Property taxes are NOT rent. Property taxes are charges made to the property owner for services rendered to benefit the property. Property taxes where I live include police protection, fire department protection, garbage removal twice a week, road maintenance, maintenance of the drainage systems( critical in hurricane situations) as well as school support for the children. Some other charges I question, but in general, I DO receive services for my taxes. I don’t call that rent.
Do you have the ability to opt out of these taxes and the services they provide?
If you refuse to pay these taxes and as well as not use the services that they provide, what happens?
Just playing devils advocate. Obviously the way our civil infrastructure is designed, it would be nearly impossible for you to completely avoid using a road, and of course they pass laws that require you to use the schools and even many of the utilities which you pay for over and above taxes. LOL.
Just a thought exercise in logic. If it’s not rent, and you don’t pay it, can you stay there indefinitely?
This business of property and ownership is perhaps the most important issue and driving force in the early American history.
I understand the concept of taxes being rent, but argue the government surrendered actual ownership at the very beginning. The politicians have been involved in getting private control of land since the beginning. In fact getting private land control is the beginning.
Almost all land east of the Missippi was conveyed to the colonies by the Crown. The boundries were in some cases not well defined but they were known. The Colonies that became states conveyed the land to individuals in an extremely bureaucratic process of grants. For example, those grants from the earliest of days are recorded and available for reference at the North Carolina State Archives. The grant was a transfer in Fee Simple for ever. Ownership was established and protected by law.
Examples of the procedure and involvement of high order politicos is available here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grant_Deed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_Grant_Deed
The history of America is the history of land ownership