Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ancalagon | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Whats wild is the commercial side didn’t get closed. I understand the argument for individuals or households (I don’t love it - I’m on the wrong side of it, but at least it’s somewhat defensible), but if you’re running a business and your income isn’t keeping up with inflation, that’s called failing.

And it will never be repealed.

Old voters like the house they brought 20 years ago for 100k being worth 1.5 million today. They also like not paying taxes on that 1.4m in wealth accumulation.

I mean, I do too. Mine just happens to have been bought before the last inflationary cycle.

I think not wanting to pay some yearly tax on that $1.4 million because the government pretends that the same as having $1.4M cash in the bank, or making $1.4M in a year, is fine.

Not wanting to pay the property taxes associated with a $1.5M home is the problem.

Which is why we also have things like a deferred property tax program! The way to "solve" the problems Prop 13 addresses would be to expand programs like that, but homeowners—disproportionately active middle- and upper-middle-class voters—want to have their cake and eat it too.

It wildly distorts the entire real estate market. Cool your home is worth 1.5 million. Your kids will never ever afford a home.

Without prop 13 that house would probably only be worth 600k. What difference does it make if it functions as a home.

Too late to fix it now.

Is it not that the gains are unrealized? If they sold the house they would pay capital gains tax?

Property taxes are unrelated to income tax

I'm not a finance person but I think capital gains kicks in if you sell early. Otherwise, just regular taxes?

opposite, income taxes take place first. after a waiting period, its just capital gains. capital gains taxes are typically lower than income taxes so this encourage long term holding

They aren't going to sell it, they'll pass it to their children and the cost basis will reset. Their children will then sell it and pay zero tax.

Then it would be taxed under inheritance tax (at the full value of the property - not just the gains).

Edit - I’m wrong, I am uk based - just read up on US, wild that you can inherit a house that’s gone up in value massively then sell it and experience no gains or inheritance tax.

what reasonable persons wants to pay taxes? Just because you like to pay extra doesn't me we should.

It drives me crazy that California voters will wave through every single regressive sales tax hike that is placed in front of them, yet they will crawl through broken glass to vote against a property tax hike on corporations.

Please don't post snarky dismissals like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Mate have you seen how much slop makes it to the front page?

Snark is one of the last ways to deal with the death of the internet.

Acting like a jerk is not the best way to deal with bad content. Our software autokills generated comments and we downweight slop posts multiple times daily – when we know about it. Maybe the way to deal with junk content is not to create more junk content? You can just email us.

If the SEIU healthcare workers union is going to amend the state constitution, they should chip away at Proposition 13 instead of amending the constitution to make a bad tax that encourages capital flight.

But neglects to consider why it won a majority of votes. Why did it? And how does Prop 13 relate to the more recent Prop 19, which substantially weakened it?

But let's be clear: Prop 13 is bad and is holding down property taxes on both commercial and residential land.

> News at 9.

The idiom is "film at 11."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com