Property value assessment may not sound like the most thrilling of topics, but according to historian Andrew W Kahrl’s new book The Black Tax, it represents a hugely important piece of structural inequality in the US, one that implicates a wide range of topics, including the process of gentrification, the quality of public schools and other amenities, and maintenance of local infrastructure.
Kahrl argues that for decades now the assessment process for homes has been used prejudicially against African Americans, leading them to pay more than their fair share in property tax despite receiving fewer benefits than those living in white-dominated areas. These unequal taxes have had all sorts of downline repercussions, making them a “missing piece” of the puzzle when it comes to inequality in the US.
Not sure even about the thesis. Property tax system means blacks get hard done by. Hmm – can’t see a simple explanation of the mechanism anywhere so as to be able to evaluate the idea.
Then we get this:
There are solutions to this problem: according to Kahrl, the US is the only federated nation in the world without a system to ensure fiscal equity at the local level. “Germany, Canada, India and Australia, have fiscal equity programs. In those nations, the federal government ensures there’s a baseline, where federal dollars are delivered to localities based on need. That at least would be a good first step.” He pointed the finger at the Reagan administration, which began the defunding of local governments that has continued to snowball since the 1980s, resulting in things like unclean water, the resurgence of formerly controlled diseases, and the use of fines and fees to bolster local budgets.
Ah, more redistribution then, eh? Doesn’t really matter about the mechanism any more…..
The ‘quality of public schools’ ? Isn’t that more to do with the quality of available intake? Can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!
Maybe not every time, Julia, but it is possible to make a reasonable facsimile provided that the tools and machinery are right.
Or, and hear me out, black people turn every place they live into a sh*thole?
Jonathan, this is getting tedious. Arguing about cultures n stuff is fine and even useful. Insults about skin colour are not. Stop.
Not sure who deserves the black mark here…
It might be that the reviewer has misunderstood or it might be the author who is mistaken but what are described as solutions to the problem are not solutions but compensatory measures. Without a narrower definition of the problem and its causes it’s not possible to say whether such measures are justified or simply an appeal for special treatment.
On reading the headline, I wondered if this referred to the bill for decades of affirmative action, welfare and subsidy.
I’d be interested to know if this ‘black tax’ applies to African immigrants to the US and their children. Because they seem remarkably immune to the ‘structural racism’ practiced on black Americans…..
Ok Tim, fair enough.
Shirely federal government doesn’t fund local government, state government does.
That’s part of what the political battle is. They know that if they can gain access to Fed funding then it’s most, most, unlikely to ever get cut off.
the assessment process for homes has been used prejudicially against African Americans, leading them to pay more than their fair share in property tax
Wonder which racial groups in the USA are net taxpayers, and which are net recipients.
Americans have spunked trillions on trying to make racial equality work, and all they’ve gotten for their trouble is being called racist.
But but but, we’ve been told for the last 25 years that that federated distribution was the only thing holding the US currency union together and that its apparent lack in the EU was therefore a problem.
Now we learn it doesn’t exist at all in the US? Yet we may also observe it does exist, on steroids, in the EU.
What be the truth?
They know that if they can gain access to Fed funding then it’s most, most, unlikely to ever get cut off.
That recognises that it’s no more than wishy-washy compensation for some will-o’-the-wisp “Black Tax” that doesn’t bear close inspection.
Reading the article, it seems to argue that the blacks pay more tax, therefore this produces less money.
As for Oz by the way, good old Bjelke-Peterson abolished the VAT in Queensland. Naturally the High Court deemed this a breach of the Constitution. Since the other states all screamed about how they needed the cash, the Commonwealth instituted a nation-wide tax. Which is distributed according whichever state makes the most noise, instead of each state having to increase its local tax if it wants more loot.
I of course feel that the old way was best, since beauteous Bjelke had abolished the tax for Qld. My brother also felt the tax was vile as Western Australia paid more tax which was distributed to the woke and enlightened states that were very properly screwing their economies instead of providing goods and services for him and his family.
JuliaM,
To a very considerable level. I went to a boy’s school with a catchment area of the whole town. I’ve seen two of my old classmates on TV since I left. One was at bank being interviewed for Bloomberg channel. The other was on Panorama about youth prison, as an ex-con.
This was like how they were in the first days I met them. The criminal was selling porn and cigarettes at school, which I presume he’d stolen.
Socialists love the idea that school makes a difference, as they’re obsessed with blank slate. They think private school kids are privileged, when the success is mostly about the child and their parents. The kids who give up private school because of VAT changes will be going to state school and scoring higher and going to Oxford.
It’s the Lego Movie song’Everything is Racist’.
Property tax in the US is truly a local tax – it’s collected in your town/city, and spent in your town/city. It doesn’t leave, and it isn’t pooled or transferred to other towns/cities. Rules may be different in other states, but none that I’ve lived in.
It’s used to pay the town/city share for education etc, and the State pays the remainder (via State tax collections plus federal transfers).
Property assessments (valuations) are performed every X years, as mandated by law. The key is that the town/city has a budget that must be funded (voted on by locals).
That budget is funded by property tax so its Property Values times Mill Rate = town budget amount. The Mill Rate is a flat tax rate.
If your property has been assessed/valued at too high a value, you can challenge it. Property assessments and property tax paid are public records, and every town publishes those values – the vast majority are online, but you can go to Town Hall and view ANYONE’s property information.
The US is the most litigious country in the world – if some preferred group were being overcharged, the NAACP/BLM/ACLU and a plethora of other grifters would have been all over it.
If blacks’ property was assessed at a reduced value they would, lo these many decades, have been underpaying their “fair” share of upkeep of the voracious state and local governments.