Free Republic

For decades, economists and analysts ignored the racial effects of how the government raises taxes. Now the introduction of race into the tax equation has blown things up a bit. This month marks the 45th anniversary of Proposition 13. Although the impact of Prop 13 on the state’s public finance landscape is far-reaching and mostly negative, the capping of property tax assessments is its signature element. It creates a property tax subsidy that increases the longer you own your home. As long as the value of your home grows faster than 2% a year, you come out ahead. As a...

... Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed Texas ​​middle-class families “pay more taxes than middle-class families in California.” “Look that up,” he said in a virtual meeting with editorial and opinion writers from the McClatchy chain’s California newspapers. “That’s a fact”

Two recent court cases have created a contested loophole in property-tax related Propositions 13, 26 and 218 which would cause a legal and actual tax earthquake in California. Cities like San Diego are starting to bid-out franchise fees to the highest bidder for use of its public streets by public utilities. This may be construed as tax farming, which was used in ancient societies to bring in unlimited taxes, which is the opposite intent of tax-limiting Propositions 13, 26 and 218. San Diego has set a minimum reserve price of $62 million per year for 20 years for electric and...

California’s Proposition 13, the successful 1978 initiative that limited property-tax increases, has long been considered the third rail of the state’s politics. Former governor Jerry Brown, coasting to victory in the 2014 gubernatorial election, called the constitutional amendment “a sacred doctrine that should never be questioned.” But now a coalition of public-sector unions, school districts, progressive advocacy groups, and Democratic politicians are betting that they can overturn at least half of Prop. 13, in the process enacting a huge tax increase on state businesses during a steep recession. Theirs promises to be a hard-fought battle, pitting rich unions against well-financed...

The confusingly numbered “Proposition 13” on the March 3 statewide ballot will waste taxpayer dollars, needlessly increase the state’s debt burden and encourage school districts to issue more debt, raising property tax bills. Voters should reject it. Passed in a rush by the Legislature as Assembly Bill 48, this Prop. 13 is a grab-bag of goodies for the well-connected. For Wall Street bond underwriters and investors, it’s $15 billion in general obligation bonds that will cost taxpayers about $26 billion when decades of interest costs are added. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that Prop. 13 will cost taxpayers $740 million...

The 2020 ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value. Under the new initiative, residential properties are excluded from this potential policy and would continue to be taxed under the original requirements of Proposition 13, when property ownership changes or when new construction is done. Property tax rates would not change, and there would be a qualified exception for some small businesses, according to official documents. First set in 1978, Proposition 13 places a cap on tax rates for residential, commercial...

Proposition 13 is untouchable. That’s been the thinking for 40 years in California. Politicians have feared for their careers if they dared suggest changes to the measure that capped property taxes, took a scythe to government spending and spawned antitax initiatives across the country. However, that is beginning to change. With Republican influence in California on the wane and ascendant Democrats making tax fairness an issue, advocates are confident that the time is right to take a run at some legacies of the 1978 measure.

A new ballot initiative that takes aim at how commercial properties are taxed under California’s Proposition 13 could raise $6 to $10 billion more each year for schools and and other programs and services, according to a new analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. At the heart of the initiative, which is still being reviewed by the state attorney general’s office, is a property tax law enshrined in the state constitution since 1978. Proposition 13 caps taxes for all kinds of properties — residential and commercial — at 1 percent of a property’s purchase price, allowing for increases of no...

SNIP The proposal from the California Association of Realtors would expand Proposition 13, the landmark constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1978 that has kept homeowners’ property taxes artificially low over the years, even as their home values have doubled or even quadrupled. Under the initiative, homeowners who are over 55 or severely disabled would be able to keep those lower tax obligations for life, regardless of how many times they move, as long as they stay in California. SNIP

Pardess Mitchell is watching her community crumble. She and her husband have lived in Lake County for 16 years. They pay more in property taxes than they do on their mortgage. The tax bill is $15,000 a year on a house they bought for $227,000 in 2013. “They’re taxing us out of the neighborhood. They’re pushing us out. They’re pushing us out of our homes and communities,” she said. “If it continues this way we’ll have to leave.” A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll released Oct. 10 revealed nearly half of registered Illinois voters said they would leave the...

California’s initiative process has sometimes been a boon to taxpayers—think Proposition 13, which checked the uncontrolled growth of property taxes. On other occasions, however, it has yielded some mighty boondoggles. Chief among these are the “boutique initiatives” advanced by celebrities and Silicon Valley billionaires to make themselves feel good or to advance pet political causes—think Proposition 10, Hollywood director Rob Reiner’s early-childhood-development measure that created a host of busybody commissions funded by cigarette taxes. Boutique initiatives usually come with boutique prices. Among the costliest is Proposition 39, a 2012 measure that hiked corporate taxes on out-of-state businesses to “create energy...

In reverse order of probability: (5) oil severance tax, (4) Sales tax on services, (3) split property tax rolls (separate rates for homeowners than businesses), (2) cigarette tax, (1) Extension of Prop30.

Republicans, who have already blocked a Democratic super-majority in the California Senate, have also succeeded in defeating a Democratic super-majority in the Assembly.

California Democrats appear to have picked up a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature Tuesday night, a surprise outcome that gives the party the ability to unilaterally raise taxes and leaves Republicans essentially irrelevant in Sacramento. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Democrats-get-supermajority-in-Legislature-4015861.php#ixzz2BZ1jgHgh

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, has introduced a bill that would give farmers and landowners’ property rights remedies against local zoning laws. The bill is inspired by the Martha Boneta debacle last year. But unlike last year’s “Boneta Bill,” HB1219 extends beyond farmers to anyone who owns property. The bill also tackles other issues such as the constitutional rights of farmers. HB1219 says that local governments that violate constitutional rights through zoning must pay their victims the amount of the fines they sought to impose and the actual damages, including attorney fees. The bill also allows the Virginia Attorney General to...

Almost 36 years after it was passed by voters, controversy continues to swirl around Proposition 13, the 1978 tax limitation measure. Periodic calls to repeal or modify it, supposedly to gain more tax revenue, so far have gone nowhere. The main objection is that it’s unfair because homeowners — and especially businesses – that have held their properties for decades pay less in property tax than new property owners. Prop. 13 assesses taxes at 1 percent of value, plus a maximum of 2 percent more per year due to property value increases and inflation. Property is reassessed when it changes...

No initiative mounted by the public has brought more change to California than Proposition 13, which voters passed 35 years ago today. Did it keep the middle class in their rapidly appreciating homes or set the stage for the struggling public schools and crumbling public infrastructure California has today? Californians cling tightly to both views.

Stuart Lieberman, a real estate attorney in New Jersey, once said the following about wording in a deed that allowed construction on open space designated land: “That’s not a loophole; it’s the Lincoln Tunnel.” Lieberman made what appeared to be a loophole in a deed understandable through a concrete example. In the same way, the widely disseminated urban myth in California that there is a mysterious tax loophole in Proposition 13 for owners of commercial properties needs to be simply explained so that the public can understand that there is no such loophole. A recent news article in the May...

Last week, Darrell Steinberg, the president pro term of the Senate, announced that he would skip the Democratic National Convention to focus on trying to win the two seats needed to give his party a two-thirds, 27-seat Senate majority. Looking at the senate races in play, the odds are in his favor.

Let's not mince words about what the state Senate's Democratic leader did Wednesday. It was self-serving censorship, the sort of thing that one expects from tinpot dictators, not from those who fancy themselves to be progressive civil libertarians. Someone acting for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg suddenly cut off cable television access to a legislative hearing to air facts and arguments about pending ballot measures. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee called the hearing – as required by law – into three tax increases (Propositions 30, 38 and 39) and altering the state's budgetary procedures (Proposition 31). As it...