Tax Rolls Reveal Cars Of The Rich (But Not Horses) - Forbes.
This article suggests the folly of taxing personal property, including cars and horses. The setting is Greenwich, CT -- the closest-to-NYC suburb in Connecticut. Greenwich has the largest Grand List of any town or city in Connecticut (neighboring Stamford, with a much larger population, is #2, with a much lower figure).
Greenwich is tear-down land. Houses built before about 1995 tend to get torn down and replaced with the largest house the zoning (floor area ratio and green-space requirements) will permit. It is fair to assume that many who own a home in Greenwich also own homes in other places, and, since most other states do not assess personal property tax on cars (18 states do, including Massachusetts and Maine), many residents register their cars in one of their other states, thereby avoiding the local personal property tax and the higher insurance costs associated with living in a densely populated area.
Personal property taxes have never been a good idea. They tend to catch mostly poor people and mostly rural people; richer people and urban people traditionally have sidestepped them. (Was it Thomas Shearman -- of Shearman and Sterling -- who wrote so eloquently about this? I know Albert Nock wrote a wonderful series -- The Things That Are Caesar's -- and called the first installment, on "personal property" taxes, "A Tax on Ignorance and Honesty" in 1910-11.)
This article suggests the folly of taxing personal property, including cars and horses. The setting is Greenwich, CT -- the closest-to-NYC suburb in Connecticut. Greenwich has the largest Grand List of any town or city in Connecticut (neighboring Stamford, with a much larger population, is #2, with a much lower figure).
Greenwich is tear-down land. Houses built before about 1995 tend to get torn down and replaced with the largest house the zoning (floor area ratio and green-space requirements) will permit. It is fair to assume that many who own a home in Greenwich also own homes in other places, and, since most other states do not assess personal property tax on cars (18 states do, including Massachusetts and Maine), many residents register their cars in one of their other states, thereby avoiding the local personal property tax and the higher insurance costs associated with living in a densely populated area.
Personal property taxes have never been a good idea. They tend to catch mostly poor people and mostly rural people; richer people and urban people traditionally have sidestepped them. (Was it Thomas Shearman -- of Shearman and Sterling -- who wrote so eloquently about this? I know Albert Nock wrote a wonderful series -- The Things That Are Caesar's -- and called the first installment, on "personal property" taxes, "A Tax on Ignorance and Honesty" in 1910-11.)
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