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William H Stoddard's avatar

The parallel, of course, is that who benefits from a subsidy is not answerable by seeing who gets the money. Grants and loans to college students seem largely to increase the number and the salaries of college administrators, to pick a widely remarked current example.

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AlphaGamma's avatar

I'm reminded of a common argument in British politics.

Unlike most US jurisdictions, the UK does not tax ownership of residential property. Instead, local government is funded (in part) by Council Tax. While the amount owed is based (very loosely*) on the value of the property, it is paid by the occupants not the owner if the property is occupied by someone who doesn't own it, and there are various discounts or exemptions based on who the occupants are.

Various people have argued that landlords, not tenants, of residential properties should be liable to pay the Council Tax. None of them have made any suggestion apart from rent controls as to how landlords would be prevented from simply raising the rent to take this into account.

*Properties are sorted into bands based on their value in 1991 (or their hypothetical value in 1991 if they've been built or substantially improved since then). Properties in higher bands pay more tax, but the difference isn't proportional- a property in the highest band pays only 3 times as much as one in the lowest band even though it's "worth" 10 times more.

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