[Source: Orange County Breeze] Senator Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) announced today that she has reintroduced legislation to correct an outdated interpretation of property “change of ownership” that has been part of the long running debate around commercial property and Proposition 13 (the 1978 initiative that limited property tax increases). “Proposition 13 ensures that property taxes Read More…
Tag: Prop13
New measure on November ballot could dramatically impact property taxes
[Source: Sacramento Business Journal] A titanic battle on the November ballot awaits commercial real estate interests and investors, seeking to stop the most dramatic change to their property taxes in more than 40 years. State officials announced Friday a measure known as split-roll had enough registered voter signatures to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot Read More…
Now is not the time for the crushing tax hikes a split roll would bring
[Source: Orange County Register] Back in the 1980s, the Schylling Company produced an amusing toy, Ernest the Balancing Bear. Ernest performed a “death-defying high wire act” on a string strung high across a room. Ernest the Bear pedaled his unicycle as fast and as furious as possible across the wire trying to keep his balance Read More…
Proposition 13 would spend $15 billion on California schools
[Source: Associated Press] Lake Elementary School, just a half-hour drive northeast of San Francisco, is a relic from 1957. Much of the school’s scuffed flooring is old linoleum that contains asbestos, as does the insulation around the school’s hulking old steel furnace where grey duct tape is wrapped around rusting pipes. “The heating system is Read More…
The false premises and promises of the push for split roll
[Source: Orange County Register/Carolyn Cavecche] I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. But I am keeping my fingers crossed that California voters, already living in the highest taxed state in the nation, will see through the political antics of the desperate. In 2018, some of California’s largest labor organizations and civil rights groups filed Read More…
Small businesses and communities rely on Prop. 13
[Source: Orange County Register/John Kabateck] A study by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found only 22 percent of U.S. small-business owners own the property on which they operate. The majority lease or rent their property. Furthermore, many small-business owners have what is called a triple net lease, which means in addition to the Read More…
Proposition 13 overhaul is pension bailout in disguise
[Source: Orange County Register] Buoyed by a friendly official title and summary from the attorney general, backers of a new ballot initiative to overhaul Proposition 13 are moving full steam ahead with their plan to eliminate tax protections for certain businesses in order to provide what they say will be “full and fair funding” to Read More…
Prop. 13 overhaul gets friendly summary from California attorney general
[Source: San Francisco Chronicle] A new effort to revise California’s landmark Proposition 13 would boost taxes on large corporations and businesses, but opponents are complaining that’s almost an afterthought in the state attorney general’s new title and summary of the proposed initiative. The official statement, which was released Thursday by Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Read More…
San Francisco trial court ruling a temporary setback for Prop. 13
[Source: Los Angeles Daily News] Recently, a San Francisco judge upheld the validity of a local special tax that failed to secure a two-thirds vote of the city electorate as required both by Proposition 13 (1978) and Proposition 218 (1996), also known as the Right to Vote on Taxes Act. Both initiatives were sponsored by Read More…