You can trust them, that's not the point. the point is, you can keep your pen or your calculator without having to pay rent on them. You can't keep your land/house unless you pay rent on it to the govt. Considering that all humans require shelter to continue living (surprising: the homeless in the US die 30 yrs younger than the average), a case can be made that property taxes for a minimum amount of land necessary to live are unreasonable. otherwise it's a tax on life