Property tax is just a tax on unrealized gains and I'm tired of pretending it's not. You buy a house for $300k. Years later, market goes up, assessor says it's worth $600k now. Boom—your tax bill jumps, even though you haven't sold a damn thing, pulled equity, or seen a dime of cash from that "gain." You're paying every year on paper wealth that only exists on Zillow or some county spreadsheet. We lose our minds when politicians float taxing unrealized stock gains for billionaires ("muh forced sales!"), but grandma gets hit with the same thing on her family home and we're supposed to call it "paying for schools and roads"? Nah. It's a wealth tax dressed up as a service fee, and it only feels fair because we've normalized it for centuries. Once the mortgage is paid off, you should OWN it outright—no annual ransom to the county just because your neighborhood got trendy. Abolish property taxes on primary residences. Tax consumption if you must, but stop pretending "ownership" means you rent from the government forever.