[quote=Happs]bearishgurl: What % of assessed value do you think is fair? Do you think the % of assessed value should be progressive based upon worth? For example, should a $300,000 house be taxed at 1/2 of 1% of $300,000 and should a $3,000,000 house be taxed at 1.5% of 3,000,000?[/quote]

I’m okay with Prop 13 as written except for the owner’s ability to turn their long-owned property with their ultra-low assessment still intact into rental property and the law’s application to multifamily properties and commercial buildings. When an owner applies to the assessor to have their tax bill mailed to a different address and/or places their HOEX on a different property, then that date should trigger an automatic reassessment on their old principal residence. I’m not sure yet how much of a percentage of the old bill it should be or what formula to use on this. I think the ad valoream portion of a CA property tax bill (the 1% portion of the purchase price + 2% per year) is “fair.”

I’m NOT okay with the transfer-ability of an owner’s old assessment to a new owner (even if that new owner is a child or grandchild of the old owner). All transfers of title should trigger reassessment at an assessor-appraised figure if the transfer was not at arm’s length and its corresponding deed states the property was “sold” for $250 or $50K or some arbitrarily low amount. If the “buyers” don’t think the assessor’s appraisal is accurate, they can go through the assessment appeal process, just like all property owners in CA must do.

I think if the voters were actually educated (via TV/internet/mailers, etc) as to WHO benefits the most from Props 58 and 193 (large scale slumlords, comm’l property owners and old-money families who own multiple `trophy homes,'” etc) and were made aware that owners of 1-4 units are allowed by law to turn their ultra-low assessed properties into rentals and keep their old assessment, those two props alone could get enough attention to get repealed. The vast majority of voters are simply ignorant of these lesser-known “loopholes” in state law.

These measures were both passed in the mid-eighties but it took at least 15 more years for CA state and local governments to begin feeling the ramifications of too many properties still receiving ultra-low assessments and thus their owners paying ultra-low taxes on them.

If Props 58/193 weren’t in place, the first group of ultra-low-assessed owners who originally benefited in 1979 from Prop 13’s rollback to September 1975’s assessment (likely 98% of them born prior to 1955) who still owned these same properties would all eventually die off and thus Prop 13 would become moot. And multifamily/commercial owners would have not been able to transfer title their their property to a Corporation, REIT, or partnership that they were part of and still be able to keep their ultra low assessment. They would have had to keep the title in their own name and operate it solely with their own capital and/or borrowed funds if they wanted to keep their ultra-low assessment.

Rents would NOT be higher in CA (in both residential and commercial properties) if Props 58/193 were not in place. Rent is set by the market and in the absence of rent control, all LL’s attempt to get as much rent as the market will bear (and still retain the best quality tenant they can get). The amount of their assessment has nothing to do with it.

Family farms, other Ag (and wineries, to a lesser extent) should be taxed at .005 to .008 of the assessed value of the property if Prop 13 did not exist. If any state or Federal Ag exemptions exceed that tax savings, these owners are welcome to apply for it. Whether this type of property’s title is transferred or not should have no bearing on the formula used to assess it as long as the property continues to be used solely for Ag purposes. If the current owner decides to sell the property to Big Development, their property should be reassessed effective July 1 of the YEAR PRIOR to the transfer of title out of agricultural use. This will prevent farmers and ranchers from negotiating all year with developers (whether or not they are still farming the land) and then scheduling the closing just before June 30. This will also prevent “middlemen” from transferring title from a farmer/rancher/winemaker to themselves close to June 30 (end of the tax fiscal year) and then having little to no property tax liability for the (brief?) period they owned it.