Tread lightly and fly under the radar
Yesterday, I paid my property taxes. Close to $7000, and rising. I can’t afford this.
Yesterday, I also ran across the Fab Prefab website, which carries news about avant-garde prefab housing.
Growing up in Chicago–and then leaving–gave me an appreciation for good architecture. There’s so much good architecture in Chicago, and so little around Austin, that it became conspicuous by its absence. I’ve always loved the traditional townhouses around Chicago, but Buckminster Fuller’s Wichita House, which I first learned of back in college, has always struck me as something special, and the stuff featured at Fab Prefab is in that same spirit.
Another interesting aspect of many of the projects featured there is that they qualify as mobile homes. The way property tax works, some of the tax is on the land itself, but in most cases, more than half is on the “improvements” (ie, fixed structures). A mobile home doesn’t count as an improvement–I’m not sure what the make-or-break criterion is, but my guess is that it would be a fixed foundation.
I’m very attracted to the idea of a futuristic pod-home that lets me avoid perhaps two-thirds of my property taxes. Obviously there’s an ethics question here. I will let Socrates and Achilles debate this for me:
Socrates Is it ethical to work the system this way when most schmucks are paying their fair share?
Achilles When you put it that way, no. Then again, there’s nothing stopping other people from doing the same.
Socrates If everybody did that, then the school system would go bankrupt. After all, it’s property taxes that pay for the schools.
Achilles And why is that, anyhow? I always thought that was unfair, as the level of taxation is not tied to one’s ability to pay. People of modest means get priced out of their homes. (And about those schools–I gotta tell ya, we’re not getting our money’s worth out of them.)
Socrates Well, that’s not very fair either, I guess. But they knew the way the system worked when they bought, so they’ve got nothing to complain about.
Achilles What about renters? Landlords just pass through their property-tax increases, so unless you are a bum, there’s no way to completely escape property taxes.
Socrates I concede the point. Still, where’s the money going to come from if everybody lives in mobile dwellings, even if they’re only nominally mobile?
Achilles Well, the state could pass a state income tax.
Socrates You know that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Achilles Yeah…
Socrates So in the meantime, do you think you can ethically avoid your tax burden this way?
Achilles Well, yes. If the taxing authorities decide they don’t like it, they can close the loophole. In the meantime, it’s there, and I’m under no obligation to pay as much in taxes as possible.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.