What are your opinions on Parcel Taxes, especially in California? Should there be a Renter's tax as well?
Parcel Taxes
By CL Follow Thu, 20 Oct 2011, 4:45pm 4,556 views 67 comments
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It makes sense to raise money for schools since Prop 13 and the State of California aren't helping us enough to educate our kids.
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
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True, Prop 13 is starving the schools, but people who bought recently do pay a reasonable property tax rate. So a parcel tax on top of that is unfair to them.
The real problem is that Prop 13
* lets businesses get away with paying almost no property tax, forever
* lets landlords rake in rent and pay nearly none of the cost of police, fire, etc
* lets the elderly pass on their ultra-low property tax rate to rich children, forever
* lets the very rich avoid property tax, since Prop 13 has no means test at all
What was supposed to protect poor old people ended up protecting the ultra-rich, landlords, and corporations. Of course the people who created Prop 13 knew that all along.
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Patrick says
Business pays for both real and personal property tax. If you were a corporation, good chance your landlord would pass the bill of the Real Prop Tax to you + you are required to file and PAY annual personal with the county.. Mfg, Office, IT, Server equipment, and lease holdimprovements based on actual purchase price, thats gross not depreciated. Year in year out.
Over tax your local corporations, and the reply by moving their mfg operations and large data centers out of the region along with the workforce ... you see a drop in Business Property Tax and a Glut of R&D/MFG facilities.
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Patrick says
You mean it made prop tax equal and fair without fraud. Second, it makes no sense to raise property tax based on highly inflated market values, which we saw was not sustainable. What happens when you inflate prop tax revenue and than see vast drop in market values ? Too late since you already committed to long term spending on expected revenue causing a budget deficit. Last, it makes your tax more predictable.
Im sure if it was without Prop 13 you would freak out every year when the bill came.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)
During the early 1960s, there were several scandals in California involving county assessors.[5] These assessors, who had traditionally enjoyed great latitude in setting the taxable value of properties, were found rewarding friends and allies with artificially low assessments, with tax bills to match. These scandals resulted in the passage of law AB 80 during 1966, which imposed standards for assessments to represent market value. However, assessors, who are elected officials, had traditionally used their flexibility to aid elderly homeowners on fixed incomes, and more generally to systematically undervalue vote-rich residential properties and compensate by inflating commercial assessments. The use of market value as a result of AB 80 could easily represent a mid-double-digit percentage increase of assessment for many homeowners.
As a result of all these factors, a large number of California homeowners experienced an immediate and drastic increase of valuation during the 1970s, which was simultaneously matched with increasing tax rates on that assessed value, only to be informed that the taxed monies would be redistributed to distant communities. Howard Jarvis, a former newspaperman and appliance manufacturer, became a taxpayer activist after his retirement, and began a campaign to reduce property taxes
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Patrick says
That would be Prop 58 not 13...
Prop 58 http://www.sccgov.org/portal/site/asr/agencyarticle?path=%252Fv7%252FAssessor%252C%2520Office%2520of%2520the%2520%2528ELO%2529&contentId=8660bb3166b34010VgnVCMP2200049dc4a92____
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Patrick says
When prop 13 was passed.. 1978 there was no longer a reason to keep as many schools open and teachers employed. The large population of Baby Boomers were no longer in k-12. Therefore no need to keep spending when demand went off the cliff. Even today the demand is far less than back in the say 1950 to 1970s.
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Menlo Park, CA
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thomas.wong1986 says
No, I mean it made property tax unequal and unfair, and blatantly fraudulent.
We have higher inquality in property tax than ever before. A new buyer might easily pay more than 10 times his next door neighbor who lives in an absolutely identical house.
It is grossly unfair to exempt businesses, landlords, and the very rich from market-based taxes while applying them to new buyers.
And it was blatantly fraudulent to pass this law as a protection for little old ladies when all its main backers knew that was just a smokescreen.
Sure, property taxes should be predictible, they just should not be predictibly near ZERO for the people who can most afford to pay and benefit the most from public services.
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Patrick says
No business is exempt from Property Tax.. in addition they pay personal property tax... you and I dont pay property tax on our Home furniture, TV, Stereo, our Car, and other long term tangible assets. Corporations do on their L-571 every year.
http://smcare.org/assessor/forms/SMFORM571L2009.pdf
Patrick says
He made the mistake of overpaying. So does that mean everyone else on the same block is on the hook for higher taxes? How far down the block do you stop if you base it on near by recent market values ?
Also predictable for the state, since it would take forever to compile based on market values and doubtful many would get their prop tax bill timely.
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thomas,
California has for a very long time had people come'n in telling our own history to back at us who actually experienced it. Probably been going on before even the Gold Rush, probably my folks did it in the middle of the last century. It is nothing new.
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I wasn't really going to say anything about this since prop 13 has been talked about way too much on housing bubble sites. But oh well. Its Friday. My biggest issue with prop 13 was how it was characterized, as a means to prevent older residents from losing their homes. If that really and truly was the case then California should have enacted a law that is similar to most other states: special case tax legislation for elderly residents. So in other words older residents would get a tax break or even a freeze on taxes when they reach a certain age. Instead prop 13 was passed so that taxes almost freeze at the level paid for a house. Therein lies the problem.
In my opinion progressive taxes have an unforeseen benefit and in my opinion Texas is a perfect example of this. My wife and I went to Austin awhile back to scope things out, look at houses, and get a feel for the area. Austin is the most expensive area in TX. That said, home prices in most cases were seemingly reasonable. That is until you realized that they all were taxes at anywhere from 2-3% annually and when values went up... so too did the taxes, in lock-step with values. As a result we ran into many homeowner after homeowner that told us they actually WANTED their property values to go DOWN because that mean less taxes for them to pay. You figure at a rate of 3%, a $250,000 house would cost you $7,500 a year in taxes. So in many ways having this sort of tax setup created an incentive for home prices to stay within a reasonable level. Why? Because there is a consequence for higher homes values.
As it is in California there are no incentives for lower home prices. The older you are and the longer you've owned a home here the MORE incentive you have for prices to go up, and up, and up. As a result that's exactly what's happened. That and people stay in empty-nester homes forever and don't trade down.
But the bottom line is that there are many more clever ways to prevent older folks from losing their houses. Prop 13 was not exactly well thought out. That said, I have no doubt it will never get repealed, especially as the state's average age continues to climb as more and more younger professionals head for the exits. High home prices are a legacy of prop 13 and created a sort of weird economic situation where the most productive, professional younger adults are priced out of houses while older residents who probably had jobs that paid a lot less get to stay. That makes zero sense.
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Mountain View, CA
bmwman91's website
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Thomas, you have some good points. However, isn't it conceivable that, if prop 13 didn't exist, there would have been much greater pressure to keep housing prices from inflating? This is personal speculation, but had it never been passed, the market would have maintained prices that individuals and companies would be capable of paying. That's my guess, anyway.
I would agree that, at this point, we are sort of stuck with prop 13. I think that it was a terrible implementation of a good idea (helping seniors), but it is now fully integrated into the CA RE market and it can't just be yanked in one move.
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edvard2 says
And once again, I would remind you that Prop 13 did not prevent home prices from dropping from 1989 to mid 90s, nor did it prevent prices from dropping in more recent years.
For the past several years, people were priced out due to irrational behavior of buyers and the insane promotion by realtors.
edvard2 says
We certainly saw plenty of double digit growth in Santa Clara County with the booming Tech industry back in the 80s. Were we underpaid as well ? It doesnt make sense if you lived and worked here back than. The same can be said about the Aerospace industry in Socal.
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bmwman91 says
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)
Moreover, the state's increasing population resulted in increased demand for housing, resulting in greater residential property values and, consequently, greater taxes for residences. Many older Californians with fixed incomes had difficulty paying increasing property taxes. Due to severe inflation during the 1970s as a result of the 1973–75 recession, reassessments of residential property increased property taxes so much that some retired people could no longer afford to remain in homes they had purchased long before.
Government spending had also increased dramatically during the years prior to 1978. Between 1973 and 1977, California state and local government expenditures per $1000 of personal income were 8.2 percent higher than the national norm. From 1949 to 1979, public sector employment in California outstripped employment growth in the private sector.
By 1978, 14.7 percent of California's civilian work force was state and local government employees, almost double the proportion of the early 1950s
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thomas.wong1986 says
Precisely. That was my point. Prop 13 is actually a significant factor to the inflation of real estate in California. The reason is as I mentioned it totally incentivizes older homeowners to have property values escalate because they in turn suffer no direct consequence from those rise in values.
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edvard2 says
Why should one party "suffer" for the mistakes of another party who irrationally overpaid ?
Fair ? I think not... foolish for the party that overpaid into prices that were not clearly sustainable in the long run.
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thomas.wong1986 says
Why indeed? Why should younger people have to be stuck with the prospects of ridiculous home prices while their older neighbors more or less got a free ride partially due to the windfall effects of prop 13?
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There are some interesting side effects from parcel taxes. There is usually a commercial and residential rate. If you live the suburbs, homeowners usually bear the brunt of the tax. Homeowners in areas with some industry or commercial enterprises usually have lower parcel taxes to support schools that perform at levels similar to their suburban peers.
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The only reason SF uses parcel taxes for schools is wastage and or fraud:
- SFUSD only teaches approx 50k students out of a population of 800k
- SF has one of the highest % of kids who attend private school
- SF has the lowest number of kids as a % of population any major city
- SF has more dogs than kids
- SF has $6.8BN in revenue, more than 3 individual states
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Prop 13 is for rich old people to suck the blood of young people.
It provides for rich geezers to enjoy services paid by higher taxes, but without paying for them.
As I always say to Prop 13 leechers, why don't I see you going to the grocery store and demanding that you want stuff to be sold at 1970 prices?
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Murrieta, CA
I thought the lottery paid for schools in CA :P
Also If I don't have kids why should I pay for yours to go to school?
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Katy Perry says
Yep!
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This one is easy, get prices to fall back to acceptable levels and everyone ask for re-assessment. Sure the Old Fogies will still have lower property taxes, but those that purchased from 1994-on will get back to a reasonable assessment base value.
Agreed on the fact that it benefits commercial and landlords which winds up discouraging home purchases. But that also, (for those landlords who are not slumlords and who have scruples) allows landlords to choose a lower rent for their tenants, which can be a good thing for those of us trying to save cash to finance as little as possible.
The main problem emanates from the so called "Need" for these property taxes and parcel taxes. The reason these taxes are here has been overstated, we need to cut back in some of these areas to allow the $$'s taken from the public to be reduced, and the property tax collection process to be re-evaluated such that it doesn't favor a group based upon when they bought (and at what price). Make it so the "Need" for these dollars can be voted on and approved by the taxpayers.
This will further depress / dis-incentivize home valuation increases as was stated before (as everyone will have parity in responsibility)+, if a system was in place that did not account for a fixed base amount, but allowed taxpayers to vote on what are reasonable expenditures (don't let the legislators tell you what you need, you're not their puppets, they should be yours to follow within the guidelines of the constitution.)
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edvard2 says
That's definitely true. Because there are fewer transactions due to Prop 13, prices tend to be higher.
I've written about Prop 13 and its failings several times before, and need not completely repeat myself:
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=981019#comment-761303
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=950699#comment-758881
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1048743#comment-766924
Defenders of Prop 13 usually say two things:
1) it keeps grandma in her house -- but there are better ways to do that, such as the way other states have tax deferral until sale for senior citizens -- Prop 13 is a terrible way to do this because it's overbroad and has lots of bad conseuqences;
2) that is constrains the size of government -- which is bullshit. First of all, there are far better ways to constrain the size of government without doing something overly distortive like Prop 13. Prop 13 constrains local government from doing things local government should be doing. Instead, it aggrandizes state government and gives state government more control over local matters. State government is more corrupt and less accountable than local government, so the net result is a clusterfuck. And local governments raise sales taxes to compensate, but are still not doing what they need to be doing.
edvard2 says
Yes, this is a great example of a huge failing of Prop 13. I also doubt it will get repealed, although maybe people will see the light as budget deficits keep getting worse and sales tax keeps rising.
Katy Perry says
Because it's good for society not to have uneducated cretins running around? It raises your property values and keeps your neighborhood safe? It's good for our economy?
All of these geezers who complain about parcel taxes and similar school-funding measures such as bond measures (think Measure O in San Mateo County http://www.smartvoter.org/2010/11/02/ca/sm/meas/O/ ) also aren't realizing when they oppose these things that it means their neighborhood is less desirable and their property values will tend to drop as a result.
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corntrollio says
you forgot to add.. since the topic is it inflates prices...
it has not prevented prices from falling back to its long term mean. We saw prices fall before in the 90s we are seeing prices fall today.
Where is prop 13 in all of this ?
corntrollio says
And as a consquence created a bunch uneducated cretins red-necks like me and many others over the decades... who fueled Silicon Valley in its hey days... Kinda of incredible isnt it.
No this isnt Boston, Mass or Harford, Conn.
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thomas.wong1986 says
Well, 1) prices haven't fallen back to long-term mean as far as I know. When I calculated Marin County, prices were still 20% now above the 1997 trough.
2) Even if what you say is true, prop 13 is still causing distortions in price and taxation -- prices should be even lower now. Typically in a bust, prices fall below trendline first before recovery.
Look, it doesn't take much thought to show that Prop 13 inflates prices. Prop 13 tends to constrain supply and makes the property market more illiquid. This means higher prices than there otherwise would be.
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SFace says
I wonder why the stuff we DO want, (cops and teachers) are always at the bottom of the list, needing an additional revenue stream? Especially since the voter would likely put those atop the list, they should be paid first.
If they had to have a parcel tax for the ugly parts of Government, or subsidies to corporations, or even the arts they'd probably reject them. (Except renters, who would probably vote for any parcel tax since it doesn't affect them and the cause feels good).
I was also curious, as was referenced above, if it also added to the inflation of home values. There is obviously some hazard involved in having a popular vote for taxing the "other". There is also the matter of distorted prices causing distorted revenues.
Should they be banned? Or maybe have a "flat property tax" of x amount of dollars?
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CL says
That's because the government would not be able to control us as easily if other "agencies" weren't paid out of pocket first. You better believe that voters wanting more cops because they will be "safer" is hugely perpetuated by a fear mongering group that directly benefits from Law Enforcement proceeds / tax revenue.
CL says
Renters don't feel parcel tax adjustments? Right, get F'n real. Landlords do the ole' pass through to renters just like any other business. IF not, make it a law that Landlords cannot pass through ANY parcel tax, and that Renters cannot vote on measures / legislation that will be payed with Parcel Tax revenues.
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corntrollio says
All in good time..the ongoing correction will continue.
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Patrick says
How is it fair that someone who has purchased his home and diligently made the payments over many years suddenly has his taxes raised 10 times because some idiot next door overpaid?
How is that fair? Why should MY taxes be completely dependent on what YOU do?
Fairness is really a matter of perspective...
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madhaus's website
There is layer upon layer of insanity when it comes to Prop 13.
Does anyone here want corporations to be exempt from market-value taxation?
Does anyone here want corporations to avoid market-value taxation when acquiring property by structuring the deal in a way that obfuscates who is buying it? That's fairly routine now, adding to low property valuations by new business ownership.
Does anyone here want commercial property exempt from market value taxation? How about commercial property bequeathed to children of the original owner; should that also keep a low valuation? How about commercial property owned by out-of-staters?
Do you agree that children should inherit their parents' Prop 13 valuations? Grandchildren? Should it be portable (sell one low-valuation property and move it to another one)?
There are all kinds of problems that are well beyond the "Let's not tax grandma out of her house" bogus argument that sold this pile of stinking turds.
Going back to the OP comment on parcel taxes: it was Prop 13 that made the 2/3 requirement to pass them in the first place. They used to only require a majority vote. The result is now only "Fortress" type areas that value their "good" schools can pass a parcel tax. Middling quality areas cannot, because the schools aren't enough to make people want to "invest" in them. Meanwhile you can see a place like Palo Alto pass a $600 annual parcel tax, or over a thousand in Piedmont. Both the above have Unified School Districts, as opposed to Cupertino, which has separate parcel taxes for the K-8 and high school districts.
We'll be hitting Prop 13 tomorrow (Sunday October 23) on Burbed. Bring your snide arguments, pro, con, and totally off topic.
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madhaus says
All the attention that prop 13 gets here and on other sites is a waste of time and energy. I agree with you about some of the silly rules that were written into prop 13 such as the commercial property and handing the property tax basis down to the kids, but prop 13 isn't going anywhere. I voted against it in 1978, but very few homeowners will vote to tinker with it, and the majority of homeowners vote. We all know that once a politician gets a foot in the door they will screw it up. As bad as prop 13 is, it's still better than letting politicians get their hooks in it.
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lurking says
With that attitude of futility we had might as well not try to fix anything. Meanwhile, the state of California is bleeding to death because of Prop 13. It's time to do SOMETHING. The best start would be to remove commercial and industrial property from assessment limitations.
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madhaus says
No its not.
The state is not bleeding to death.
Just the state government. And the state gov't is not bleeding to death because of Prop-13. It's bleeding to death because of commitments to state employees like college professors (who may even post here) and other "civil servants".
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madhaus's website
You may be right.
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No! The problem is our education administrators don't know how to spend the money. Our school district got a nice $60M bond passed by voters 3 years ago. Guess what? They blew away all of them by renovating all the schools and now they want to sell few of the school facilities to come out of their budget woes.
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Katy Perry asked why people without kids should have to pay for schools.
I pay for schools I don't use, and I am happy to do it. Why?
1) Someone paid for my education already, and now it is my turn. If you were lucky enough to attend a private school, chances are one or your parents or grandparents benefited from public education.
2) It is better to live within a population that is educated to some basic level. When I drive, I hope that the other drivers can read well enough to understand signs at speed and well enough to have read the rules of the road. If my stove breaks, I want the repairman to be literate enough to read specs and directions and to order parts. If I am in a hospital, I hope that all of the people who work with me are able to do the basic math necessary to calculate dosages and deliver my meds to me without killing me. Beyond that, I like living in a world where skilled engineers can design clever, useful devices and gifted storytellers are able to write books for me to enjoy. I like civilization, and education is key to civilization.
That said, we should not need parcel taxes in order to pay for schools. We need to address core money management issues.
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If the funding of education is so important to all residents of the state why is it only funded by property owners. I think a more equitable solution is to increase the sales tax by one percent or so and/or increase the income tax by one percent. This way it hits all residents and any increases are more direct and the next time a referendum comes up to increase the rate more voters will question the need for additional funds.
When I lived in California as a renter I never automatically voted for additional taxes on property owners as it made no sense that they were the only ones tapped for more money. When I owned my own house I also had the reaction, I think it's past time to mainly get the funding from one source and we must consider a different way.
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madhaus says
I can excuse a civilian for not understanding the basics (being ignorant!), but if your a registered as a corp, partnership, small business, etc, than you are not exempt from property tax. I have seen plenty of corp prop tax bills from $25-250K in my career. It can run $50-200 per employee every year.
Not only are you on the hook for real property tax (owner or pass through by landlord), you will be directly liabable for personal property tax every year based on your purchase price. Leashold Improvements, Equipment purchases, and other tangible property.
See form 571-L
Take for example your coffee house, doctor, or dentist, they also pay heft prop tax, personal on their equipement and real prop on building they lease or own. Fact is larger corporations like Apple, Intel, HP pay well over million in property tax each fucking year in year out. Not to mention your chain grocery stores (safeway), and mega mall (westfield) owners who pay up up millions $$$ on non-inventory property to the small retailers.
Not only do we get hefty tax bill, many registered corporations get audited on a rotation every 3-4 years by the county and they dont give out refunds!
If your a California company, and have business facilities in other states Texas, Michigan, Washington.. you pay Property Tax to other states revenue. Again, they have Tax agents representing their state in CA to do audits for Prop and Sales Tax.
Fact is corporations pay a hefty amount in prop tax. You can be informed or stay ignorant of the facts.
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When SV was booming with jobs and building new facilities for mfg and r&d, revenue from property tax increased with our growth rate. Yes, all those mega Billion dollar plants certainly helped police and schools.
Today, we have less than half as many corporations compared to 10-15 years ago, therefore property tax revenue has dropped. We are not expanding facilites nor buying up mfg equipment which like in the past gets taxed.
Maybe, just maybe, your question should be
"how do we attract more corporations in SV and grow facilities (along with jobs) which will increase property tax revenue".
Think you handle that ?
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madhaus's website
Burbed piece on Prop 13 is up.
http://www.burbed.com/2011/10/23/prop-13-insidious-budget-cancer-or-fiscal-terrorist-threat/