tend to be successful even if the victims are armed.

Case in point, in 1986, Michael Lee Platt and William Russel Matix went on a crime spree in the Miami area. They started by murdering a man at a shooting range to steal his firearm and car. They then tried and failed to rob an armored car, murdering an armed guard in the process. Next, they robbed a bank. After a couple months off, they robbed another armored car, during which they stole a guard's rifle and murdered him with it. A couple months after that, they robbed and attempted to kill another man at a shooting range, using his stolen car in a bank robbery a week later.

All of the victims these criminals shot were armed, which did not dissuade them from initiating attacks. The armored truck guards were presumably trained, but not sufficiently to defend against attackers whose opening move was gunfire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

Home defense doesn’t exist in a Hobbesian void of law. You’re still expecting the law to clean up after the fact, either to dispense justice against the invaders, or for the insurance payout, or whatever.

> Which many people do, and has become even more prevalent with the spate of looting...

Only 42% of US households own at least one gun. Which means at least 58% of households depend on police for protection. Moreover, having just a gun is not going to be sufficient and you will need other forms of protection offered by police and judiciary. Finally, just having an effective property rights protection and enforcement system deters a lot of crime. None of those things are available for free and property taxes are an effective way to pay for them.

But you're still relying on the US military to protect you from foreign nation states. Your little gun wouldn't do anything against a tank or fighter plane.

Have we learned nothing from Red Dawn?

Exactly - owning land within a country is different from discovering an island and needing to hire people to defend it once you find oil or gold or have anything of value.

Property rights are typically enforced if you are rich. It's pretty evident even just by looking out your car window at the condition of a place how the level of enforcement and tolerance for certain things changes the minute you drive from Los Angeles into other cities like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena, or Culver City, for example.

The classic example of this differential response was in 1992, when the LAPD staked out defensive positions to protect the mansions owned by wealthy white political donors in Hancock Park, while Koreatown burned with immigrant shopkeepers left to fend for themselves by forming armed vigilante militias until the national guard was deployed and restored order.

You kept the house and the land- probably by far the most valuable assets. Without enforcement of property rights, what stops me from coming in with a bigger gun and just taking the land?

Of course, there are limits to the protection they provide- you can always buy more.

Clearly if the police could get away ignoring the fact that you came in and took the land, they would.

I would make a strong delineation between the adjudication of property rights and the enforcement of property rights. Those are two different things, and it has ever been the case that individuals frequently must act in an enforcement capacity. Potentially, if you tried to take someone's land, they will shoot you. That is enforcement. Adjudication happens when a judge says they were in the right.

Adjudication requires enforcement at the end of the day. Otherwise, whoever has the biggest gun wins.

Personally, I disagree with the whole ideas of both wealth and income taxes. You should be taxed for consuming things, since that's the point where you're actually imposing a burden on the rest of society.

(Note that this includes consumption of housing, and VAT + imputed rent is basically a property tax.)

Owning wealth imposes a burden on the society to the degree that it needs to be protected.

Isn't that priced into the cost of wealth already through insurance?

Not at all. You rely on the law enforcement and the courts to hold your rights over property, not insurance companies.

Which is typically a function of sale price.

I don’t think sale price of a big mansion sold 100 years ago and passed down from generation to generation would cover maintenance cost (road, sewers, electricity, police etc) for 100 years.

How so?

Police. Judiciary. Military. It takes a lot of infrastructure to defend property and property rights.

I see. Sorry I didn't complete the idea when "owning wealth" was used. I own money in a bank account. But I see now what he/she meant.

I mean, money in a bank account is also protected by the state: if the bank decides to just take your money, you can sue them.

i disagree with all forms of tax. we should only be taxed for consumption. it would raise the cost of living but it would also create ways to govern ourselves better, improve quality of life and take care of those who cant through charity rather than punitive forced taxation.

it's charity because someone has to take care of your financial needs because you are incapable of managing it yourself. someone has to take over another in need and take responsibility out of the kindness of their heart. it cant be demanded. the notion that we deserve a portion of another person's hard word makes a mockery of their hard work and dedication.

assets become valuable over time and the value of some assets is completely relative. if jeff bezos sold all his wealth in amazon shares, first, it wouldnt be the billions it is now..(even if he could sell it..), secondly, it would take it with it millions of dollars of income for hundreds of thousands of people. the notion of 'wealth' is a man made construct. wealth is what we consume. everything else is a resource. you cant tax resources. it is an asset that hasnt been realised yet.

Well, everyone consumes public infrastructure directly (driving on roads, suing someone, calling police) or indirectly (be assured of a safe investment environment for wealth building in the US vs Syria/Zimbabwe). How will you measure and tax this consumption to pay for the underlying infrastructure and labor?

All taxes are parasitic on the prosperity of the subjects.

The least parasitic is taxing commerce.

Anything else is stupid, like taxing people or property where the parasitic effect grows to be unbearable even when rates remain constant.

You can't fix stupid but it can get elected to decision-making positions and leverage the foolishness.

Exactly. Islam took a similar route with Zakat (a form of "charity tax" if you will, over 1400 years ago, and it's proven to work. When you look at history, there was a period of time, when everyone paid their share of Zakat, and when there were no poor people left to take it!

It's not that much either, only 2.5% for currencies like gold and silver over a minimum threshold (so the poor/lower class are exempted anyway).

However, as I explain in my other post, there is no forcing to liquidate a fixed portion of any holdings you have. For example, if you own property and rent it out, the property value itself is not taxed, only the money you make out of rent if you hold on to it for over a year (and it's above a minimum threshold). Similarly if you owe shares in a company, the taxation is not a direct percentage of that ownership, it depends on things like debt and the amount of produce or products the company owns each year.

Income tax is unethical and predatory as far as I'm concerned, not to mention continues to fail even at absurdly high taxation rates.

Which period was this? Because when I see what people with bank accounts in PK do now when Zakat is levied...

It was during the time of Omar Ibn AbdulAziz. I looked up the reference, and it was actually not just income from Zakat, but the entire fund in Iraq was overflowing, so much so that it was not only sufficient for the needy, but it also paid off people's debts, and married whomever wanted to get married.

[1] https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/181283/%D8%A3%D8%AB%D8%B1-...