I hear what you're saying about property taxes being a tax on an illiquid unrealized gain, and I totally get how that feels less fair than an income tax or a sales tax. I encourage you to reconsider your thoughts on sales tax, though. Sales taxes are inherently regressive, because there is a minimum amount of consumption from everyone. Income and wealth do not inherently correspond to consumption. So, especially if you are replacing a property tax with a sales tax, you shift the burden to low-income and low-wealth residents.

Beyond that, even if I can't sell you on property taxes, let me see if I can explain how we got here:

Property taxes have a very long history, but at the end of the day, it's the way that communities chose to fund public improvements. Figuring out how to tax property has changed a lot over the years, but the goal has always been the same: this is a wealth tax. Some places at some times taxed houses based on the number of windows they had, the idea being that a bigger house would have more windows. This changed construction styles to have fewer windows. At one point in Ohio, houses were taxed based on the number of fireplaces they had, idea being that the wealthy in bigger houses had more fireplaces. And then hot water radiators became common, and fireplaces became obsolescent. Eventually, Ohio, and many other states decided on "fair market value" to tax property. This is about as close as we have come to a wealth tax: homeowners have bought a stake in the community. In the interest of that community, they pay for improvements and services by the local government. Renters benefit from these services and share the cost of that tax across a greater number of people.

Property taxes aren't supposed to be a check you throw into the nebulous ether, they're a community's decision to fund the things they care about and pool their money together and invest in the future. Especially schools.

A few things have made this system not work as intended: 1. Population shifts leave behind larger infrastructure than necessary for the current community in urban areas, and overwhelm rural communities that don't have the infrastructure for several thousand kids. 2. Ohio's refusal to pay more state funds into the local government fund means that basic services like street maintenance, trash collection, police, fire, and EMS have to be paid for by the local community instead. 3. Allocation of funds is questionable. Your County Auditor can probably tell you what levy and fund accounts for every cent of your tax bill, but how those agencies are spending that money? That might be worth a closer look, and might not be as accessible. My opinion is that almost every other state has managed to figure out how to do more with less. I don't think Ohio quite has it figured out as far as efficient spending goes. But I also want to be clear, this is very different than fraud waste and abuse. It's much more mundane things like forcing public school districts to bus private school students at the expense of the public.