Comment by vitd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vitd | Hacker News Reader

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I don't understand what you mean. Looking at the wikipedia article on Prop 13, it says:

"It also prohibited reassessment of a new base year value except for in cases of (a) change in ownership, or (b) completion of new construction."

I live in Los Angeles and we have a similar problem being a popular location in California. Basically, there are people living in their homes paying the same taxes they paid in 1978, while anyone trying to buy a similar house will owe modern taxes. So you might be paying $15,000/yr. in taxes and your next door neighbor in a comparable house is literally paying $500/yr. That makes no sense. I've owned property in other states and assessments are done every 1-5 years.

The fallout is that certain areas pay significantly lower taxes, thus contributing significantly less to the community than other areas. It's made worse by the fact that if you inherit your house from your parents (or if they gift it to you before they die), you continue paying the 1978 taxes (or whatever year they bought or built the house). That's insane and it's unfair. It has nothing to do with how people vote. If they paid their fair share, you might have a point, but they don't, unless they decide to do construction on their house. It makes for a very uneven (and I would argue unfair) market.

Look at it from the other side of the coin.

I bought a home. It was a responsible purchase, in line with my earnings. 30 years later, I pay the home off. I retire on a fixed income which accounts for the roughly fixed costs of my home and its upkeep.

Now a big company builds a campus next door. Home prices skyrocket. What do I do? If my property tax is bounded, I'm fine. If not, then suddenly I lose my home because my fixed income did not account for my property taxes skyrocketing.

Sure, Prop 60 accounts for that by transferring basis, but maybe I'm 54 when this occurs so it doesn't apply. Or maybe I'm not retired, but have 3 kids in the local school district and having to uproot my family because I can't afford my home is extremely disruptive.

One of the points in buying a home, rather than renting, is to guarantee that stability.

I agree that there are problems with prop 13, but fairness is a two sided coin. It is certainly not fair for my home (which I own) to suddenly become unaffordable due to external circumstances. Likewise it's not fair for a neighbor to pay double for roughly the same consumption of public services.

I don't know the solution. Possibly decoupling property tax from home values might be the answer. It certainly isn't a very good tracker for public good consumption.

I'd just add that, in many locales, property taxes largely go to fund school systems. So forcing a retiree to move because they can't afford increased property taxes is doubly unfair given that they're not getting the benefits of the higher taxes. As I said elsewhere, gentrification happens and I'd argue is largely a positive, but I'm very leery of forcing people out of property they own. And, in general, I don't think it's good for the community.

I don't see how the fact that someone might be on a fixed income makes it fair for their children to inherit the house and tax-basis from 50 years ago.

Also, I don't see why property tax increases for existing homes couldn't be capped in some way (say no more than inflation) to make this situation reasonable for people in the scenario you've laid out. But just saying, "Your taxes will never increase again as long as you stay in your home," hardly seems reasonable.

First, they do increase. Capped at 2%, correlated to inflation.

Second, I agree on the inheritance piece. That is a problem.

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