[quote=CA renter][quote=captcha][quote=meadandale]
My neighbor, who is in his 80’s, bought his house when it was brand new….in 1954. He paid $10k for it.
Would it be fair for him to pay over $4k/year (what I pay)…or almost half the price he paid for the house, every year in property taxes? Does that make sense?
He’s living on a fixed income. I can guarantee that he does not have the money to pay that property tax bill. Should we just kick him out of the house?
Spending in this state has exceeded population growth and inflation in every way imaginable. There is NO revenue problem in CA…there is a SPENDING problem.[/quote]
Your neighbor uses the communal facilities the same way your other neighbor who bought last year does. Yet the new neighbor could be contributing many times more.
If the goal is to lessen the cost for the low income people then the criterion needs to be the income, not the purchase date.[/quote]
Not necessarily. Most of the Prop 13 money goes to schools (53% of it in 2006-2007…don’t have more current info). Unless granny is still sending her kids to school, it’s much more likely the new family is using a greater portion of the Prop 13 money.
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The property tax raised more than $43.2 billion for local government during 2006-07. These funds were allocated as follows: counties 17 percent, cities 11 percent, schools (school districts and community colleges) 53 percent, and special districts 19 percent.
The issue of uneven consumption is different issue. There are young people with no kids, older people with aged-out kids, people with kids, but no need for other services, like lifeguards, libraries or dog beaches.
If we want to factor in the consumption the property tax formula should include the number of school-age residents, proximity to the local beach, miles driven and vehicle tonnage and few other things.
It just feels like another instance of group of people offloading the cost onto another group of people just because they can. The first group still has the same level of access to the communal facilities as the second group.
