Ownership by Permission

Why property taxes mean you never truly own your home

Property taxes are not a civic virtue. They are parasitic.

They do not fund ownership. They negate it.

If you must pay the state every year to remain on land you supposedly own, then you do not own it. You’re leasing it from the government under threat of seizure. Miss enough payments and the sheriff does not debate philosophy, he enforces reality. The house is taken, the land is sold, and the illusion collapses.

Property taxes are unique in this way. Income tax claims a portion of what you earn. Sales tax skims what you spend. Property tax reaches deeper. It says that even after you have paid for your land in full, even after the mortgage is gone and the deed is in your hand, the state retains superior claim. You may live there only so long as you keep paying tribute.

That is not ownership. That is feudalism with paperwork.

We are told this is necessary. We are told it is for the common good. And we are told most of it goes to schools, as if invoking children sanctifies the arrangement. But emotion is not authority, and necessity does not override principle.

Education is not found anywhere in the Constitution. Not explicitly. Not implicitly. Not by delegation. Historically, education was left to families, churches, and communities. That omission from the Constitution was not accidental. The founders understood that whoever controls education controls the future, the values, and the conscience of a people. Centralized education was viewed as a danger, not a benefit.

Yet today, property taxes are defended almost entirely on the basis that they fund public schools. This creates a moral sleight of hand. If you oppose the tax, you are told you oppose children. If you question the system, you are accused of selfishness. But the real question is simpler and more honest.

Why am I morally obligated to fund the upbringing of your child, and why are you obligated to fund mine?

Your child is your responsibility, and mine is mine. Scripture does not assign that duty to the state, and it certainly does not assign it to my neighbor. Deuteronomy speaks of parents teaching their children diligently, when they sit in their house and when they walk by the way. Proverbs speaks of fathers instructing sons. Ephesians commands parents to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The responsibility is direct, personal, and unavoidable.

There is no verse that says Caesar shall educate the children.

And yet we have accepted a system where the state taxes property holders, regardless of whether they have children, regardless of whether they use the schools, regardless of whether those schools teach truth, wisdom, or even basic competence. The money is taken automatically. Consent is not required, and opting out is not allowed.

That alone should trouble anyone who still believes in liberty.

Property taxes also create a permanent underclass of renters and a permanent anxiety among owners. Seniors who worked their entire lives can lose homes they paid off decades ago because assessments rise faster than fixed incomes. Families can be priced out of neighborhoods not by the market, but by tax policy. Land becomes less a refuge and more a liability.

The state calls this stability. It is anything but.

The deeper issue is theological, whether people want to admit it or not. Who owns the earth?

Psalm 24 says the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof. Genesis tells us God gave dominion of the earth to man, to steward it, cultivate it, and keep it. At no point does Scripture say God gave the earth to governments so they could lease it back to the people conditionally.

Government supposedly exists to punish evil and reward good. That is its mandate. It is not a co-owner of creation. It’s not a landlord over the citizenry. When the state asserts ongoing ownership through property taxes, it places itself in a position Scripture does not grant.

This is why property taxes feel different. People sense the injustice even if they cannot articulate it. They know something is wrong when ownership is conditional. They know something is broken when failure to pay a recurring fee results in confiscation of what was supposedly theirs.

We are also told that without property taxes, schools would collapse, roads would crumble, and society would unravel. This is a false dilemma. It assumes the current structure is the only possible one. It assumes that inefficiency, bloat, and administrative sprawl are immutable laws of nature.

They are not.

Education existed long before property taxes. Roads existed long before modern tax regimes. Communities cared for one another through voluntary means, local control, and accountability that actually meant something. When funding is extracted rather than chosen, waste is guaranteed. When money is automatic, results become optional.

There is also an unspoken incentive problem. When schools are funded by property taxes, they become dependent on rising valuations and expanding tax bases. This ties education funding to real estate inflation, not educational excellence. It rewards bureaucracy, not outcomes. It entrenches systems rather than serving students.

And it ensures that leaving the system is costly. Homeschool families still pay. Private school families still pay. Those with no children still pay. The system is insulated from dissent by force of law.

That is not community. That is compulsion.

None of this is an argument against learning. It’s an argument against coercion. It’s an argument for responsibility returning to where Scripture and reason place it. With families, with parents, with voluntary associations that rise or fall based on trust and results.

As long as property taxes exist, ownership is provisional. Liberty is rented. And the state remains the silent partner in every home.

That should concern anyone who believes that what you build, buy, and steward under God should not be perpetually claimed by men who did not earn it and will never be satisfied.

The question is not whether education matters. It does. The question is whether we are willing to admit that a system which denies true ownership, violates consent, and overrides biblical responsibility is fundamentally unjust, no matter how noble the excuse.

Because when the state claims your land year after year, it is not educating children.

It is teaching you who really owns your home.