[quote=XBoxBoy][quote=jpinpb]There are few people who are paying low property taxes, especially after this last bubble.[/quote]
Not true. Here in La Jolla there are lots of people with tax basis that is a tenth of what their neighbors is. Several people on our street are original owners who paid 8-12k for their places. Their neighbors are paying taxes on a basis of 1.5 to 2.5 mil. I find that hardly a fair distribution of the tax burden.[/quote]
Absolutely agree, XBoxBoy. In my older “tract” of 75-80 properties, there were 8 homeowners paying “market rate property taxes” last time I looked. There have been 2-3 recent sales since then which were all “arms-length,” I believe. That would make approx 10-11 homeowners paying market rate property taxes today. I am one of those “unfortunates.” The neighbor on the right side of me pays approx $792 year and the my neighbor on the left side of me pays approx $380 yr.
These close neighbors of mine are NOT orig Prop 13 homeowners. They are HEIRS of prop 13 homeowners, age 61 and 64, respectively (“baby-boomers,” if you will), who “inherited the Prop 13 tax treatment” from their last living parent. Both “inherited” their properties in the early eighties and have been enjoying this low tax rate ever since. I am also a “baby-boomer,” a few years younger than my neighboring homeowner-heirs. I currently pay approx $3100 yr in property tax (after two reductions by the county assessor). The first reduction was obtained by me through a stipulation in lieu of a pending assessment appeal hearing and the second reduction was voluntary, by the assessor. Without these recent reductions, my current annual property tax would be approx $4600.
How is this fair to me or any other market-rate buyer in the last 20 years?? I’m not a RECENT buyer (almost 10 yrs. ago) and actually got a good deal at the time of purchase, including a large cash credit at COE. How are these two “heirs” (out of several hundred thousand in CA) any less able-bodied than myself to pay a market-rate property taxed based upon the stepped-up value at the time of death?? This is the way OTHER STATES handle this issue.
I understand that 75+ year-old seniors need an affordable place to live until they pass. That was the original purpose of Prop 13, to protect seniors from having to sell their principal residence, due to exorbitant property taxes. But the ability to “pass on” its benefits to heirs makes Prop 13 “unjust enrichment” to CA heirs in perpetuity (several generations hence), simply by virtue of a parent/grandparent buying the property before April 1978.
Do Piggs see all these “heirs” and “heirs of heirs” any LESS able-bodied than you and I to pay “market-rate” property tax.
I believe in Prop 13’s original intended purpose but propose that this benefit die with the last (pre-April 1978) owner.
