In Australia at least, you are not taxed capital gains on your home so in my view, any improvements made, increase the value of yr home. We bought the worse house in the best street in 2011 for $860,000 and its now worth $2.5m. Maybe it's not the same everywhere but IMO it's been worth it 💖
Here in the US, there are property taxes, which happened every year and that goes to pay basically for local amenities, such as the fire department and the schools and so on and so forth. The problem of course is that if you buy a house that you can afford at $200,000 and then you sit there and you do nothing at all but just basic maintenance like replace the roof after 20 years and literally do nothing so your property which was worth 200,000 when you bought it has now depreciated because it's 20 years older, right And if anything in a real world evaluation of value and worth that commodity has gotten 20 years older you've got more rain damage you have more wear and tear and all that but your plan for your retirement was to live on that property and you knew when you bought it at $200,000 that the property taxes were let's say maybe $300 a month and you knew that when you were retired you could afford that. But during that 20 years a bunch of people and other parts of the world all decide they wanna come live where you are and they all show up and they start having bidding wars, and they start arguing about who can pay more money and so after 20 years, your retirement home that you very carefully economically planned for which was going to cost you $300 in property taxes every month and the basic cost of maintaining it and so on and so forth now because a bunch of people are saying that they all wanna pay $1 million for your house. The government says oh well, we're going to assume your house is worth $1 million and we're going to charge you now $1500 a month in property taxes because your house is worth so much but it's only worth it to the people who want to buy it from you. It's only worth $1 million to the person who desperately wants to get into your neighborhood and take your house from you and they're willing to pay you $1 million for you to give them your house, they want to come and be where you are, but you wanna stay where you are unfortunately you didn't plan economically for your community to suddenly become this hotspot And you're prepared to pay $300 a month in property taxes maybe 400. Maybe even 500 because we all know that prices go up overtime but can you afford 1314 or $1500 a month? Probably not. So capital gains in the USA is what you pay if you sell that house and they say that you spent 200,000 to buy it and you sell it for 1 million you gained $800,000 in value and they're going to have a capital gains tax on that $800,000. There is a small loophole that if you turn around and take that money and go to some of the random place in the world where you're a complete stranger and you buy some new house that has no family memories for you whatsoever and you decide you're gonna spend the full Million dollars on that house then you do that within two years and you won't get charged capital gains tax on the 800,000 profit you supposedly made because you reinvested it back into your primary home. But, most people when they want to retire they want to downsize they had a big house cause they had four kids and grandma was living with them, but now the kids have all moved on and it's just themselves and they want to downsize into something so they get that million dollars, but they go buy something somewhere else. It only cost 300,000 and now they're gonna pay huge bunch of taxes on that 700,000 that was supposedly profit, but the only reason they moved to begin with was probably because they couldn't afford to stay where they hadlived their life because property taxes were driving them out of the community.
Thank God it's not like that here! We pay the equivalent of what you call property tax, is the same as our rates we pay yearly here. That is supposed to pay for upgrades to roads, garbage collection etc. We have also had a huge property boom here over the last few years too but living in a dry climate, we tend not to have damp etc. Mind you, living by the sea comes with it's own issues. Although everyone has moved out, we now have 11 Grandchildren so a Princess room for the girls and a Pirate room for the boys plus a huge playroom. Also an art room in the basement, a huge shed for hubby and a healing room for me so it wouldn't suit us to leave here as we use most of the space we have.
I think your comment reminds us of the effort that people put into their homes while they're doing the work of raising their children and caring for their families.
And the idea of investing 20 or 30 years into a homebase that you then simply hand off to someone else is really pretty darn illogical when it comes to the human world.
It seems like a corruption of what is natural for humans to do with one another. It would be like Native Americans torching their village every 10 years and starting fresh in a completely new location.
It just doesn't make sense except for the person who doesn't really like where they live or maybe they lived in a suburb and they didn't develop their home and they wanted to flip it, and maybe it was actually their intention to turn their home into part of their retirement plan because they wanted to eventually sell it and downsize and move somewhere else, well they should be able to do that!
I have no problem with that as a strategy.
But the way property taxes are currently being used is having an unintended effect of forcing people out of their homes who don't want to leave and that is robbing communities of the wealth of that generation remaining in their town or their island community.
I think we need to revisit how we use property taxes. It could be something as simple as allowing people after 30 years to have a 50% reduction in their property taxes going forward, which would encourage people to stay in the homes that they've developed.
There are lots of options. The idea is to first identify that there's a problem or unintended negative consequences and then as creative humans set our minds to coming up with a better way of doing things.
I totally agree. We worked very hard raising 4 children, my hubby worked days and I worked nights and weekends so always someone home to parent. Every single day there were dance classes, modelling lessons (which BTW my Daughter got much from OUR investment! 😂), football, t-ball etc etc. We didn't take the kids on overseas holidays when all their friends were going to Bali but we did go to a seaside holiday every year. I now look back and wonder if we did the right thing. Financially of course we did and the intention was to leave as much for kids as possible but our corrupt Government is now talking of taxing yearly and "potential profit" you've made on your home whether you sell it or not. For people with no savings, this means they will HAVE to downsize whether or not they want to because without selling, they of course won't realise that profit. Our country is in desperate need of help with our PM buying in votes to stay in by granting hundreds of thousands of immigrants in with no background checks and who do not recognise our Christian beliefs, in fact despise us for them. For many years Australia has been one big melting pot of people from all over the world who were warmly welcomed, settled in and helped build our country but the difference is, whether Christian or not, they believed in peace and love. I have grave fears for our beautiful land and what we've worked so hard for I had to take early retirement after looking after others for so long and ignoring my body in a career I was passionate about and for what I thought was the best thing for my family. Thank you for listening to my rant! There are Aussies sleeping in tents and cars whilst new migrants get Government housing or hotel stays. It is disgraceful and makes me so sad for my gentle Grandpa who was in Gallipoli fighting for our freedom 😢 My only saviour is that he has passed and does not have to witness this tyranny 💖🙏💖🇦🇺
You just said this: "...our corrupt Government is now talking of taxing yearly and "potential profit" you've made on your home whether you sell it or not."
Really? Honestly, since the beginning of time, humans have raped the rewards of their labor. This includes our political labor. If you don't do the work to plant the crops, then you won't eat in the fall in the winter. Though root cause of problems in countries like mine and yours are not corrupt politicians. It's a Citizen Ray that has become lazy when it comes to being politically active, so we are not doing the work to maintain our government system through which we maintain both the quality of our life and the actual physical structure of our nation, and by handing the keys or the rains or the controllers over to other people and not paying attention, we are now reaping with the past two generations have failed too sow.
I'm currently in South Korea, which is why I'm awake while you are posting, because we're close to the same time zone. And, I'm here to research the third book in my novel series. My novel series is going to be an amazing fun, exciting adventure, but in the end, I have a back door Message that I'm going to be offering to all of my readers. It's the Takeaway that I want them to get from reading the series, and basically it is that you are important and your engagement in the world is vital and necessary. From college students to parents raising children to retirees to senior citizens, all of us have value and All of us have actually a moral obligation and a responsibility to be actively engaged. This needs to be a part of what we consider to be normative in life.
But, it needs to be by choice! Not regulated and coerced like Australia which penalizes you for not voting, for example. And that's because voting actually serves as an illusion, the people who control the government want us voting not because they care about what we actually want, because they're working very hard to manipulate us, and because they've already controlled who's going to be on the ballot. The purpose of forcing people to vote is that you can then point to that and say that you have a mandate from the people. But the truth is, if the people don't have real and honest control over who ends up on the ballot, then their vote is not only meaningless. It's actually dangerous basically creates the illusion that you supported the person you voted for. If you're being forced to vote, you're being forced to pretend that there's someone on the ballot that you actually approve of. And if that's not the case, then abstaining from voting is how you send the message that you don't approve of any of them, and in Australia if people are being by law, forced to vote and economically punished, if they don't, then you're being forced to provide false testimony on behalf of some random politician who you chose because they were the least awful of the bunch.
I only have a little bit of information about Australia, so does this sound right to you?
Where are we going here?
Weirdly, I wrote a reply but it didn't come through - will try again later!
But you got chickens. Chickens ARE stock and they can be made into stock. Win-win
You are hilarious!!!
God! This is so true!
In Australia at least, you are not taxed capital gains on your home so in my view, any improvements made, increase the value of yr home. We bought the worse house in the best street in 2011 for $860,000 and its now worth $2.5m. Maybe it's not the same everywhere but IMO it's been worth it 💖
Here in the US, there are property taxes, which happened every year and that goes to pay basically for local amenities, such as the fire department and the schools and so on and so forth. The problem of course is that if you buy a house that you can afford at $200,000 and then you sit there and you do nothing at all but just basic maintenance like replace the roof after 20 years and literally do nothing so your property which was worth 200,000 when you bought it has now depreciated because it's 20 years older, right And if anything in a real world evaluation of value and worth that commodity has gotten 20 years older you've got more rain damage you have more wear and tear and all that but your plan for your retirement was to live on that property and you knew when you bought it at $200,000 that the property taxes were let's say maybe $300 a month and you knew that when you were retired you could afford that. But during that 20 years a bunch of people and other parts of the world all decide they wanna come live where you are and they all show up and they start having bidding wars, and they start arguing about who can pay more money and so after 20 years, your retirement home that you very carefully economically planned for which was going to cost you $300 in property taxes every month and the basic cost of maintaining it and so on and so forth now because a bunch of people are saying that they all wanna pay $1 million for your house. The government says oh well, we're going to assume your house is worth $1 million and we're going to charge you now $1500 a month in property taxes because your house is worth so much but it's only worth it to the people who want to buy it from you. It's only worth $1 million to the person who desperately wants to get into your neighborhood and take your house from you and they're willing to pay you $1 million for you to give them your house, they want to come and be where you are, but you wanna stay where you are unfortunately you didn't plan economically for your community to suddenly become this hotspot And you're prepared to pay $300 a month in property taxes maybe 400. Maybe even 500 because we all know that prices go up overtime but can you afford 1314 or $1500 a month? Probably not. So capital gains in the USA is what you pay if you sell that house and they say that you spent 200,000 to buy it and you sell it for 1 million you gained $800,000 in value and they're going to have a capital gains tax on that $800,000. There is a small loophole that if you turn around and take that money and go to some of the random place in the world where you're a complete stranger and you buy some new house that has no family memories for you whatsoever and you decide you're gonna spend the full Million dollars on that house then you do that within two years and you won't get charged capital gains tax on the 800,000 profit you supposedly made because you reinvested it back into your primary home. But, most people when they want to retire they want to downsize they had a big house cause they had four kids and grandma was living with them, but now the kids have all moved on and it's just themselves and they want to downsize into something so they get that million dollars, but they go buy something somewhere else. It only cost 300,000 and now they're gonna pay huge bunch of taxes on that 700,000 that was supposedly profit, but the only reason they moved to begin with was probably because they couldn't afford to stay where they hadlived their life because property taxes were driving them out of the community.
Thank God it's not like that here! We pay the equivalent of what you call property tax, is the same as our rates we pay yearly here. That is supposed to pay for upgrades to roads, garbage collection etc. We have also had a huge property boom here over the last few years too but living in a dry climate, we tend not to have damp etc. Mind you, living by the sea comes with it's own issues. Although everyone has moved out, we now have 11 Grandchildren so a Princess room for the girls and a Pirate room for the boys plus a huge playroom. Also an art room in the basement, a huge shed for hubby and a healing room for me so it wouldn't suit us to leave here as we use most of the space we have.
I think your comment reminds us of the effort that people put into their homes while they're doing the work of raising their children and caring for their families.
And the idea of investing 20 or 30 years into a homebase that you then simply hand off to someone else is really pretty darn illogical when it comes to the human world.
It seems like a corruption of what is natural for humans to do with one another. It would be like Native Americans torching their village every 10 years and starting fresh in a completely new location.
It just doesn't make sense except for the person who doesn't really like where they live or maybe they lived in a suburb and they didn't develop their home and they wanted to flip it, and maybe it was actually their intention to turn their home into part of their retirement plan because they wanted to eventually sell it and downsize and move somewhere else, well they should be able to do that!
I have no problem with that as a strategy.
But the way property taxes are currently being used is having an unintended effect of forcing people out of their homes who don't want to leave and that is robbing communities of the wealth of that generation remaining in their town or their island community.
I think we need to revisit how we use property taxes. It could be something as simple as allowing people after 30 years to have a 50% reduction in their property taxes going forward, which would encourage people to stay in the homes that they've developed.
There are lots of options. The idea is to first identify that there's a problem or unintended negative consequences and then as creative humans set our minds to coming up with a better way of doing things.
Your home sounds absolutely awesome!
I totally agree. We worked very hard raising 4 children, my hubby worked days and I worked nights and weekends so always someone home to parent. Every single day there were dance classes, modelling lessons (which BTW my Daughter got much from OUR investment! 😂), football, t-ball etc etc. We didn't take the kids on overseas holidays when all their friends were going to Bali but we did go to a seaside holiday every year. I now look back and wonder if we did the right thing. Financially of course we did and the intention was to leave as much for kids as possible but our corrupt Government is now talking of taxing yearly and "potential profit" you've made on your home whether you sell it or not. For people with no savings, this means they will HAVE to downsize whether or not they want to because without selling, they of course won't realise that profit. Our country is in desperate need of help with our PM buying in votes to stay in by granting hundreds of thousands of immigrants in with no background checks and who do not recognise our Christian beliefs, in fact despise us for them. For many years Australia has been one big melting pot of people from all over the world who were warmly welcomed, settled in and helped build our country but the difference is, whether Christian or not, they believed in peace and love. I have grave fears for our beautiful land and what we've worked so hard for I had to take early retirement after looking after others for so long and ignoring my body in a career I was passionate about and for what I thought was the best thing for my family. Thank you for listening to my rant! There are Aussies sleeping in tents and cars whilst new migrants get Government housing or hotel stays. It is disgraceful and makes me so sad for my gentle Grandpa who was in Gallipoli fighting for our freedom 😢 My only saviour is that he has passed and does not have to witness this tyranny 💖🙏💖🇦🇺
You just said this: "...our corrupt Government is now talking of taxing yearly and "potential profit" you've made on your home whether you sell it or not."
Really? Honestly, since the beginning of time, humans have raped the rewards of their labor. This includes our political labor. If you don't do the work to plant the crops, then you won't eat in the fall in the winter. Though root cause of problems in countries like mine and yours are not corrupt politicians. It's a Citizen Ray that has become lazy when it comes to being politically active, so we are not doing the work to maintain our government system through which we maintain both the quality of our life and the actual physical structure of our nation, and by handing the keys or the rains or the controllers over to other people and not paying attention, we are now reaping with the past two generations have failed too sow.
I'm currently in South Korea, which is why I'm awake while you are posting, because we're close to the same time zone. And, I'm here to research the third book in my novel series. My novel series is going to be an amazing fun, exciting adventure, but in the end, I have a back door Message that I'm going to be offering to all of my readers. It's the Takeaway that I want them to get from reading the series, and basically it is that you are important and your engagement in the world is vital and necessary. From college students to parents raising children to retirees to senior citizens, all of us have value and All of us have actually a moral obligation and a responsibility to be actively engaged. This needs to be a part of what we consider to be normative in life.
But, it needs to be by choice! Not regulated and coerced like Australia which penalizes you for not voting, for example. And that's because voting actually serves as an illusion, the people who control the government want us voting not because they care about what we actually want, because they're working very hard to manipulate us, and because they've already controlled who's going to be on the ballot. The purpose of forcing people to vote is that you can then point to that and say that you have a mandate from the people. But the truth is, if the people don't have real and honest control over who ends up on the ballot, then their vote is not only meaningless. It's actually dangerous basically creates the illusion that you supported the person you voted for. If you're being forced to vote, you're being forced to pretend that there's someone on the ballot that you actually approve of. And if that's not the case, then abstaining from voting is how you send the message that you don't approve of any of them, and in Australia if people are being by law, forced to vote and economically punished, if they don't, then you're being forced to provide false testimony on behalf of some random politician who you chose because they were the least awful of the bunch.
I only have a little bit of information about Australia, so does this sound right to you?
You are so right!