OTOH, I’m much more bothered by landlords and other property owners of rental or other non-primary homes getting Prop 13 protection. Taxpayers have absolutely no business subsidizing landlords’ profits and/or the costs of a second home, vacation property, or tracts of raw land (as with the Williamson Act).
Profits get taxed as income. Much more equitable for the state to tax income and distribute it to municipalities than having rich towns be able to tax much more than less wealthy areas.
Capping property taxes at ~1% of value with a defined rate of increase for everyone in the state seems like an equitable solution. It makes the property market fairly predictable — owners can’t suddenly be hit with a 50% rise in taxes, killing their profit margins or making properties suddenly money-losing. A large tax increase would either be passed on to tenants, or if it can’t be, would result in a lot of abandonment and insurance fires. As happened in places like Detroit and Newark, NJ in the 60s.
Prop 13 is not a subsidy. It’s a tax limit. One that can be overridden anyway by things like parcel taxes, provided the people living in an area have the will to do so.
