Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families | Hacker News Reader

Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families

washingtonpost.com

25 pointscs70216 comments

My hunch is that the assessors are coming up with their numbers based on the quality of the property and are fair in that regard, but when it comes time to sell the property there is some preference among buyers (call it racism if you will) not to live in a black neighborhood. The assessors in that case should use historical sales data to adjust down the valuation of the property. But could that end up hurting black homeowners in the long run? It's hard to say.

"there is some preference among buyers (call it racism if you will) not to live in a black neighborhood"

I will. That is racism.

That does smell like racism but I'm not sure it is in all cases; a native Chinese speaker might prefer to live in a city's Chinatown without them being racist.

Is it? On the other side of things, might black people want to avoid majority white neighborhoods where the white police will more likely target them as well? Might black people prefer black neighborhood themselves so that they can live amongst people they understand with a culture they're familiar with? Are those black people racist?

Probably. But it depends how you define the word. Discrimination based on skin color? Then yes.

Freedom of association is important for all people, I believe. If Asian people have been victimized by other groups in American society, they should be allowed to congregate and live with each other, where they will be able to have the power and influence to protect their people and interests. If black people cannot trust the white police force to not kill them, they should be allowed to move to black cities with black police who will less likely kill them. And if whites feel that they cannot live amongst blacks due to their poor relations with eachother, who are we to stop them from leaving? Because forcing two opposing groups to live with each other only breeds more violence and suffering. I wouldn't shame them or call them racist. It's pragamatism at worst. You could bring up statistics all you want to say why x or y is not the case. But that doesn't matter to individuals. People decide these things on their own, in their best interest, for their family's safety.

I don't disagree. No free person should be compelled to live or not live in a specific area.

I can imagine that if I were a black parent I might well want to live in a neighborhood where my children would face less pressure to get involved with gangs and that I might conclude that a majority-black neighborhood was suboptimal in that respect. That is why I hesitated to categorically call it racism.

> I will. That is racism.

Not necessarily. There are also cultural factors to consider.

> The assessors in that case should use historical sales data to adjust down the valuation of the property.

Isn't that exactly what assessors should be doing? I don't see how you can value real estate without factoring in land values, which is best determined by nearby prices. If racism drives down sales values in a neighborhood, that should be reflected in property tax assessments.

Suppose there is racism on the part of the real estate agents; they don't work as effectively for black clients as for white clients in the same neighborhood. So white and black clients in the neighborhood get taxed based on the average sale price -- which benefits whites (because it is less than they can sell their house for) and harms blacks (because it is more than they can sell their house for.)

Or similarly, if buyers are racist the same kind of dynamic could take place.

In either case, though, it doesn't seem as though the assessors are doing anything wrong, unless we want them to start taking the race of the owner into account when they do their assessments.

Note that California was excluded due to prop 13 heavily weakening reassessments. I generally dislike the law (favors old homeowners over new), but I had never considered until reading this article that removing power from property assessors could itself lead to more socially just outcomes on different metrics.

There are some major issues with prop 13 in that it allows people to set up a paper company to own a piece of property, then sell the paper company rather than the property in order to avoid tax reassessment.

The loophole is that properties owned by corporations are not reassessed when the corporations are sold

There is already a measure on the ballot to reform prop 13 https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-meas...

Seems like the article starts with the conclusion that the disparity is explicitly racially motivate, and works backward.

Why not work from a premise that the outcome is disparate but the reasons might be more nuanced? (that was rhetorical. I know why they didn't) What about:

- Assessors don't properly account for disparate crime levels for properties that are similar on paper?

- Minorities are priced out of gentrifying neighborhoods because of rapid price increases. This is why Prop 13 happened in CA in the first place, so middle class folk wouldn't be taxed out of their homes when they exploded in value.

- Minorities don't know they can appeal their assessment. Who's responsibility is it to know that? Is there evidence that a state actively attempts to hide this info?

- If they control for race, would the numbers show that white people who live in similarly high crime areas also pay disproportionate property tax? Could it be that black and Hispanic people disproportionately live in higher crime areas, and it is the lack of including crime rates in neighborhoods when assessing taxes is a primary driver if this effect?

I thought this was really the crux of the whole thing: “ While the analysis is not designed to show “active” discrimination, it cannot be ruled out, Howard said. But, he said, “you can equally tell the story that assessors don’t realize how unequally the burden is landing along racial and ethnic lines.”

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