[HN Gopher] Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax
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Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax
Author : hiharryhere
Score : 221 points
Date : 2021-05-25 07:32 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smh.com.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smh.com.au)
| 3v1n0 wrote:
| The news isn't so new (https://www.lastampa.it/topnews/primo-
| piano/2021/03/12/news/...), but doesn't look something that will
| really end up well for those "barons" (no title is recognized in
| Italy - as should be everywhere).
|
| However if they want the rights, they're possible legible also of
| having to pay to the tenants for all the improvements they did so
| far, and very likely taxes on the property.
|
| So... Might end up a quite bad move.
| [deleted]
| riccardomc wrote:
| Italian sources[1] say that the right of the Auguet Barons is 30%
| of the sale price of a house in the oldest part of the village.
| This is very different from what the SMH article says.
|
| [1]https://www.iltempo.it/attualita/2021/03/12/news/nicola-
| zing...
| amelius wrote:
| Sounds like Apple's 30% feudal tax.
| gitanovic wrote:
| It also looks like a flaking attempt at a political party...
| refurb wrote:
| Mexican Ranchos are still recognized in California.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranchos_of_California
|
| There was a process for them to be "registered" after the US took
| over. And many were split up as the owners had little cash to pay
| for upkeep.
|
| But there are properties that derive from ranchos that carry on
| the rights. I recall on oceanside plot where beach access was not
| open to the public (contravening CA law) as it wasn't a
| requirement in Mexican law.
| ww520 wrote:
| Taxation without representation. Time to have tea in the next
| meeting.
| TomMckenny wrote:
| But if they called it 'rent' instead of 'tax' there would be far
| less outrage. Strange value system.
| blackdev1l wrote:
| and this belongs here because...?
| hiharryhere wrote:
| Yep as the others said. I posted it because it's interesting to
| me, evidently others thought the same.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Because the person who posted it thought someone else on Hacker
| News might be interested.
|
| That's pretty much the only reason one needs.
|
| I was interested enough to read the article and you were
| interested enough,albeit in a negative sense, to add your
| comment; so it seems they were right.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Believe it or not, HN threads are have been a great source of
| info on global subjects for me.
|
| Especially during the day when threads are not US centric
| truth_ wrote:
| I currently read everything published by Rest of World. It's
| a new website focusing on tech scenes of countries other than
| the US. The quality is very high.
|
| Highly recommend.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Thank you. Much appreciated.
|
| You know things are bad when your elderly mother is
| informing you about what's been going in the US...
| pmlnr wrote:
| Because someone posted it, and others voted on it.
| azernik wrote:
| Note the submission guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
| That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
| reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
| gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
| bbarnett wrote:
| I wonder why a 5 year dormant account would be reactivated to
| ask this question.
| avereveard wrote:
| What a boutade. Even if all fiefdom weren't canceled after the
| demonarchization process, Italy still has usucapione laws that
| are fairly short and to the point.
| qubex wrote:
| For the uninitiated, _usocapione_ is the legal process whereby
| those who are in possession of an item (in this case, land) can
| become legal owners over a period of time. Presumably the lack
| of enforcement over a very long time (60 years being mentioned
| in the article) implies that these feudal rights might not be
| enforceable anymore.
| rikroots wrote:
| A relatively common local tax in mediaeval England was a 'Scott'
| charge on property and/or land, used to fund some locally
| necessary common good. Because the charge was most often area-
| based, landowners/householders just outside of the charging area
| were said to get away 'Scott free' - a phrase still frequently
| encountered in UK English.
|
| For instance in the area where I grew up (Romney Marshes, Kent) a
| Scott tax used to be levied on local householders and landowners
| to help pay for the local sea defences (because: most of the
| Romney Marshes is below sea level). People living on land above
| sea level were exempt from the charge, thus 'Scott free'. The
| levy was paid in cash or thorn bushes; failure to pay led to an
| ear being nailed to the church door[1].
|
| And the tax is still - apparently - alive today ... according to
| a brief report in the UK's Law Society's Gazette[2].
|
| [1] - https://theromneymarsh.net/newhall
|
| [2] - https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/unearthing-
| history/68506.a...
| pmlnr wrote:
| In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a
| "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced
| to a rectory, so to protect ourselves from repair liability
| towards a chapel that has been here for centuries, we had to pay
| a one-off insurance.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability
|
| Leftover laws are weird things.
|
| EDIT: PS: sadly, the legendary, obligatory archery practice -
| http://www.lordsandladies.org/the-butts.htm SFW ; "butt" was the
| name of an archery range - was removed from the law in England:
| https://loweringthebar.net/2010/06/do-englishmen-still-have-...
| toyg wrote:
| Even without going archaic, I had to take insurance when I
| bought a terrace, because a lease existed on the land at some
| point but the owning company had dissolved years prior and no
| lease had been paid for a long time. This is very common in a
| country (UK) where the State has had strong continuity for
| several centuries, so land rights and entitlements can be
| tracked very far back.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| These things really are to extract money and commissions
| during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue
| at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds
| extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".
| toyg wrote:
| It was literally a one-off PS4 in 2006. I doubt it helped
| the solicitor in any way...
| ajdlinux wrote:
| Indeed if you have a fixed fee conveyancing deal (I'm not
| sure about the UK but it seems common over here) the
| solicitor is probably losing money just on the
| administration of filling out the paperwork and then
| billing you that 4 pounds...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Those indemnity policies are so common that any related
| admin work has to be included into fixed fee conveyancing
| deals.
|
| In fact I suspect that these policies are so common
| partly because of they save solicitors' time and efforts,
| not least when they are on a fixed fee: They don't spend
| time looking into things they just suggest indemnity
| policies so they are covered and move on.
| ajdlinux wrote:
| When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential
| damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's
| perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so
| low.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Sure. My point is that often the risk is not small, it's
| non-existent.
|
| When I bought my current house my solicitor suggested
| that the seller should pay for insurance cover for the
| fact that there was no planning paperwork for a small
| side extension. Of course I said OK and of course the
| seller also agreed. But that extension was even shown on
| the land registry plan and was obviously 20+ years old.
| Since planning breach action is limited to 4 years there
| was no chance of any problem. Free money for insurer,
| commissions, etc.
| gambiting wrote:
| So I've done the same when I bought my last
| house(conservatory built 20 years ago, seller couldn't
| produce the correct paperwork for it), but the issue
| wasn't the planning permissions per se, it was that the
| original builder of the house(Belway) hasn't given
| permission and they reserve the right to do so for 99
| years after construction(even though the house is a
| freehold now, the entire estate is still Belway's
| leasehold). So the insurance was against that as well.
|
| Like, are the chances of Belway complaining and landing
| us in legal trouble close to zero? Yes, they are, but
| like said above - it was PS50 and I got the seller to pay
| for it. When we sell the house I'll do the same just to
| avoid any bumps in the process because of it.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Hence why I wrote 'often'. There are obviously cases
| where there is a real, if small, risk.
|
| Another thing: You already say that you would be fine
| paying for the person you will buy the house in the
| future. However, many indemnity policies run in
| perpetuity so in principle will still apply and there
| will be no need to buy a new one.
| willyt wrote:
| Planning enforcement is 12 years from the date at which
| it became obvious that building works had been completed.
| So if you build a castle inside a agricultural shed and
| take the shed down after 12 years, the timer starts after
| you take down the shed. Also, there are many caveats and
| Planning law is complicated and often quite vague in
| Britain, so you should take advice on your specific
| situation.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's either 4 years or 10 years from completion depending
| on cases except if it was deliberately hidden [1].
|
| In my case, the development became immune after 4 years,
| that's the most common case (e.g. extensions,
| conservatories, fences, etc)
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ensuring-effective-
| enforcement
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Planning enforcement for domestic development in England
| is definitely 4 years, I agree with the parent comment.
|
| There was that one guy who covered his castle in hay
| bales for just over 4 years before revealing it and they
| took enforcement action successfully, but that's a bit
| different. I'm guessing that's why you said "became
| obvious that building works had been completed" but
| actually the rule is simply completion date but the
| courts decided that this guy was taking the piss so much
| that he still violated the intended meaning of the law.
| Your odd agricultural shed example may well fall foul of
| the same thing but I don't see what that has to do with
| the parent comment.
|
| It's 10 years (not 12) in some cases but they wouldn't
| concern most domestic developments.
|
| Any insurance of the type referred to by the parent
| comment is 100% definitely a swindle.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| How do you make sure that the possibility is actually
| non-existent?
|
| If it's only a small one-time payment, then it probably
| makes sense to pay someone that much just for doing the
| work to verify that it's not going to happen.
| darkarmani wrote:
| In the US there is adverse possession, so if someone openly
| claims the land (living, using, maintaining, etc) for many
| years (10-20?), they can end up owning the land.
|
| It helps settle minor arguments between property lines where
| fences existed for 50 years but the true line was not on the
| fence line.
| Accacin wrote:
| Yeah, in a town near the one I grew up in, there's a street
| called 'Butt Hole Lane'. That made me laugh a lot when I was
| younger, even when my parents explained to me what the 'Butt'
| in this context meant.
| peteretep wrote:
| Could have been worse...
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane
| michaelt wrote:
| Not if you brought the land since 2013: If the church hasn't
| registered the chancel repair liability in the land's title
| register, there's no liability. And very few churches
| registered, judging it a pretty big middle finger to your
| congregation.
|
| Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you
| PS50 for insurance against an impossibility...
| londons_explore wrote:
| > Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you
| PS50 for insurance against an impossibility...
|
| Charging money for insurance against an event that is
| impossible is, i believe, a criminal offence in the UK.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > The word Butt is derived from the Anglo French word 'bouter'
| meaning to expel.
|
| Wow. I suppose that's the same etymology for "butt" in the
| anatomological sense?
| bloak wrote:
| In the Oxford English Dictionary there are 19 separate
| entries for "butt" with various disparate senses, including a
| bundle of cloth, a headland, and a funnel-shaped wicker
| basket. Some of those entries have complex, multiple
| etymologies, but the word "buttock" is said to be derived
| from "butt, n.6" for which the etymology is given as: "Of
| uncertain origin."
|
| So there you are. Happy to be of no assistance whatsoever!
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Wiktionary says: Pprobably from Old English buttuc ("end; end
| piece"; also, "short piece of land").
|
| I wonder how "to expel" ends up being "a short piece of
| land"...
| jmkb wrote:
| My favorite piece-of-land word is "gore," which is either a
| triangular parcel formed where roads intersect at an acute
| angle, or a narrow strip of land (usually also an acute
| triangle) of uncertain ownership resulting from inaccurate
| surveying. It's derived from the Old English word for
| spear, which also came to mean stab, and a stab wound, and
| eventually blood-n-guts in general.
| acheron wrote:
| Yep. Old English word for spear was "gar". One vegetable
| was related to the leek, but they described the clove as
| spear-shaped: the gar-leek.
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/garlic
| jmkb wrote:
| Hah. I assume the English were looking at the budding
| shoot (aka "garlic scape" [0]) when they named it,
| whereas the Germans were looking at the knobby root
| (Knoblauch = knob leek).
|
| [0] https://ediblejersey.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/ga
| rlic-sc...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| People in this thread might be interested in the History
| of English Podcast. I highly recommend it if you're
| interested in etymology and/or history:
| https://historyofenglishpodcast.com
| mellavora wrote:
| And interestingly enough, the Swedish word for the fish
| which is called "pike" in English is "gar".
|
| Lots of Nordic words in old English.
| bivargen wrote:
| No, it's not, the fish is called "gadda". The swedish
| cognate to gar would be ger, which has the same meaning
| of acute angle/point.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Also interesting is we (US, at least) have a fish called
| a 'gar' that looks similar to a pike, but isn't
| technically. Pike are family Esocidae and gar are family
| Lepisosteidae.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| Been wondering lately how the word "fast" means "moving
| quickly" and also "not moving at all" (as in "hold fast"
| and also the root of "fasten").
|
| (Also: "refrain from eating".)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Per the venerable etymonline.com:
|
| > The meaning "quickly, swiftly, rapidly" was perhaps in
| Old English, certainly by c. 1200, probably from or
| developed under influence of Old Norse fast "firmly,
| fast." This sense developed, apparently in Scandinavian,
| from that of "firmly, strongly, vigorously" (to run hard
| means the same as to run fast; also compare fast asleep,
| also compare Old Norse drekka fast "to drink hard," telja
| fast "to give (someone) a severe lesson"). Or perhaps
| from the notion of a runner who "sticks" close to
| whatever he is chasing (compare Old Danish fast "much,
| swiftly, at once, near to, almost," and sense evolution
| of German fix "fast, fixed; fast, quick, nimble," from
| Latin fixus). The expression fast by "near, close,
| beside" also is said to be from Scandinavian. To fast
| talk someone (v.) is recorded by 1946.
|
| > "act of fasting," late Old English faesten "voluntary
| abstinence from food and drink or from certain kinds of
| food," especially, but not necessarily, as a religious
| duty; either from the verb in Old English or from Old
| Norse fasta "a fast, fasting, season for fasting," from a
| Proto-Germanic noun formed from the verbal root of fast
| (v.). In earlier Old English faesten meant "fortress,
| cloister, enclosure, prison."
| sneak wrote:
| > _Leftover laws are weird things._
|
| Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are
| unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote
| for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income
| tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in
| the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income
| tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is
| subject to it did not have any input into it: they were simply
| born into it, unrepresented, just as these Italians were.
|
| There is a strong argument for all laws having an expiration
| date a few years past the expected lifespan of the youngest
| constituent of the represented population that passed it,
| otherwise we end up ruled primarily by those long dead,
| entirely unknown to us, as the laws pile up, amended in
| perpetuity but never aging out.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Income tax in the USA was meant to be a temporary measure to
| support a war effort.
|
| There are similar stories in other countries.
|
| There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government
| plan.
| bm1362 wrote:
| In modern monetary policy, income tax is used as a
| deflationary measure and our government is funded by the
| fed.
| yonaguska wrote:
| I hope that no one is making this same comment about masks
| and social distancing in 20 years.
| brewdad wrote:
| Masks suck but I enjoy having a bit of my personal space
| back.
| drdec wrote:
| Unfortunately they have a way of making war last forever as
| well.
| bluGill wrote:
| No it wasn't. Those for it said that, but it is clear from
| their efforts of the many decades prior that they wanted it
| to continue forever.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who
| could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left
| without recourse.
| reedjosh wrote:
| I do not believe this true. War over the past 20 years has
| been overwhelmingly unpopular. Have we in the US been able
| to stop that?
|
| What then also of the minority that lives under these laws?
| I never once consented to them, and yet must submit to the
| majority.
| mullen wrote:
| > What then also of the minority that lives under these
| laws? I never once consented to them, and yet must submit
| to the majority.
|
| And you receive their benefit too. You might not like
| paying taxes but you receive the benefit of paying taxes,
| that is why you are forced to pay taxes like everyone
| else. Some people get more benefit than others but we all
| get something from paying taxes. If you don't like paying
| taxes, then you are free to move to a place where there
| are no taxes and no benefit from them. I recommend
| Somalia, I heard it's lovely this time of year.
| sneak wrote:
| > _If you don 't like paying taxes, then you are free to
| move to a place where there are no taxes and no benefit
| from them._
|
| That is false for US citizens; the US taxes you on your
| worldwide income, even if you don't live or work in the
| US.
| darkarmani wrote:
| Once you are no longer a US citizen, you are in the
| clear.
| reedjosh wrote:
| And what of the wars?
| munk-a wrote:
| The US has a severe representation issue. Other folks
| have spoken well about the advantages of proportional
| representation vs. FPTP but if you're looking for
| something to blame for an effective lack of
| representation I'd look there first.
|
| Honestly, if the US election before this previous one
| didn't have primaries and was an open field race there is
| almost no chance the former president would have been
| elected - and if the government was run on a
| parliamentary system even if his party had won there's no
| chance they would've brought him in as PM.
|
| I am a one issue voter and my issue is proportional
| representation.
| reedjosh wrote:
| I like CGP Grey on this issue.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
|
| I completely agree as far as voting methods are concerned
| and do think it would be a better system, but I still
| don't like giving a group of people rights to commit acts
| considered immoral when done by an individual.
| munk-a wrote:
| I wanted to first address the question of being
| overridden. When you enter into any sort of relationship
| - dating, marriage, inhabiting a city, living in a
| country - you are agreeing to compromises to grease the
| wheels of society. Some people are always going to lose
| sometime - ideally those aren't always the same people
| and nobody loses an excessively burdensome amount but...
| If you live in a city of three million you probably
| fervently disagree with a few hundred thousand of the
| other residents on some issues you consider particularly
| important.
|
| On the topic of actions considered immoral (or I'll start
| with illegal) when done by an individual - war actually
| only fits into this category in some countries, in a lot
| of areas murder in self-defense is legal and if 100
| ninjas tried to murder you and it was clearly a case of
| self defense where all other actions were barred your
| actions might be legal in the US - they would probably be
| universally recognized as moral by everyone except the
| most staunch utilitarians which I assume would respond:
| "Dude - take the trolley in the face, duh - even if they
| started it it's 100 vs 1 lives lost".
|
| That all said, war is frequently not a case of self-
| defense and is often abused for silly things like
| resource acquisition and prestige. Better representation
| allows us to severely punish governments that either look
| like they're going to go against the societal will or
| remove them after the fact - buuut there will be times
| when a country goes into unpopular wars justly due to
| either domestic misinformation or classification of
| information creating a different breadth of knowledge
| between law makers and the populace - with the former
| seeming more likely and the latter being pretty
| repulsive. And the freedom to act in response to
| aggression is one we need to keep separated from the slow
| response time of something like a pure democracy. This
| was actually the case in Athens where Strategos were free
| to act during their term (assuming an agreement between
| the then Strategoi) and were only subject to removal
| during regularly scheduled sessions.
|
| I am strongly against war myself but I would be pretty
| happy with the US entering and occupying posts in
| civilian areas on both sides of the israeli/palestinian
| border to dissuade both parties from continuing attacks -
| I'm similarly okay with cypric occupation since that
| situation seems similarly unresolvable. War is pretty
| complicated but I don't think it's all that distinct from
| other issues a nation needs to deal with, poor
| representation leads to actions that go against the
| public will.
| sneak wrote:
| It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong
| bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm
| not sure the current approach is long-term viable.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.
|
| Can anyone of the downvoters say a few words? To me this
| seems both obvious and non-partisan. What we're doing is
| accruing ever more laws, creating a centuries-old legal
| code base without ever removing technical debt. This
| seems unwise.
| munk-a wrote:
| (I wasn't a downvoter but sure)
|
| Law isn't a simple practice due to the breadth of
| subjects it covers - but it is very simplified by the
| human factor. When laws are enforced they are done so
| after advocacy from a pair of humans and by the judgement
| of a human for penalty and possibly guilt (in some cases
| guilt is determined by a pool of jurors).
|
| This means it's very different from programming where we
| have a dumb machine that is, at it's best ability, able
| to look at two numbers and tell you which one is bigger.
| When it comes to software edge cases must be explicit and
| factors must be encodable - violations must be
| recognizable by an algorithm and all cases must be
| covered. Compare that to the law where generally there
| are a set of guidelines that have slowly evolved over
| time to cover more and more edge cases - but viewing any
| law ever written as completely true to the letter would
| be a mistake - there will always be carve outs and
| reasonable judgement entering the picture.
|
| I think the main problem with criticizing the creation of
| more laws is that we don't currently have laws to cover
| every situation and it's unreasonable to think we ever
| will - it'd be nice to get rid of some of the stupid ones
| but I strongly suspect you'll see this town in Italy end
| up being freed from any obligations since this hereditary
| claim is pretty bonkers.
|
| Lastly I might point at countries with a long continuous
| legal history like England which hasn't changed
| governments violently or due to outside influence in a
| loooong time. There are a lot of really crazy real estate
| claims there, sure - but for the day to day stuff, the
| laws work. The cost of training lawyers might slowly be
| creeping up[1] but we aren't anywhere near a critical
| point of being unable to apply laws. I suspect that point
| will never be reached and we'll just see more and more
| specialty in legal professions - instead of an advocate
| in 1820 you can now hire a lawyer specialized in
| watershed rights. I expect that trend to continue with
| specialties deepening and growing further apart just like
| we've seen with development. You couldn't hire an "ops"
| guy in the 70's - everyone was expected to be well versed
| in operating system configuration, interaction and most
| were probably expected to be familiar with design.
|
| So, I don't think this is actually an issue at quite the
| level you mentioned - but I do think it's one of these
| slowly creeping growth factors that makes us more
| vulnerable to societal system collapse.
|
| 1. I'd guess really slowly though since even in the US
| where precedent is a factor most relevant case rulings
| are probably from before 1870.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _This means it 's very different from programming where
| we have a dumb machine that is, at it's best ability,
| able to look at two numbers and tell you which one is
| bigger._
|
| And even that can get wonky. Do a search for "What Every
| Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point
| Arithmetic" by David Goldberg.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating-
| point_error_mitigatio...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_epsilon
| _jal wrote:
| > I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.
|
| If your long-term is long enough, you're guaranteed to be
| correct...
|
| Putting that aside, even if you think your 'big change'
| is right and prudent and will Make Things Better, other
| people have their own plans. Now, unless you get rid of
| popular representation, you have legal hysteresis, and
| everyone's planning horizon lasts until the Next Big
| Change. Suddenly nobody's building nothing.
|
| So you're left with a mess or an authoritarian
| government. Resistance to wild swings is _actual_
| conservatism at work, and is a very good thing.
| yunohn wrote:
| > elected officials have an extremely strong bias to
| adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back
|
| I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics
| works in modern democracies.
|
| Taxes are a great example, because almost every country
| will increase it, but never decrease it. They'll think of
| a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove
| outdated ones.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Very true: my personal solution is to shop for better
| countries. There's no way to meaningfully influence the
| government's overreach. Hopefully this will become a
| trend and the cheapest countries will attract better
| talent.
| reedjosh wrote:
| UN, WHO, WEF, WTO, and more... Where will you shop to as
| these unelected organizations gradually ascend?
| munk-a wrote:
| > Hopefully this will become a trend and the cheapest
| countries will attract better talent.
|
| Hrm, I disagree. I think the most beneficial countries
| will attract better talent. Having a low tax bill doesn't
| mean much if I need to pay for things privately.
|
| I also personally emigrated from the US owing to the fact
| that healthcare there is immoral and it felt like (about
| a decade ago when I left) the country was on the path to
| major unrest. I've been quite happy up here in Canada
| where I pay more taxes but get to work with people who
| aren't burdened down by the stress of untreated health
| issues.
| ateng wrote:
| Not necessarily. 50s / 60s US income tax is much, much
| higher than current rate. I just think the cycle of going
| up and down is extremely long.
|
| https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marg
| ina...
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| This is where supportability comes into play: a short
| time after the was people understood the need for such
| measure, today you would have a revolution for such a tax
| level. In 20 years it will come back, no worries, people
| will love it.
| nly wrote:
| The top rates were much higher but few people actually
| paid those high rates due to loopholes.
|
| These days people are paying more in real terms in
| aggregate.
| ateng wrote:
| I'm not sure about that either --- there were no tax
| havens back then. It's so much easier since 80s to work
| around the tax system with off shore companies (granted
| it is getting harder for the past decade)
|
| Or was I unaware the widespread loophole back in the old
| days?
| nly wrote:
| Not so much a loophole, but back in the 50s all kinds of
| income were treated the same which meant you could write
| off your income against your investment losses.
|
| I think it's naive to assume that rich Americans back
| then weren't working the system. If it was so great, why
| do we tax different kinds of income differently now?
| munk-a wrote:
| I have always believed that the majority of the
| complexity in the tax code is derived from lobbying by
| special interests to lower taxes on their specific sort
| of income.
|
| Lately though it seems like tax filing companies have
| been the ones primarily responsible for sustaining the
| complexity of the tax code - though whenever someone's
| particular benefit comes up that group tends to get
| pretty vocal (i.e. exemptions for SALT taxes and home
| owner/child credits)
| intrasight wrote:
| Who else sees a software dev analogy here. Perhaps we
| need a law that says every 10 years we have a "sprint" to
| address the "technical dept" of anachronistic laws.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| There's also no-one now alive who voted for women's suffrage,
| or the banning of the international slave trade, or the right
| to bear arms.
| reedjosh wrote:
| Non-aggression and property rights are the only laws that
| truly matter. Natural rights stem from these principals.
|
| > women's suffrage
|
| If a government doesn't have a monopoly of force, nobody
| needs to vote or even acknowledge the government.
|
| > banning of the international slave trade
|
| Your body is your possession. Slavery violates that and the
| non-aggression principle.
|
| > the right to bear arms
|
| Who grants this right? The government doesn't have the
| right to take any property. It does so via aggression and
| violates natural rights.
| kristjansson wrote:
| > If a government doesn't have a monopoly of force,
| nobody needs to vote or even acknowledge the government.
|
| Meaning disputes with a government are settled (resisted)
| by ... force and violence?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Non-aggression and property rights are the only laws
| that truly matter
|
| That's certainly an assertion, but not one that I accept.
| [deleted]
| barrkel wrote:
| Your "strong argument" is in direct opposition to the
| fundamental principle of common law: precedent.
| aclelland wrote:
| Yeah there are a lot of very obscure legal rules that most
| people aren't aware of or haven't been enforced in many years.
|
| Not from as far back but my house was built in the early 1980's
| and my house deeds include the stipulation that I must maintain
| a garage attached to the property (so I can't convert it to
| extra living space) because the local government retain the
| right to convert the space into a decontamination shelter in
| the event of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Had a good
| chuckle with my lawyer regarding it, don't think I'll be too
| concerned about where to keep my lawn mower if the city has
| been nuked.
| folli wrote:
| In Switzerland, the rule that every house must be constructed
| with an appropriate fallout shelter has only been relaxed 10
| years ago.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-
| idUSTRE7B01R...
| andreareina wrote:
| Singapore still has mandatory bomb shelters.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Years ago, I was doing some C++ training for Texas
| Instruments in Bedford, England. I remarked to the woman
| running the course how brutalistically ugly their building
| was. She said it was to prevent damage from earthquakes.
| Bedford is not exactly famous for these events, and she
| explained that TI simply had one (possibly quake proof)
| building designed, and then built the same one all over the
| world. She may have been pulling my leg, of course.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Interesting. I live near the TI HQ in Dallas, so I
| thought I'd take a peek. The Bedford location apparently
| still exists as "Bedford Heights," and it does look like
| a mini TI. The Bedford Heights website does call out the
| "cyclone-proof roof," which they imported directly from
| the Dallas HQ blueprints.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Ah, thinking back (it was a loooong time ago, and I was
| only on-site for five days) I think she may have
| mentioned typhoons.
|
| The thing that really struck me at the time was not so
| much the building, but the security. There were card-
| access only doors every few yards, and they wouldn't give
| me even a visitor card - I had to be escorted to the lav
| and canteen all the time, which was irritating for all
| concerned. God knows what they were up to in there -
| summoning dread Cthulhu?
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Back then it was a FAB - does seem excessive I have had a
| couple of interviews (both avowed jobs) like that.
|
| Huntings wouldn't even let me in the main building and
| Hanslope Park I was escorted (its much nicer than its
| description in the laundry files)
| zabzonk wrote:
| Yay, Laundry Files! If you are an IT nerd into Lovecraft,
| you owe it to yourself to read them.
|
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Laundry_Files
| vidarh wrote:
| I did a two week contract for a defense research
| institute once where a senior staff developer had to
| babysit me like that. He was nice about it, but it must
| have been really annoying. It was simply easier for them
| than going through the bureaucracy of getting me a
| visitor pass for a contract that short.
| pradn wrote:
| The wild thing is we still have thousands of nuclear weapons,
| and the number of nuclear-armed states has grown since then.
| We just perceive a lower risk now-a-days, which I hope holds
| up.
| iso1631 wrote:
| We're more aware that in a situation where a local council
| has to take over your garage for decontanimation
|
| 1) You wouldn't have a local council
|
| 2) You wouldn't have a garage
| ipaddr wrote:
| The number of overall weapons has decreased by thousands.
| The coldwar is over so the risk nuclear war is lower.
|
| More nations have weapons but the numbers weapons they have
| is very low and the ability to hit the US doesn't exist for
| the rogue nations.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| I find these property rights that go back centuries a bit
| dubious. How was the property obtained in the first place? There
| were no modern laws at the time and common people had much fewer
| rights and protections. If the property was not obtained through
| outright violence, it was obtained in an environment that very
| much discriminated against common people, and God knows how much
| fraud and deception occurred. It actually happened in my hometown
| a couple of years ago that some people produced a document from
| the 1500s entitling them to a huge expanse of land. Now at the
| time the land was conquered through war, and then that empire
| collapsed and another occupying empire took its place and that
| one also collapsed, and yet another foreign people came and went
| before independence was finally declared. The people who actually
| lived on this land were always the same people. But somehow they
| don't have the right to the property that they lived on for
| almost a millennium, because a bunch of foreigners stole it
| through violence a few centuries ago and then handed what wasn't
| theirs to other foreigners. And now these foreigners think they
| have a claim to this land because their great ancestor murdered
| thousands of local people and took it for himself. The whole
| thing is ridiculous.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| At risk of throwing a sub thread of chaos, this was what I
| found interesting in these comments.
|
| Specifically regarding the current Sheikh Jarrah conflict. Who
| actually 'owns' the land, and what does that mean? It seems
| like it completely depends on what time frame you look at and
| what claims the winner of war has or can enforce with force.
|
| In the US, what about the Native Nations and the canceling or
| flat out ignoring of past legal documents. or the land given to
| former slaves later taken away.
|
| Personally I lean towards your opinions. if the ruling power
| won't act humanely then reparations/compensation seems like the
| 2nd best option.
| lainga wrote:
| Out of interest, was it the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks
| (who were later replaced by the Brits or French)?
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah, but capitalism isn't exactly fair either, with wealth
| ending up at a small percentage of people who clearly didn't
| work as much or took as much risk as all the other people
| combined. So if you go with that argument, then a much bigger
| reform should happen, not just the annihilation of these taxes.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Parent doesn't question just taxes, they question _property
| rights_ aka ownership. That _is_ the much bigger reform you
| talk about.
| amelius wrote:
| Well, they said:
|
| > I find these property rights that go back centuries a bit
| dubious
|
| So not all property rights.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Now wondering which European countries still have intact feudal
| law. Scotland abolished feudal tenure in 2000:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc... ;
| most of the feu burdens were abolished or explicitly ported
| across. England&Wales still retains the feudal system in places
| and occasionally people are hit by "chancel repair liability" or
| somesuch.
|
| The chivalric court still exists:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_Chivalry "prior to
| [1954], the Court had not sat for two centuries and before
| hearing the case, the Court first had to rule whether it still
| existed"
|
| As does the last relic of real feudal power: the House of Lords,
| the last of Europe's unelected legislatures outside a microstate.
|
| Conversely there are a few recipients of ancient national debt:
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-bond-still-pays-inter...
| microtherion wrote:
| One curious case is Church Taxes in Switzerland, where the
| state collects taxes on behalf of three traditional Christian
| denominations. For individuals, this is often no big deal; if
| you don't want to pay, you just write a letter declaring you
| want to leave the church.
|
| However, in most Swiss cantons, legal entities are also subject
| to church taxes, and get to pick neither the denomination to
| whom they pay, nor do they get to leave the church. It was
| explained to me that this was a compensation deal worked out
| when the state expropriated the monasteries in Switzerland in
| the 19th century.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| There are some vestiges of "udal" land law that are still valid
| in the Shetland and Orkney Islands. This comes down from Norse
| law (the Norse controlled those islands for long periods of
| time). A major difference is that under the law in the rest of
| the UK a coastal landowner only owns the land down to the high
| tide line, while under udal law the landowner owns the land
| down to the _low_ tide line. This obviously has implications
| for docks, pipelines, cables, etc.
|
| Also, in some of the Channel Islands, Queen Elizabeth isn't
| technically the Queen, but rather the Duke of Normandy (despite
| being female, she's called the "Duke", or "The Queen, our
| Duke").
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Also, while swans are the property of the Crown in most of
| the United Kingdom, they are the property of the people in
| the Orkney Islands according to Udal Law [0]:
|
| > _Today, the Queen still has ownership of all swans in the
| UK except in one small corner of the British Isles - the
| Orkney Isles._
|
| > _Under Udal Law, the ancient Norse system of inheritance
| and law, which the Viking settlers brought to Orkney, the
| swan is the property of the people, rather than the Crown._
|
| > _The case was proven in 1910 by a Kirkwall lawyer who,
| accompanied by his friend, the Procurator-Fiscal, went out to
| Harray Loch and shot a swan. The case went to the High Court
| and the Crown lost._
|
| [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160725172726/http://www.sco
| tsm...
| seiferteric wrote:
| > For a further two years, the superior had the option of
| claiming compensation; this was fixed at a single payment of a
| size that, when invested at an annual rate of 2.5%, it would
| yield interest equal to the former feu duty. Because inflation
| had eroded the value of duties, which had been fixed many years
| before, this payment was in most cases extremely small compared
| with the current value of the land.
|
| This is interesting in that it isn't really "abolishing"
| payments in so much as you are required to establish an
| endowment so to speak. Really it is inflation (enabled by fiat)
| that allowed one to escape this duty it seems...
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I suspect that none of the European countries to the eastern
| side of the Iron Curtain retained feudal law, or much of the
| "legacy" law in general. That, I guess, is one of the few
| potential upsides of any revolution: an opportunity arises to
| just throw away _a lot_ of pre-existing arrangements and re-
| draw them anew in (hopefully) more sensible way. Of course, the
| quality of the new design and /or its implementation is not
| guaranteed, results may vary.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That's exactly what happened in France. Napoleon (and the
| Republic before him) had the law rewritten [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code
| toyg wrote:
| Big Rewrite, everyone!
| oblio wrote:
| And the rewrite process might include beheading, hanging or
| shooting some of the old API endpoints.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| As is usual: it's not like the Inclosure Acts were met with
| unbridled enthusiasm from the rural folk. On the contrary,
| there were revolts and subsequent hanging of the unruly
| peasants.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I suspect that none of the European countries to the
| eastern side of the Iron Curtain retained feudal law, or much
| of the "legacy" law in general.
|
| Rather make that "no country other than the US and
| UK+Commonwealth countries". These two countries are probably
| the only ones in the world that haven't suffered any kind of
| comprehensive revolution in the last 100 years, and it shows.
|
| Not just in the absurd amount of precedence cases or the
| existence of "case law" in general, but also in issues that
| directly impact the functioning of democracy (i.e. US voting
| being on Tuesdays because back 200 years ago Sunday was for
| church visits, Monday for traveling on horseback to the
| voting booth and Wednesday back home - made sense back then,
| nowadays it serves as a _very_ effective tool to
| disenfranchise poor people from voting) or threaten the
| foundations of the existence of life (hundreds years old
| water claims that nowhere near closely reflect the actual
| cost of the water, leading to farmers and Nestle running
| unsustainable operations just "because they're allowed"
| without thinking if what they're doing can permanently
| destroy aquifers).
|
| Every other country has had all that historical baggage
| unceremoniously dropped.
| bonzini wrote:
| Large parts of the Italian civil and penal code date back
| to the Statuto Albertino and to Roman civil law, just like
| there are principles in common between UK and US common
| law.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| A lot of countries in Western Europe haven't had a
| revolution since the early 19th century. Yes, many of them
| were briefly occupied by the Nazis, but after liberation
| the pre-war constitution was reinstated.
|
| For instance, the Dutch still claim that their Constitution
| dates from 1815 (though it has been substantially rewritten
| several times, most recently in 1983).
|
| The reason why courts in the Anglosphere rely so much on
| precedent and case law while those in Continental Europe
| and its former colonies don't isn't a lack of revolutions
| (except insofar as Napoleon would have replaced common law
| with the Code Napoleon had he made it across the Channel).
| It's that legal codes developed differently in England and
| in the rest of Europe in the medieval period.
| sologoub wrote:
| You do realize revolutions usually involve killing people
| and all kinds of other violence? The price for
| "unceremoniously dropping" what you consider historical
| baggage are real lives and livelihoods of not just those
| you deem undesirable or unfair, but more often than not
| regular folks caught in the middle.
|
| If you want these laws changed then vote, run for office,
| work on a movement. Channel that energy productively
| instead of destructively.
|
| Change is possible peacefully, but of course a "revolution"
| sounds way cooler.
| djrogers wrote:
| > nowadays it serves as a very effective tool to
| disenfranchise poor people from voting
|
| Which is one reason that your entire premise is largely
| false today. Early voting and mail-in voting is a thing
| pretty much everywhere now, going on the _last day of
| voting_ to vote in person is an option, but not required.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| It's a surprisingly hard question to answer. "feudal" is a
| historiographic term which was first coined in the late 18th
| century. It saw various interpretations over the course of the
| 19th and 20th century through various historical schools.
| Another term, at least for mainland Europe, would be "Ancien
| Regime" which denotes the political and socio-economic system
| before the French Revolution.
|
| As for legal traditions, you're looking at concepts such as
| customs (coutumes) and seigneurial rights (banalites or bans)
| which varied from region to region. The former were normative
| and mostly local. From the 12th century onwards, Civil Law
| based on Roman Law started to coalesce. The major driver was
| monarchs gradually succeeding in centralizing and consolidating
| their power throughout Europe. Through violence (wars, subduing
| insurrections,...) and through gradual establishing a powerful
| administrations (typical example: the Dukes of Burgundy).
|
| The French Revolution swept all of that away. The period
| between 1789 and 1830 saw a fracturing of European nobility and
| their power, and subsequent consolidation into nation states
| based on constitutional powers.
|
| Put in a different way, if you were born in 1760 and lived to
| 1840 (80 years), you'd experience a "societal collapse" (to
| describe with a hyperbole) in which any and all "old" ways that
| governed life were overthrown and replaced by an entirely new
| way of organizing society.
| salemh wrote:
| >Put in a different way, if you were born in 1760 and lived
| to 1840 (80 years), you'd experience a "societal collapse"
| (to describe with a hyperbole) in which any and all "old"
| ways that governed life were overthrown and replaced by an
| entirely new way of organizing society. This is not
| hyperbole, Napoleon promptly took over France as Emperor due
| to the power vacuum and plunged the entirety of Europe into
| what is now termed "total war." Millions and millions and
| millions dead, and not everyone wanted a "Republic" or
| "freedom" driven at the point of the sword from the French.
|
| There are millions dead in between the "ideals" of the
| Revolution and the later Republics you skipped over.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars
|
| >Historians have explored how the Napoleonic wars became
| total wars. Most historians argue that the escalation in size
| and scope came from two sources. First was the ideological
| clash between revolutionary/egalitarian and
| conservative/hierarchical belief systems. Second was the
| emergence of nationalism in France, Germany, Spain, and
| elsewhere that made these "people's wars" instead of contests
| between monarchs.[138] Bell has argued that even more
| important than ideology and nationalism were the intellectual
| transformations in the culture of war that came about through
| the Enlightenment.[139] One factor, he says, is that war was
| no longer a routine event but a transforming experience for
| societies--a total experience.
| ajdlinux wrote:
| Here's a fun English type of real property right that has taken
| some people by surprise in recent years:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability
| notorandit wrote:
| No way. The owner of the land is inscribed in the cadastral
| books. If he's from Swiss, then he can collect the money. But
| also pay the overdue land taxes. If he is not ...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| When my brother bought his house (UK, built in the early 2000s),
| we had to buy insurance against the local church needing a new
| roof. The residents of the area were responsible for local church
| upkepe because of a medieval edict. It was only about PS40
| luckily...
| sonthonax wrote:
| That insurance is still a tax, but a really old fashioned one,
| where private tax farmers collect and administer the treasury
| rather than the state.
|
| That PS40 must actually cover the costs of the local church's
| roof.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Agreed. I'm always impressed by the stickability of these
| things. No one has said "this is bs, fix your own roof, it's
| not 1400 anymore".
| mring33621 wrote:
| ...Draws sword
| znpy wrote:
| funnily enough, this hasn't come up on italian newspapers.
|
| I checked the Corriere (corriere.it), Repubblica (repubblica.it)
| and il fatto quotidiano (ilfattoquotidiano.it) since they're
| three different voices with vastly different opinions on what to
| report and what not to report.
|
| interesting.
| RNiK wrote:
| Check better => https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275016
| => https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275025
| azernik wrote:
| Note that in a common law system, this would be thrown out of
| court under either "acquiescence" (if you don't raise a fuss for
| a very long time when someone unknowingly infringes your rights,
| you can lose those rights), or "laches" (if you wait long enough
| to make a legal claim that the defendant is injured by e.g.
| having made economic decisions in ignorance of that claim).
|
| Not sure about the equivalent Italian law, but I would be deeply
| surprised if there isn't something similar.
| mncharity wrote:
| IIRC, MIT periodically locks each generally-unlocked through-
| corridor exterior door, lest a public right of way become
| established.
| riccardomc wrote:
| The Roman law equivalent is Usucapione, still applicable in
| Italy:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption
| supergirl wrote:
| the residents now complain that the feudal law is old and
| should be abolished. it would be funny if they win the case
| using a Roman law
| garmaine wrote:
| It's not a law so much as a governing principle.
| oblio wrote:
| Not only in Italy. I remember studying law for one semester
| at the University and our professor mentioned that this was
| still applicable in Romania, circa 2005.
| carlob wrote:
| > Not sure about the equivalent Italian law, but I would be
| deeply surprised if there isn't something similar.
|
| It's actually in the constitution: hereditary titles are no
| longer recognized.
| azernik wrote:
| That's a more specific thing regarding hereditary titles.
| Acquiescence in the common law applies to _any_ right. Could
| be water rights, grazing rights, certain intellectual
| property rights (though those are generally registered in a
| way that infringing on them legally "unknowing" is hard), &c
|
| If I have grazing rights on land that someone else owns, but
| don't actually graze there for decades and a new owner
| doesn't know about those rights, I can't then come back mad
| that his new fence infringes on the right that I've never
| asserted and he's not aware of.
| carlob wrote:
| In Italy we have something like that, that should translate
| to usucaption[0] or acquisitive prescription. The term for
| real estate is 20 years, for other types of property it is
| shorter.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption
| azernik wrote:
| Whereas in the common law, it being the f** common law,
| there's no fixed term and it's just "what does the judge
| think is in line with similar past cases".
| 3v1n0 wrote:
| That's even better concept, although that's related to the
| title but not sure if applies to properties.
| williesleg wrote:
| "I DECLARE....BANKRUPTCY!!!!" - Michael Scott
|
| Seems you should be able to take the land back with a declaration
| just like they took the land before. Someone took it originally.
| brokencode wrote:
| This sounds like a perfect way to destroy your family's
| reputation. I can't imagine the thought process and sense of
| entitlement that leads you to try to become a feudal lord in the
| 21st century, but I know that I could never get along with
| somebody like that.
| kuroguro wrote:
| Reminds me of the old obscure UK laws that make it illegal to
| carry a plank on the pavement or "play annoying games" (lol).
|
| https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities...
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I wonder what obligations the Swiss lords have been neglecting.
| Perhaps the townsfolk could bill for absent services?
|
| They are not peasants, as such things likely don't exist in
| modern Italy. So how can they owe anything?
|
| The Swiss baron's descendants - are they still barons? Can they
| still hold a fief?
|
| Perhaps the Swiss baron's lord can be convinced to levy a similar
| tax on them, and return the money to the town.
|
| It's very interesting.
| rnhmjoj wrote:
| From a quick search, it seems this "tax" is part of an ancient
| (roman law) land contract called Emphyteusis[1] that's still
| recognized as a valid by the italian civil codex, despite not
| being in common use. I don't think it has anything to do with
| special nobiliar priviledges: it's just that these barons claim
| to own land and the relative rights under this contract.
|
| Apparently, the land owner has no obligations, but the lease-
| holder instead is bound to pay an annual canon and "improve the
| land", whatever that means, perpetually.
|
| [1]: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfiteusi
| darkarmani wrote:
| Maybe trial by combat?
| tomcooks wrote:
| You don't have to serve a lord nor be a peasant, you pay for
| the use of "their" land.
|
| This happens in many other places in Italy. One example that
| comes to mind is a part of the money collected from fishing
| permits on Lake Maggiore (tragically famous lately for the
| Stress cabin disaster) going to the pockets of an aristocratic
| family who "owns" the lake and the fishing rights.
|
| Disgusting to say the least, but that's law.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Why do you assume taxes are a payment for services? In most
| cases there is no written contract with rights and obligations
| of each party and there is no implied right or obligation of
| any sort.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| No, not at all. But being a Baron over somebody may have
| obligations? If they were not rendered (it was all neglected
| for 60 years) perhaps something could be negotiated based on
| that. E.g. the baron provides protection - that certainly
| wasn't happening.
|
| And I do note that there's obligation to the Baron's lord.
| Doing an appeal there is another route.
| jandrese wrote:
| Presumably the family would be on the hook for raising a
| militia and commanding it when a neighboring city invaded.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Or the population rebelled.
|
| Unfortunately, they did, now cometh with your militia and
| collect your taxes.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Why do you assume taxes are a payment for services?"
|
| Because the only alternative in this case is the outright
| theft.
|
| >"there is no implied right or obligation of any sort."
|
| Sorry but there is implied obligation. I totally expect to
| get some services in return for money taken from me and I
| suspect I am not alone. For experiment try sending part of
| government that does actual services for constituents for a
| year long vacation and see what happens.
| dantheman wrote:
| Taxes are theft.
| w0de0 wrote:
| Give to Caeser what is the Caesar's.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Somebody else said "property is theft". Different
| strokes.
| afiori wrote:
| If I hold stock in a company I receive magic free money
| without doing anything. There is a substantial difference
| in how the relation is created though
| samatman wrote:
| It's not always that different. Depending on the
| jurisdiction, feudal titles could be bought and sold, or
| not. If so, it's quite similar really.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| If you expect something it does not make it an obligation
| for the other party to deliver. Maybe that alternative is
| true?
| clarkmoody wrote:
| Alternate experiment: try to force the government to
| perform a service for you.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| There are entire industries specialized on doing this.
| Search for "disability lawyer".
| FpUser wrote:
| It actually does happen every once in a while
| kidme wrote:
| The easy loophole is to spend the money on corruption that
| benefits you. Like $10 goes to the road, 90$ goes to the
| road company that finances the road and gives 500k in
| lobbying money.
|
| This is trivial to get around. Just increase the tax $10.
| Arrath wrote:
| If these descendants are trying to claim an old form of
| payment, why, in concept, can't the residents invoke a
| similarly old form of responsibility like Noblesse Oblige?
| koolba wrote:
| > The feudal arrangement is so unusual it has prompted questions
| in parliament. Last year, MPs asked the economy minister if there
| were legal avenues to abolish the "burden".
|
| That seems like it would have the reverse effect of acknowledging
| its legitimacy, at the very least retroactively.
| [deleted]
| vmception wrote:
| Why wasn't there tax collected for 60 years?
|
| Which means it was being collected even in the 1950s
|
| Did a bookkeeper die?
|
| I think it will be useful to know what happened back then
| Y_Y wrote:
| Maybe they should apply to the king of Italy for relief, since it
| is from his divine right to all the land that the fief is granted
| to his vassals.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true, the monarchy in Italy was relatively
| modern and short lived, preceded by a patchwork of republics
| with wonderful election systems.
|
| Here's an example of how the elections for Doxe de Venezia
| worked in the Republic of Venice[0]:
|
| > Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were
| reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were
| reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-
| five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-
| five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven,
| and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the
| doge. Election required at least twenty-five votes out of
| forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes
| out of nine electors.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice
| karatinversion wrote:
| Not just republics - this particular claim descends through
| the short-lived King of Italy (which missed the age of
| absolutism by several centuries) from the Papal States.
| toyg wrote:
| I guess this is a joke about the continued claim of the Savoy
| house to a title that was abolished 75 years ago, and which was
| pretty tenuous to begin with (they're basically a French
| family, who effectively conquered the country in the XIX
| century by exploiting unification movements across the area -
| which were, ironically, ideologically republican, but had to
| accept the monarchy out of realpolitik).
| avereveard wrote:
| it's also unclear whose person would carry the title, even if
| the title where valid, as while Amedeo's lineage would be the
| actual claimant, the Vittorio lineage is strongly opposing
| that and they're presenting themselves as the successors.
| znpy wrote:
| there's no such thing as king of italy.
|
| and since the thing came up: there is no such thing as prince
| of italy either, nor princess or queen.
|
| and by the way, the savoia line of blood isn't even legitimate
| as heir to the now-nonexistant throne.
|
| the legitimate heirs would be the descendant of Aimone duke of
| Aosta, which nowadays have better things to do.
| bonzini wrote:
| That was the joke.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I grew up in an area of upstate New York where the land was
| mostly apportioned into feudal estates by the Dutch. There were
| anti-rent rebellions in the 19th century and the descendants of
| the patroons stopped collecting the rent.
|
| But... folks never had title to their land and were effectively
| stuck until a law was passed in the 1960s. It's really
| interesting as the effect is that many families have lived there
| for 400 years, and newcomers all appeared in the 1970s onward.
| nomercy400 wrote:
| Kind of strange that the Dutch are blamed for this, when the
| British took over mid-1600 and the Americans after the
| independence war end-1700.
|
| Those are two moments where this whole notion of feudal estates
| could easily have been abolished, but for some reason the new
| rulers decided against this.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| It was not unusual in the past for changes in sovereignty to
| still respect the prior established private property rights.
| For instance both the Louisiana purchase and annexation of
| California promised in law to respect existing Spanish land
| grants. So while this was the case in legal theory, these
| rights were not immune to corruption.
|
| I grew up on land in the Bay Area that formerly belonged to
| the Ranchero de las Pulgas, and now I live in the east bay. I
| don't remember the name of the Ranchero here, but much of it
| had already been sold off to yankee traders before 1846. In
| both cases after annexation the widows controlling the
| remaining land were ripped-off by shyster lawyers. IIRC in
| one or both cases the widow's own lawyer! This despite the
| fact the family of Ranchero de las Pulgas had thrown in with
| the American cause during the Mexican American War.
| [deleted]
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Did they decide against it, or did they just not pay any
| attention to the area at all?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| A little bit of both. Albany was a minor transport and
| trading hub where Dutch remained the primary language for
| some time. It later became a regional banking and
| rail/canal hub.
|
| Most of the patroon land started getting sold off as the
| value skyrocketed when the Erie Canal and railroads were
| built. The area I initially referred to was a backwater
| area where the land had limited value due to topography.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I'm not "blaming" anyone, these are just facts on the ground
| from nearly 500 years ago. I was introduced to this stuff as
| a teenager working for an old farm - their family was one of
| a few that had a land grant. The original taxes were 10 pigs
| and some wheat!
|
| The Dutch colonial system, continued in some form for a
| period of time. I'm afraid I'm ignorant of the details and
| complexity of land policy as the English, the pre-
| Constitutional US and current US government took over. Adding
| to the complexity, New York has had at least 4 constitutions
| in the post-colonial era!
|
| There's similar examples in the US -- Baltimore has or had
| land rents from the British colonial era.
|
| Personally it's a fascinating subject to me, and if I was a
| history professor, I would have probably studied it! Alas,
| I'm not.
| [deleted]
| nomercy400 wrote:
| I haven't got the facts either. Yet a lot has happened in
| those 500 years, and it would be a shame not to mention
| that.
|
| After mid-1600 the Dutch have had very little to say in New
| York (or should I say New Amsterdam, still such a shame
| they changed the name..), when the British decided New York
| should be theirs, despite being at peace with the Dutch. I
| wonder if the Dutch heritage still be taught in schools in
| the US.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It was in the 80s.
|
| Standardization of core curriculum and political changes
| will probably eliminate most of that. The people who
| cared about this stuff have scattered as society became
| more mobile and slave holdings make most of these figures
| impolitic.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| US students are certainly taught about Dutch colonial
| history in the continental US, at least where I grew up.
| adolph wrote:
| _After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664 and
| American independence in 1783, the system continued with the
| granting of large tracts known as manors, and sometimes
| referred to as patroonships._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patroon
| markvdb wrote:
| A similar feudal tax was still levied in part of the Netherlands
| until 2014. [0]
|
| [0] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dertiende_penning
| rocqua wrote:
| Per that article, in some places the tax had already been
| abolished simply by not having been levied for a long time.
|
| I would hope something similar would apply in Italy too.
| rini17 wrote:
| Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land
| ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple
| upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history
| turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law.
|
| In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land
| registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to
| reconcile them. Many properties are said to be "nevysporiadane" =
| "not settled up" which means all the owners are not known -
| previous landowner died or emigrated and it waits for their
| descendants to claim it. It isn't possible to build anything on
| these lots.
| visualradio wrote:
| > which means all the owners are not known - previous landowner
| died or emigrated and it waits for their descendants to claim
| it. It isn't possible to build anything on these lots
|
| In the U.S. there is no central registrar, deeds are recorded
| at local level, and owners are regularly found by collecting
| property tax. Back tax is tracked independently of ownership so
| if true owner fails to pay tax within a few years there is lien
| or foreclosure.
|
| I'm guessing in Slovakia they might only tax sales or income of
| property rather than passive enclosure? If back taxes are
| levied on parcel the owners should immediately make themselves
| known.
|
| "The Earth belongs in usufruct to the living. The dead have
| neither powers nor rights over it" - Thomas Jefferson
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| There are large swaths of land in the US which are under
| ownership but unusable because the owners are absentee and
| the cost and complexity of locating the owner or pursuing a
| lein are both greater than the value of the property. In my
| part of the country there are places where this situation has
| persisted for fifty years, as the auction value of the
| property is only in the hundreds of dollars per acre and back
| property tax in the same range ($16 per year)... and these
| are properties under modern plats. Dairy farms expand acre by
| acre, sometimes hiring private investigators in an effort to
| locate owners of adjacent lots to make a buyout offer. This
| isn't really all that unusual in the rural west, it's a
| legacy of the post-WWII suburban real estate boom.
|
| Even in higher property value areas I would be surprised to
| see a tax delinquency action taken after just a few years.
| The administrative cost is substantial.
| visualradio wrote:
| > In my part of the country there are places where this
| situation has persisted for fifty years, as the auction
| value of the property is only in the hundreds of dollars
| per acre
|
| At 2021 market valuations, not lower public assessments?
|
| > Even in higher property value areas I would be surprised
| to see a tax delinquency action taken after just a few
| years. The administrative cost is substantial
|
| In some areas owner only has a few years then legal
| department will process tax sale within few months. It's
| true that in many areas property tax less than 1% of true
| market value. Prior to 1930s when no state or local
| government was collecting sales tax it used to be closer
| 3%.
| tpm wrote:
| Add to that the Hungarian inheritance rules - properties were
| divided evenly between the heirs, so I can now own a 13/6240 of
| an agricultural field. The farm still pays me a small yearly
| dividend and offers to buy my share, but that's really
| everything what can be done with it.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Are wills not respected? Usually wills try to leave
| (different) things in one owner.
| rini17 wrote:
| They aren't widely used. Parents prefer to divide property
| between children by donating it while they are alive.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Historically, divisible estates were the norm in most of
| Europe in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the
| time the High Middle Ages rolls around, England and France
| switch to a system of primogeniture, granting all the lands
| to the oldest son. However, in Germany, divisibility
| remained the norm. This resulted in a tendency of lands in
| the Holy Roman Empire to proliferate as compared to France
| or England.
|
| I don't know any specifics about Hungary, but I presume
| that the general norm is as in Germany rather than
| England/France.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| In east germany, there are strange constellations, were someone
| might own the ground, but not the house upon it and vice versa.
| Some pieces of land were bought, before the original "owning"
| aristocrats descendants laid claim to them.
|
| In west germany, there were, originally very small, medieval
| fields, so a "Flurbereinigung" happened several times. This led
| to larger fields to work on, but below, some of them still are
| patchwork, paid yearly for, some only leaseholds from the
| church, some even still paid in natural products (deputats ->
| m^3 wood, grain, sugar) as per contract.
|
| Some parts of lands have owners, but due to the exponential
| nature of "Erbengemeinschaften" (community of heirs), the land
| is splitting up more with each generation of inheritance and
| some of the heirs do not want to lay claim to the ever smaller
| pieces of land in the middle of nowhere, due to the juristic
| costs. Which in the long run leads to atomized "unclaimed"
| land.
|
| Also the church runs alot of old folks homes, and thus
| persuades old people to transfer there land to the church, so
| in some towns, half the houses are owned by the catholic
| church, the children renting there parents home from them.
| Strange constellations.
| visualradio wrote:
| > Also the church runs alot of old folks homes, and thus
| persuades old people to transfer there land to the church, so
| in some towns, half the houses are owned by the catholic
| church
|
| Is the church exempt from property tax in Germany?
|
| If so this sounds like a return to 'mortmain' principle of
| middle ages which caused a lot of conflict between government
| and church historically:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortmain
|
| England developed quicker than the rest of Europe because the
| King limited the accumulation of tax exempt real estate by
| the church. The church was essentially largest absentee
| corporate land holder in Europe. It left large quantities of
| land vacant and did not contribute public fees towards
| infrastructure improvements.
| alach11 wrote:
| This split ownership reminds me of a similar situation in the
| USA, where different entities can own the surface rights and
| mineral rights. What gets weird, is owning the mineral rights
| legally entitles you to use the surface (to a limited degree)
| to access the minerals.
| ddoolin wrote:
| This is pretty common in the Rockies in Colorado, although
| not usually exercised! Many, many lots are zoned M for
| Mining and the situation you mentioned applies just like
| that.
| mlinksva wrote:
| I found my great grandfather and great granduncle listed on
| what seem to be (from skimming autotranslations) missing
| landowner documents in the Czech Republic, dated as recently as
| the beginning of 2021 (web version linked below). Which was
| surprising to me, since they immigrated to the US around 1905,
| before the obvious 20th century upheavals. I guess unless
| property is valuable enough for someone (including the state)
| to invest effort in securing ownership of, it can sit with
| unclear ownership forever, more or less.
|
| https://www.hlidamsikatastr.cz/Katastr/Neznami-vlastnici says
| unclaimed land will be forfeited to the state in 2023, I guess
| this must be highly specific to the Czech Republic. Still
| surprising to me that it'd take 100+ years!
| jakub_g wrote:
| Isn't there any law saying that "if no one claims it for N
| years, the state takes it" / "if someone else uses a place for
| N years and no one else claims it, that person can claim it?"
| [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption
| HerrMonnezza wrote:
| I had the same thought. Reading the Wikipedia page for the
| respective Italian law [1], it seems to me (but IANAL) that
| it would only apply to _ownership of material things_ , not
| apply to monetary claims.
|
| However, Italy also abolished all noble titles with the fall
| of the monarchy in 1946 -- I would have also expected that
| fiefs and any associated claims had been extinguished at the
| same time...
|
| [1]: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapione
| thefounder wrote:
| It would be a bit nasty to make a such law considering that
| the "state"(usually the communist state) stole the property
| and the rightful owners were persecuted.
| rini17 wrote:
| There is a way - if you can prove you used the land for
| decades as if you owned it and noone turns up to challenge
| it, you can obtain ownership.
|
| But this too was already fraudulently abused. Generally, a
| poor rule of law complicates everything.
|
| (just as aside, communist land "reforms" are most visible
| but there were others, based on nationality - taken from
| Jews, Hungarians, Germans)
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| Unsure about Italy, but common law has the doctrine of
| laches, which many US jurisdictions recognize. It effectively
| says, "Sure, you have a claim, but you sat on it too long so
| tough luck."
| frontiersummit wrote:
| This is only slightly worse than Slovakia's official online
| Cadastral (property ownership) map, which still requires using
| Internet Explorer and downloading an ActiveX Plugin.
| https://mapa.katasterportal.sk/kapor2/index.asp I'm still
| trying to find a way to access it from Linux without going
| through a VM.
| rini17 wrote:
| There's now an alternative: https://zbgis.skgeodesy.sk/mkzbgi
| s/sk/kataster?bm=zbgis&z=8&...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Sounds a lot like what's been going on in Israel / Palestine.
| afiori wrote:
| Specifically the first kind, much less of the second.
| [deleted]
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