It feels weird I’d have to pay anyone just for owning something. Besides, how would you price private companies? Are those just going to be free?
speak for yourself! a property tax makes sense in theory: you're contributing to the entity that ensures your land is safe in the first place, but basing it on valuations instead of something like flat rates based on sqft is preposterous.
I'd go so far as to say that the degree to which the knowledge of such a tax affects your decisions relating to the property is enough to constitute a violation of natural property rights.
But let’s take your premise. The more valuable the land, the more an entity will spend to procure it (bigger army etc), and the more you thus have to spend to defend it, thus the more it costs.
Not quite. I can see what I’m getting back from the city for the property taxes on my home (or on my office).
It’s less clear to me what the city or government contributes to my company. I’m more inclined to say that its existence is a public service.
When the equivalent power of millions of people can become concentrated into a single person, you get all sorts of weird consequences! Most of them not good for the public as a whole, and often with a corrupting influence on liberal democracy. It is indeed fitting then, that a solution targeted at this very rare and specific problem would look a little weird; even though it's extremely similar to the existing property tax that every home owner pays.
I think that’s more being paid for having given someone a whole bunch of money up front, that they can now use to more quickly earn enough money to pay you (loan in a different name).