<story><title>Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)</title><url>https://theloop.ecpr.eu/why-northern-europe-is-so-indebted/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>robomartin</author><text>&amp;gt; 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling&lt;p&gt;I see your clarification.  Question:  In Norway, if you pay-off your mortgage, do you still owe annual taxes on your property?  If so, how much?  What happens if you don&amp;#x27;t pay property taxes?&lt;p&gt;One of the things that has always bothered me about home &amp;quot;ownership&amp;quot; is that, from my perspective, at least in the US, you never really own your home.  You can pay off your mortgage, of course.  However, if you stop paying property taxes you can lose your property in a forced sale.&lt;p&gt;That is not my definition of owning something.  If it can be taken away, you do not own it.  We have somehow been led to believe we can own property.  I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s the case.  If you own your property it should mean that you can live there with zero income and have nothing to pay anyone except for the things you want to pay for (power, gas, connectivity, whatever).&lt;p&gt;Someone might say:  We need taxes to pay for X.  Well, sure.  I get that.  We should get that money through other means, not through a system where people work their entire lives to pay off a mortgage only to discover they will have to keep paying to &amp;quot;own&amp;quot; that home for the rest of their lives.  Perhaps the distinction should be your residence vs. investment&amp;#x2F;rental property.  Not sure.  Haven&amp;#x27;t through it through much deeper than that.</text></item><item><author>cronin101</author><text>This is such a non-story, mainly driven by the fact that home ownership in Nordic countries is ubiquitous (80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling) combined with the high medium incomes resulting in those houses being quite expensive. I’d really recommend not trying to draw any deeper conclusions from this data.&lt;p&gt;Edit: by “own” I mean “have a non-paid off mortgage”, the tax on net wealth here actually disincentives paying off a mortgage early vs “leveling up” your debt&amp;#x2F;house.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kiba</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Someone might say: We need taxes to pay for X. Well, sure. I get that. We should get that money through other means, not through a system where people work their entire lives to pay off a mortgage only to discover they will have to keep paying to &amp;quot;own&amp;quot; that home for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the distinction should be your residence vs. investment&amp;#x2F;rental property. Not sure. Haven&amp;#x27;t through it through much deeper than that.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think we should tax land, but not buildings. Land shouldn&amp;#x27;t be horded and should be distributed to folks who are best to make use of it for societal&amp;#x27;s benefit.&lt;p&gt;The idea of building enough nest egg for retirement doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense to me, especially if we take the long term perspective. It only make sense because we age over time and thus get weaker and frail. If we were always healthy as a horse, then we would have periods in which we work for our living, but not permanent retirement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)</title><url>https://theloop.ecpr.eu/why-northern-europe-is-so-indebted/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>robomartin</author><text>&amp;gt; 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling&lt;p&gt;I see your clarification.  Question:  In Norway, if you pay-off your mortgage, do you still owe annual taxes on your property?  If so, how much?  What happens if you don&amp;#x27;t pay property taxes?&lt;p&gt;One of the things that has always bothered me about home &amp;quot;ownership&amp;quot; is that, from my perspective, at least in the US, you never really own your home.  You can pay off your mortgage, of course.  However, if you stop paying property taxes you can lose your property in a forced sale.&lt;p&gt;That is not my definition of owning something.  If it can be taken away, you do not own it.  We have somehow been led to believe we can own property.  I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s the case.  If you own your property it should mean that you can live there with zero income and have nothing to pay anyone except for the things you want to pay for (power, gas, connectivity, whatever).&lt;p&gt;Someone might say:  We need taxes to pay for X.  Well, sure.  I get that.  We should get that money through other means, not through a system where people work their entire lives to pay off a mortgage only to discover they will have to keep paying to &amp;quot;own&amp;quot; that home for the rest of their lives.  Perhaps the distinction should be your residence vs. investment&amp;#x2F;rental property.  Not sure.  Haven&amp;#x27;t through it through much deeper than that.</text></item><item><author>cronin101</author><text>This is such a non-story, mainly driven by the fact that home ownership in Nordic countries is ubiquitous (80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling) combined with the high medium incomes resulting in those houses being quite expensive. I’d really recommend not trying to draw any deeper conclusions from this data.&lt;p&gt;Edit: by “own” I mean “have a non-paid off mortgage”, the tax on net wealth here actually disincentives paying off a mortgage early vs “leveling up” your debt&amp;#x2F;house.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheCoelacanth</author><text>Property owners benefit more from local tax spending than anyone else. Why shouldn&amp;#x27;t they pay for it?&lt;p&gt;We already subsidize home ownership by quite a bit. We don&amp;#x27;t need to subsidize it more.</text></comment>