Public Employee Unions want to change Prop. 13 so busness property tax goes up & up more every year. (Oakland: employment, cost)

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

And if you lived in Oakland as I do the property tax with all the assessments could very well be $3500

Mom owns the land that is her backyard... it is a couple of steep acres in Oakland with an assessed value of 25k... yes 25k because it is not buildable... but it is a nice buffer... the property tax on this jumped from 3k to 4k in one year due to a number of Special Assessments often calculated on lot size...

that's true and it's one of the reasons I didn't move to any one of a number of places that continue adding those special assessments.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by Electrician4you

Don't forget that you also make less in Nevada pay wise for the same job in Ca. So when you add everything up it's not really any different.

Here is how I go shopping for insurance. I call different agents and tell them I need insurance fir
Cars, property, rentals, umbrella etc. at these xyz coverage limits? I look at the total cost.
It makes no difference if one guy charges me 2000 for car insurance and 500 for all the others and the other guy charges 1500 for car insurance and 1100 for the others it's 2500 vs 2600.

When you add up this is it's but this is mire and put it against your income you'll find that it's probably not much different. People think housing is cheaper n x state I'll move there cause I'll save on housing. Yeah you will but that's only if your wages stay the same as you have them now.
I hear a lot of moving to Texas is better. For me to move to Atexas I would be taking a 33% pay cut. And double my property taxes

A lot of my retired California Law Enforcement friends from the SF Bay Area have retired to Nevada... they say no income tax makes it a no brainer...

I don't have a 100 to 180k pension so I will never know... but this is the range of pensions my friends have.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

In addition to your examples... Silicon Valley got its name, of course, from Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication plants ("Fabs") where "computer chips" are made on silicon wafers. Currently, the wafer is about the size of a dinner plate (300mm) but it used to be much smaller - the size of a bread plate. We used to have many, many Fabs in California. They are almost all gone -- not because of labor costs but because of California's regulatory burdens and California's misguided policy of charging sales tax on capital equipment used to manufacture those "computer chips". When a fab retools to build a new generation of chips, this extra sales tax amounts to $60 million or more. Other states don't do this.

The jobs lost are very high skilled and highly paid positions: PhDs in many science and engineering disciplines.

Excellent point and one I could not verbalize...

Also a friend had a plate shop serving the valley... he simply could not meet the regulatory requirements and be profitable...

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

that's true and it's one of the reasons I didn't move to any one of a number of places that continue adding those special assessments.

My brother lives 10 minutes away in Castro Valley in a nice home with nice neighbors... Mom's effective property tax rate in Oakland is about 50% higher than his... the difference between city and county...

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Good post CA4Now. I have just a few small points to add.

1. Huge corporations are unlikely to move. Last time I had a statistic on families moving it was once every 7 years. That means the corporation has a long established Prop 13 record, and that homeowners get a reset every 7 years. This supports your post.

2. At least the huge corporations employ people so they are providing our economy with jobs, the employees being people who buy goods and pay taxes. (Not related to your post.)

My own opinion is that big CA government simply spends too much money. We should be looking at smaller government, fewer regulations, a smaller state operating budget--which then would require less taxes to feed the monster. -- It's the same thing on the federal level.

Toyota and GM and Ford left California...

Chevron is quietly moving to Texas...

A corporation is available to anyone... anyone can form a corporation and several of the Docs I work with own nothing of value outside their "Corporations"

Corps also pay tax on income and that income is taxed again when distributed...

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

Toyota and GM and Ford left California...

Chevron is quietly moving to Texas...

A corporation is available to anyone... anyone can form a corporation and several of the Docs I work with own nothing of value outside their "Corporations"

Corps also pay tax on income and that income is taxed again when distributed...

I had my engineering consulting business incorporated for a few years. Sub S. So I do know a bit about it, but nothing about putting assets like my house into it, I don't think you do that with my kind of corp.

That was a big mistake incorporating my practice. It didn't save me anything, I had to have a CPA do my taxes, and after 2 years I dissolved it and went back to being a sole prop.

[USDefault]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

They most certainly did...

The neighborhood I bought into had 30 year bond assessments for drainage, roads and the local school...

My sellers paid into all 30 years... I simply bought their home after the special assessments had been paid off... and get the benefits someone else paid for.

This was in the past. It no longer matters. I've said -- several times now -- an appropriate tax assessment must meet current and future obligations. Governments (and nearly all business) operates on a fiscal calendar year (some do biennial). Every year, obligations must be paid for. If sufficient money isn't coming in, the unmet obligations become debt. And that debt must be paid. This has nothing at all to do with past payments.

Proposition 13 is artificially suppressing the taxes owed by long-term property owners. Long-termers simply are not adequately funding current and future obligations. This is why California is over $1+ trillion in the hole, when including unfunded pension liabilities.

This has nothing -- absolutely nothing at all -- to do with past investments. Those dollars are spent. Once again, this is simple math. Nothing you have said changes this basic accounting: in California, liabilities are increasing because property taxes are insufficient to meet current costs. Again, nothing you have said, posited, or argued changes this simple fact. And there's only two ways to balance the equation, reduce expenditures or increase taxes.

[Ultrarunner]

It kind of makes the point... Corps pay taxes and have other expenses... for some the added personal protection and anonymity can be worth it.

Corps can and do own real property and anyone thinking corps have a loop hole are welcome to join them.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by USDefault

Proposition 13 is artificially suppressing the taxes owed by long-term property owners.

No, not right. Prop 13 was the solution to protecting long time homeowners, often retired old people, from being kicked out of their houses because many of them lived on fixed incomes and the property taxes were pricing them out of their own homes.

It was a genuine taxpayer revolt! People just had it up to "here" with the state dipping into their pockets deeper and deeper. Finally taxpayers got together and rammed Prop 13 down the government's throat.

Nothing has changed since then. Take away Prop 13 and you will re-institute the process of fixed income retired people being kicked out of their houses by the state continually jacking up their property taxes.

Find a way to solve the problem that doesn't involve kicking retired people out of their homes and I'll be more tractable to agreeing with those who want to repeal Prop 13. Don't you have any sympathy at all for these elder citizens. Before you answer that, please note that one day you will be old too (if you are lucky) and taking away Prop 13 may come back to haunt you.

It probably makes no difference anyway. I think feelings are strong enough today that even if we put it back on the ballot any repeal would probably fail.

But California will find other ways to weasel around and dip into our pockets anyway.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by USDefault

This was in the past. It no longer matters. I've said -- several times now -- an appropriate tax assessment must meet current and future obligations. Governments (and nearly all business) operates on a fiscal calendar year (some do biennial). Every year, obligations must be paid for, or it goes on the debt balance sheet.

Proposition 13 is artificially suppressing the taxes owed by long-term property owners. Long-termers simply are not adequately funding current and future obligations. This is why California is over $1+ trillion in the hole, when including unfunded pension liabilities.

This has nothing -- absolutely nothing at all -- to do with past investments. Those dollars are spent. Once again, this is simple math. Nothing you have said changes this basic accounting: in California, liabilities are increasing because property taxes are insufficient to meet current costs. Again, nothing you have said, posited, or argued changes this simple fact. And there's only two ways to balance the equation, reduce expenditures or increase taxes.

You make my point... I could care less about bicycle lanes or multiple parcel taxes for the Oakland Coliseum and about a dozen others...

Government spends too much and as my good friend who spent a career as city manager in two Bay Area cities put it... it is the benefits and pensions that will consume all revenue when you plot them.

I would never want to go back to the good old boy network where those of influence got Sweetheart tax deals... several assessors went to prison and other committed suicide...

Prop 13 added transparency and cleaned up volumes of tax code...

People act as if Property Tax is California's sole revenue stream... we have oodles of other taxes... sales tax, income tax, utility tax, use tax, etc...

The message is stop messing with people homes... and "IF" the revenue isn't there don't build the high speed rail, stop buying and taking land off the tax rolls or down zoning...

A person I know has a magnificent estate with 80 acres of ridge and a valley... in exchange for a conservation easement he has basically zeroed out future property tax liability...

Plenty of things for those with wealth like the Docs I work with... for the rest of us... we have Prop 13 and it is the only thing responsible so that many can live out their years...

Please realize Prop 13 came about because Sacramento was unresponsive...

A simple fix of indexing the home owner exemption for inflation would have prevented Prop 13...

The Home Owner exemption meant something when a modest home could be bought for 12 to 15k and the exemption was $7500...

Why in God's name didn't Sacramento provide relief with a simply stroke of the pen...

Some may be naive enough to believe taxes will go down if everyone is paying a "Fair" share... I'm not one of them and will walked precincts to stop it... even Brown has said it is settled law.