Hacker News Reader

If someone has high property taxes and has trouble paying them, they either (1) bought a house they couldn't actually afford, or (2) have made a lot of money on their house.

For (1), that's unfortunate, but doesn't garner a lot of sympathy.

For (2), we should do some rebranding where the house itself pays the taxes and no one feels pressured to take it out of their own pocket if they don't want to.

View on HN

That's an interesting way of putting it -- "the house itself pays the taxes". I guess you mean the solution I favor, which is to allow the property owner to defer some of the tax until the property is sold. I suggest that Prop. 13 in California, for example, should have limited not the growth rate of the tax, but the growth rate of the amount that actually had to be paid in a given year. The balance would be covered by a lien due at sale.

California already has a means-tested property tax postponement program: https://sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html

It should be expanded, state income tax ended, and prop 13 repealed.

This is already effectively how it works -- it's almost unheard of for a local government in California to kick someone out of their primary residence they own because of back taxes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com