The Supreme Court Just Made a Brutal Call on YOUR Home Equity

Bigfoot · Jul 4, 2026

Property tax is theft, I paid my mortgage off 22 years ago, but I still have to pay into an indefinite rental to the government. It's not right.

With that being said. My property taxes have skyrocketed even though I have made no improvements on my property in quite a long time...

I get that the roads need to be plowed, fire and police, and that sort of stuff. My problem with it all is that it goes far beyond that.

Bigfoot · Jul 4, 2026

I saw on the Buffalo News that Niagara Falls is coming down hard on property owners who are behind on their property taxes. Even if by a little bit.

Edit: FWIW -

AI Overview
Niagara Falls has issued around 3,000 foreclosure letters to property owners demanding payment for delinquent city and school taxes. The city threatened to proceed to foreclosure and auction off the properties if owners do not pay the balance in full.

I'm not sure if I'm actually on topic or not. lol

Zerex · Jul 4, 2026

Bankruptcy laws, foreclosures, and subsequent auctions are usually 10%-30% of market value.

The auction brought, what was a value, that on inspection of a run down property, was all that it would bring to a prudent investor..

As we know assessed value has nothing to do with real value, in most instances.

NYS just denied my enhanced star exemption, as they did not get to processing my proofs in time.
True..Hochul is cutting off seniors, due to this reason, as illegals need the money.

Steal2B · Jul 4, 2026

Bigfoot said:
Property tax is theft, I paid my mortgage off 22 years ago, but I still have to pay into an indefinite rental to the government. It's not right.

Facebook

www.facebook.com

"Because property taxes are exclusively set and collected by state and local governments rather than the federal government, this concept would require legislative or constitutional changes. The proposal is still being debated and has not been drafted into federal law."

Last time I saw a filler news piece that brought this up on a Cable Business show "Thume claims he can't get 60 votes to clear cloture."

OwnTheRide · Jul 5, 2026

Bigfoot said:
I get that the roads need to be plowed, fire and police, and that sort of stuff. My problem with it all is that it goes far beyond that.

Yup, that's the real problem. Some counties break down how your property tax money is spent. It goes something like this:

Police: $100
Fire: $100
Highway: $100
NYS and Fed mandated (a.k.a. welfare): the other thousands upon thousands of dollars

I get the idea behind property taxes: you're paying for the services you enjoy as a property owner (police, fire, highway). Nothing else should be a property tax.

Grimscale · Jul 5, 2026

OwnTheRide said:
I get the idea behind property taxes: you're paying for the services you enjoy as a property owner (police, fire, highway). Nothing else should be a property tax.

And school taxes should only ever be levied on people who use the system.
Home schoolers and those who either never had kids, or whose kids have graduated out of the system, should automatically be exempt.

Bigfoot · Jul 5, 2026

Grimscale said:
And school taxes should only ever be levied on people who use the system.
Home schoolers and those who either never had kids, or whose kids have graduated out of the system, should automatically be exempt.

spat · Jul 5, 2026

Grimscale said:
And school taxes should only ever be levied on people who use the system.
Home schoolers and those who either never had kids, or whose kids have graduated out of the system, should automatically be exempt.

The biggest problem with school taxes is the same as every other government program.

No competition to keep costs low.

The cost of education, even elementary education, has risen at multiples of inflation for the last 40 years, and the quality has plummeted.

In principle I agree with you about who should pay.

But, as a practical matter those taxes should be so low that nobody really cares anyway.

If your school taxes were only $50/year you probably wouldn't care.

The teachers are underpaid and the taxpayers are over charged, because they dedicate more man hours to servicing the bureaucracy than they do actually educating the kids.

FP1201 · Jul 5, 2026

spat said:
The biggest problem with school taxes is the same as every other government program.

No competition to keep costs low.

The cost of education, even elementary education, has risen at multiples of inflation for the last 40 years, and the quality has plummeted.

In principle I agree with you about who should pay.

But, as a practical matter those taxes should be so low that nobody really cares anyway.

If your school taxes were only $50/year you probably wouldn't care.

The teachers are underpaid and the taxpayers are over charged, because they dedicate more man hours to servicing the bureaucracy than they do actually educating the kids.

The bureaucracy AKA "Administration" is where the big bucks go, not so much the Teachers, and certainly not the support staff...We haven't had a Kid in school for over a decade and out School Taxes are double what the Town and Village Taxes are....got really nice athletic fields though!

Rocpo · Jul 5, 2026

spat said:
The biggest problem with school taxes is the same as every other government program.

No competition to keep costs low.

The cost of education, even elementary education, has risen at multiples of inflation for the last 40 years, and the quality has plummeted.

In principle I agree with you about who should pay.

But, as a practical matter those taxes should be so low that nobody really cares anyway.

If your school taxes were only $50/year you probably wouldn't care.

The teachers are underpaid and the taxpayers are over charged, because they dedicate more man hours to servicing the bureaucracy than they do actually educating the kids.

Teachers are overpaid for what they actually do. Half these kids can't read or do basic math. But they can tell you their fantasy life of "I feel like I'm a cat today!"

The amount of money wasted by schools is amazing. Smart boards? Great, the board is smart but the kids sure as shit aren't! Athletic fields? Great! That should be paid for by fund raising and NOT TAX MONEY! It's not my responsibility to pay for YOUR kids sports cause you think you're raising the next Joe Namath.

And every single classroom and hallway should have cameras that can be logged into by ANY parent of a student in the school. They should never have a second where they can't be watched when they're in the presence of students.

spat · Jul 5, 2026

⁶

Rocpo said:
Teachers are overpaid for what they actually do. Half these kids can't read or do basic math. But they can tell you their fantasy life of "I feel like I'm a cat today!"

The amount of money wasted by schools is amazing. Smart boards? Great, the board is smart but the kids sure as shit aren't! Athletic fields? Great! That should be paid for by fund raising and NOT TAX MONEY! It's not my responsibility to pay for YOUR kids sports cause you think you're raising the next Joe Namath.

And every single classroom and hallway should have cameras that can be logged into by ANY parent of a student in the school. They should never have a second where they can't be watched when they're in the presence of students.

It's not generally the teachers fault.

It's that bureaucracy again.

Blaming the teachers for the education is like blaming the street cops for the crime.

If the teachers were actually allowed to teach, and discipline, we'd be back to where we were in the 70s. With kids learning algebra in Jr high, not arithmetic in college.

Now, that presumes the administration did their job and hired teachers not marxist activists, but there are still decent teachers mixed in with the marxists.

Criticalt · Jul 5, 2026

Bigfoot said:
Property tax is theft, I paid my mortgage off 22 years ago, but I still have to pay into an indefinite rental to the government. It's not right.

With that being said. My property taxes have skyrocketed even though I have made no improvements on my property in quite a long time...

I get that the roads need to be plowed, fire and police, and that sort of stuff. My problem with it all is that it goes far beyond that.

My answer to that is something ive mentioned here before....several times.
Ok, stop plowing the roads, and I don't need your police. I give generously to our local volunteer fire department, they have my back. I choose to opt out.
The government has already promised to take care of my medical for the 8 years I gave them. I dont want social security, don't want food stamps, dont want.....anything.

Criticalt · Jul 5, 2026

Rocpo said:
Teachers are overpaid for what they actually do. Half these kids can't read or do basic math. But they can tell you their fantasy life of "I feel like I'm a cat today!"

The amount of money wasted by schools is amazing. Smart boards? Great, the board is smart but the kids sure as shit aren't! Athletic fields? Great! That should be paid for by fund raising and NOT TAX MONEY! It's not my responsibility to pay for YOUR kids sports cause you think you're raising the next Joe Namath.

And every single classroom and hallway should have cameras that can be logged into by ANY parent of a student in the school. They should never have a second where they can't be watched when they're in the presence of students.

Not everywhere.
My sister teaches at a school in rural WNY. The kids are taught well, and there is no cat bullshit allowed. No pride month celebration, no safe spaces, no Junteenth celebration. My sister didn't even know that was a thing.
Unfortunately the school is most likely going to merge with two other small local schools. Rural people aren't breeding anymore.
My niece graduated from this school in 2023 with a graduating class of 51. This year was a graduating class of 42. Its been falling every year. Fortunately the other two schools are very conservative too.

tirwin1 · Jul 5, 2026

spat said:
⁶

It's not generally the teachers fault.

It's that bureaucracy again.

Blaming the teachers for the education is like blaming the street cops for the crime.

If the teachers were actually allowed to teach, and discipline, we'd be back to where we were in the 70s. With kids learning algebra in Jr high, not arithmetic in college.

Now, that presumes the administration did their job and hired teachers not marxist activists, but there are still decent teachers mixed in with the marxists.

Yes. I have a daughter who is a second grade teacher in our suburb of Rochester. She is unable to discipline kids. For some idiotic reason they try to mainstream (for lack of a better word) retarded kids that should be in special classes. When one of them goes on a rampage school policy is for her to take the rest of the kids into the hall and call the office while the little darling trashes the room. It's beyond bizarre. Poor leadership at the principal level and union leaders are to blame for a lot of what's wrong. There are lazy teachers but there are also many like my daughter that work hard and do their best.

One year she had a severely mental girl who used her nails to leave scars on another students face. I nicknamed her "the wolverine*. After repeated episodes the little tyrant was finally placed in another class for" special " kids where she promptly terrified kids 3-4 years older and bigger than her.

Saltwater60 · Jul 5, 2026

Bigfoot said:
Property tax is theft, I paid my mortgage off 22 years ago, but I still have to pay into an indefinite rental to the government. It's not right.

With that being said. My property taxes have skyrocketed even though I have made no improvements on my property in quite a long time...

I get that the roads need to be plowed, fire and police, and that sort of stuff. My problem with it all is that it goes far beyond that.

MY mortgage went up $265 a month and $600 of that $3000 is homeowners insurance, the remainder is tax increases. My city is broke and small but spends like it’s NYC. We get all these grants because it’s free to add all this stuff and we all forget that we need to maintain all that after.

Saltwater60 · Jul 5, 2026

All taxes should be paid through sales tax. People can control it then. If you don’t want to pay too much into they system control your spending. They want to tax billionaires more well then they buy more so they would pay more into the system. It’s pretty fair for all.

spat · Jul 5, 2026

Saltwater60 said:
All taxes should be paid through sales tax. People can control it then. If you don’t want to pay too much into they system control your spending. They want to tax billionaires more well then they buy more so they would pay more into the system. It’s pretty fair for all.

Taxes should be nearly non-existent.

Government services should be paid for almost entirely by fees born by those who use those services.

That would also eliminate the tendency of governments to dump all taxes into a "general fund" they can raid at will, and it would nearly eliminate all the budget shenanigans we have every year.

OwnTheRide · Jul 7, 2026

Grimscale said:
And school taxes should only ever be levied on people who use the system.
Home schoolers and those who either never had kids, or whose kids have graduated out of the system, should automatically be exempt.

I tend to disagree with this. I get the idea, but the net result is that people will be unable to afford to send their kids to school. An educated society benefits all... even those who don't participate in the school system.

I think there's a very good argument surrounding separating the funding of education from other things, such as school sports. And I think we could find ways to spend our money a lot more wisely. The kids with the worst behavior and the least potential get the most funding.

Grimscale · Jul 9, 2026

OwnTheRide said:
I tend to disagree with this. I get the idea, but the net result is that people will be unable to afford to send their kids to school. An educated society benefits all... even those who don't participate in the school system.

First of all, we are not benefiting. People coming out of the school system are not much more than a drain on productive society.
Second, if school is that expensive that a person cannot afford to raise a child then something needs to change.

OwnTheRide said:
I think there's a very good argument surrounding separating the funding of education from other things, such as school sports. And I think we could find ways to spend our money a lot more wisely.

i completely agree with these ideas.
School sports used to be just a case of "our school against your school". Now it is a multi-billion dollar business that eclipses the actual scholastic activities needed to provide kids with a good start to life.

But it goes back to "if you want sports/band/color guard/etc. then pay for it yourself. don't expect ME to pay for YOUR kid to do anything other than sit down and learn reading, writing, math, etc."

Maybe we should start by firing ALL of the administrative leeches and putting their salaries back into actual teaching?

I don't know the answer, I just know that "school taxes" are getting more and more burdensome with no benefits.

Vapor · Jul 9, 2026

Grimscale said:
And school taxes should only ever be levied on people who use the system.
Home schoolers and those who either never had kids, or whose kids have graduated out of the system, should automatically be exempt.

My kids aren't going to the brainwashing factory.

OwnTheRide · Jul 9, 2026

Grimscale said:
First of all, we are not benefiting. People coming out of the school system are not much more than a drain on productive society.
Second, if school is that expensive that a person cannot afford to raise a child then something needs to change.

The vast, vast, VAST majority of people contributing to our society came from our public school systems. Your first statement really holds no water at all. Are there people coming out who are a drain? Sure. There are also people coming out of home schooling and private schooling who are as well.

I agree with your second point, but I might disagree with whatever solution you might propose.

Grimscale said:
Maybe we should start by firing ALL of the administrative leeches and putting their salaries back into actual teaching?

I don't know the answer, I just know that "school taxes" are getting more and more burdensome with no benefits.

Some administration is certainly required. Agree that there is a lot of administrative bloat. My local school has 47 kids in the building, with a full time principal, superintendent, nurse, librarian, and almost 30 teachers.

Completely agree that the cost vs benefit ratio of school taxes has gotten way out of whack.

The Supreme Court Just Made a Brutal Call on YOUR Home Equity

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