Texas Statewide Proposition 9, November 2019 Election

[Xan]

A wealth tax would still be pretty effective against this, I would think.

[Kriegsspiel]

My property taxes are like 3.5% of what I bought my house for.

From what I remember, Texas had pretty cheap electricity in addition to its low taxes. I don't really buy much so sales tax doesn't affect me.

Using what you bought your house for as a denominator is a different measure than using its current assessed value (or fair market value) if you bought your house awhile ago and there is a major disparity between the two values. I bought my house on April 30, 1982 for about $30,000 and it is now assessed for about $165,000 so using those two in the denominators would lead to major differences in percent of the current taxes I am paying.

Vinny

I bought it last summer, it's probably worth a few thousand more right now, but whatever.

[technovelist]

Do you know of any plans for Texas to strike their own gold coins?

That would not be Constitutional: https://www.heritage.org/constitution/# ... te-coinage
But recognizing privately minted coins as legal tender would be perfectly Constitutional.
I'm pretty sure they are going to do that.

I have also heard that they have plans to issue debit and/or credit cards settled by transferring ownership of gold held in collective storage.

I visited the Depository a few weeks ago and talked to the Texas Comptroller Representative. He said once the debit card is issued, you can sell some of your precious metal to the US Gold Bureau (they are co-located at the depository) and they will deposit dollars to fund your debit card account. So there apparently will not be any kind of collective storage nor will they be actually transferring gold from your account to someone else's account (except to US Gold Bureau).

They are indeed planning to have collective storage:

"Will the Texas Bullion Depository ever have a pooled storage offering?
A: The depository will offer a pooled method for storing gold or other precious metals in the future."

(from https://www.texasbulliondepository.gov/faqs)

And the person I usually talk to there told me that this was going to be set up so that you could transfer an amount of gold to collective storage and use your book entry in the collective storage to back the debit card. That way you wouldn't have to leave a lot of money tied up in cash but could leave it in gold.

[technovelist]

Would that also apply to non-Texas residents who invest?

I don't think it would matter where the owner lived for that purpose.

[FarmerD]

That would not be Constitutional: https://www.heritage.org/constitution/# ... te-coinage
But recognizing privately minted coins as legal tender would be perfectly Constitutional.
I'm pretty sure they are going to do that.

I have also heard that they have plans to issue debit and/or credit cards settled by transferring ownership of gold held in collective storage.

I visited the Depository a few weeks ago and talked to the Texas Comptroller Representative. He said once the debit card is issued, you can sell some of your precious metal to the US Gold Bureau (they are co-located at the depository) and they will deposit dollars to fund your debit card account. So there apparently will not be any kind of collective storage nor will they be actually transferring gold from your account to someone else's account (except to US Gold Bureau).

They are indeed planning to have collective storage:

"Will the Texas Bullion Depository ever have a pooled storage offering?
A: The depository will offer a pooled method for storing gold or other precious metals in the future."

(from https://www.texasbulliondepository.gov/faqs)

And the person I usually talk to there told me that this was going to be set up so that you could transfer an amount of gold to collective storage and use your book entry in the collective storage to back the debit card. That way you wouldn't have to leave a lot of money tied up in cash but could leave it in gold.

I'm confused now. I wonder if "collective storage" and US Gold Bureau's working inventory are the same thing? I'll be visiting the Depository again in a couple weeks and I'll try to clarify.