CALIFORNIA
FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2018, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2018, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THIS MAY BE THE YEAR PROP. 13 INTENT IS RESTORED”
Any time traveler revisiting the California of 1978 would
have an easy time understanding why Proposition 13 passed so handily that year,
lowering property taxes throughout the state to 1 percent of the latest sale
price or 1 percent of the 1975 assessed value.
Such a traveler would enter a land with skyrocketing
property taxes based on the latest market value of each property. Not the
latest sale price, but an arbitrary market value assigned to every piece of
property by county assessors basing their numbers largely on “comparables,” the
prices of similar homes in the same or nearby neighborhoods.
Many senior citizens and others on
fixed incomes lived in dread of the annual assessment letter informing them of
their home’s purported new value. Plenty (no one knows the exact number) felt
compelled to sell.
Then along came longtime Los Angeles
gadfly Howard Jarvis and his Sacramento-based pal Paul Gann with Proposition
13, which they sold as a measure to give homeowners financial stability and
predictability. So long as a property stays in the same hands, that initiative
still dictates, basic property taxes on it can rise no more than 2 percent per
year.
One major result: California has had
systematic tax inequality for the last 39-plus years, with neighbors in similar
houses or condominiums paying radically different taxes, mostly based on when
they bought and not on current values.
There is no significant move today
toward changing those provisions. But some change nevertheless may come to the
sacred-cow law later this year.
That would be in the form of a “split
roll,” where commercial and residential properties are taxed at different
rates.
This has some basis in history, for
anyone going back to view the Jarvis-Gann campaign of 1978 would not hear much
about commercial or industrial property taxes. Yet owners of those kinds of
properties enjoy the same benefits as homeowners and their share of the overall
property tax burden has dropped by several percent since 1978.
Advocates of more funding for public
schools and other local services have long contended the split roll is the best
way to make up what those causes lost under Proposition 13. The idea has been
kicked around in Sacramento and elsewhere for a generation, but never went
anywhere.
And yet, a 2015 survey of 104,000
likely voters found 75 percent favored withdrawing Proposition 13 protections
from non-residential property.
As the 40-year anniversary of
Proposition 13 approaches in June, proponents of the split roll have for the
first time submitted a proposed initiative to make this change. One reason they
chose the initiative route rather than trying to get the state Legislature to
put the change on the ballot: Democrats – usually more sympathetic than
Republicans to the idea of taxing businesses – have narrowly and at least
temporarily lost their two-thirds majority in the state Assembly because two
members felt compelled to resign when charged with sexual improprieties and
another left for unspecified health reasons.
Advocates of the change say it could
raise billions of dollars to improve public schools and colleges.
“I think the cumulative effects of the
unfair tax system have gotten to the point where it’s created crippling…impacts
on the state,” said Melissa Breach of the state’s League of Women Voters.
The measure has not yet been assigned
a title by Attorney General Xavier Becerra and so petitions are not now being
circulated for signatures.
But it’s for certain the Howard Jarvis
Taxpayers Assn., named for the Proposition 13 co-author, will fight it
vigorously. As with previous tentative moves toward a split roll, the
hard-fighting organization will brand this measure as an attempt to crack the
solid protections homeowners get from Proposition 13. The Jarvis group and its
allies usually claim that once any Proposition 13 provision is changed, it will
be only a short time before homeowner protections would be lost.
While the 2015 poll makes it look easy
to get this passed via an initiative, looks can deceive. The fears of
California homeowners, who already pay far more than average state and local
income and sales taxes, are not difficult to stoke.
All of which means this may be the
year Proposition 13 changes. But don’t yet bank on it.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
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