Hacker News Reader

Comment by nthj | Hacker News Reader

This argument seems to make sense on the surface, but California already has some of the highest income taxes in the country. To make an appeal to extremes, if California had a 40% income tax they wanted to raise to 45% asking, “show me how you have demonstrated good stewardship in what you are already taking” would be, I imagine, somewhat common. Reasonable people can of course debate that percentage, and can do so today based on California already having high income taxes.

View on HN

California does have high income tax, but property taxes are some of the lowest in the nation, and a recent attempt to reform those taxes failed. That leaves California 12th in state tax burden.

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...

Only helps if you're a homeowner. If you rent California probably has one of the highest tax burdens.

Property taxes in CA punish the newcomers and reward old money. When I bought in Mill Valley in 2001, I was literally paying 13X more taxes than my neighbor, a masseuse who inherited the property and kept the same tax rate her parents paid in the 70s. And as a very liberal town, every new tax initiative always passed, which again hit us harder.

If at least Prop 13 benefits could not be passed as inheritance, that would go a long way to balance things.

I'm happy I moved to WA now where my property taxes do get reassessed every year, but it balances out with no state income taxes.

> property taxes are some of the lowest in the nation

That's like citing the average rent in San Francisco. Great if you've been living in a rent controlled apartment for 30 years, but irrelevant if you've moved there recently.

California’s governance with respect to property taxes is horrific and inequitable to the point that it should be illegal in many ways it has distorted the national economy in good and bad ways as folks sitting on property have turned into the 21st century version of a French aristocrat by sitting in their 50s ranch.

That cohort of Californian is dying off now, and it may be better for all involved if companies pull out and disrupt the status quo. California’s incompetence shouldn’t drag down everything.

the property tax rate is fair. unless there is a cap on speculative activity on real estate with a real interest and initiative in keeping housing prices stable, prop 13 is the untouchable third rail.

just stopping foreign investment in california real estate will make an enormous difference. removing the prop 13 waiver for those who inherit property with the old tax rate will also help. with older people on the clock to die sometime within the next decade, ca will see a flood of plumped up property taxes when the homes change hands. but just the two measures is a good short term relief. million dollar homes are bought sight unseen and then flipped for 40-60% markup by foreign investors and people who dont even reside in california. making it a speculative rodeo circus. let the Gov. fix THAT first.

Valuation based assessment is a core principle of property taxes. The prop 13 stuff is gross and I’m always surprised that it was never shot down in the Supreme Court.

California can be California, but the problem is more than some junk ranch house is selling for $3M. It’s bullshit that the whole country is essentially held hostage by “too big to fail” California mortgages that homeowners cab just walk away from.

Actually property taxes are ad valorem. [..] An ad valorem tax is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax. - Wikipedia[..]

Property taxes are paid EVERY year. What asset do you own that you keep on paying sales tax on?

The real estate market should be stable and for free market forces to aid that, we have to make many more fundamental changes before even touching prop 13.

1. Starting with children and grandchildren who inherit property not benefiting from the prop 13.

2. Secondly, a moratorium on all foreign investments in the real estate market in California.

3. A tiered tax rate for homes left empty while enjoying prop 13 benefits. Additionally, the primary home can also be entirely tax free wrt recurring annual taxes.

California’s problem is not low taxation. Our problem is our state budget and gross mismanagement of our tax dollars by our elected representatives.

I would like to see how they manage our current levies and with more transparency before we hand over a bigger portion of our pay check. If people don’t have disposable income to spend, the economy will crumble and collapse.

Every other jurisdiction that I’ve owned property uses comparable sales to establish fail valuation. In New York, where I live now, jurisdictions do a comprehensive reassessment when market changes start creating structural inequities. Exemptions are for elderly, disabled vets, etc are expressed as a capped percentage of valuation, backed by an alternative revenue source.

An owner with an identical property should be paying identical tax.

You clearly don’t know the history of prop 13. It is untouchable because the last time they increase it, thousands of retirees and seniors on fixed income had to sell their homes to pay the tax. Not everyone is a millionaire in CA. Most of the population is working class and can’t afford raising taxes.

California property values rose dramatically. NY and NJ are the worst places to own property. The whole housing depends on landlords and rent controlled apartments. Where they make money from insanely expensive utilities by strangling the poorest people. It’s a different kind of scam. Upstate NY is a whole different kind of hell with seven months of gray and knee high snow.

This is why there was no Silicon Valley in NY. This is why NY didn't create as many millionaires out of middle class and provide upward mobility to citizens as well as opportunities to immigrants. What’s NY’s GDP? What’s NY’s population? What’s NY’s total state tax revenue?

I’ll tell you. NY’s GDP is comparable to South Korea and is at 1.7 trillion. CA’s GDP is comparable to Great Britain and is at 2.97 trillion(highest in USA) NY population is 8.5 million vs CA’s 39.5 million. As an aside: our Ag income alone is in excess of 50 billion and that’s just 2% of our economy. We also have non millionaires and retired people on fixed income. NY’s taxes were around 73 billion vs CA’s total taxes were close to 450 billion.

NY is swimming in red ink due to deficits shortfalls ..2.8 billion in 3 months due to covid. Our tax income increased. I don’t think NY’s budget modeling is something for CA to emulate ..with all due respect. NY should do what it does and leave CA to Californians to vote and decide. CA is not NY. We are a country on our own. Our problems can’t be solved by anything that works for other states. The struggle is real.

Blind comparison is not useful or helpful.

California also has one of the lowest property taxes in the country. Income tax is high and so is sales tax but to look at a single form of taxation and conclude that taxes are high in general is a non sequitur. Texas, for instance, has high property tax but it would not be considered a high tax state for this reason alone. At the end of the day it costs a certain amount to run a modern government, the question is simply a matter of what taxes are the most fair way to finance it.

Note: California’s government probably could be leaner, but there is also broad bipartisan support for more prisons, police and firefighters. The California republican party’s focus on cutting spending overlooks the deeper problem that we aren’t getting good value on a lot of the spending and budget cuts only exasperate the problem. More meaningful institutional reforms are needed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com