patrick.net

This also now applies to individuals who can pass on their tax rate to their children. It's so grossly unfair that it's getting to be very much like the French aristocracy right before the French Revolution......If you really want new corporations in California, you must kill Prop 13.

What is Proposition 58?
Proposition 58, effective November 6, 1986, is a constitutional amendment approved by the voters of California which excludes from reassessment transfers of real property between parents and children. Proposition 58 is codified by section 63.1 of the Revenue and Taxation Code.

2.What is Proposition 193?
Proposition 193, effective March 27, 1996, is a constitutional amendment approved by the voters of California which excludes from reassessment transfers of real property from grandparents to grandchildren, providing that all the parents of the grandchildren who qualify as children of the grandparents are deceased as of the date of transfer. Proposition 193 is also codified by section 63.1 of the Revenue and Taxation Code.

Keep believing the left wing class warfare nonsense !

Steve Jobs to Obama...

"You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs said to Obama.

Jobs also said teachers' unions "crippled" the education system in the United States. Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m. and a merit-based system for employing and firing teachers.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-20/tech/30301305_1_steve-jobs-president-obama-tim-cook#ixzz1beexAks6

I benefited personally from Prop 13, buying my San Jose house in 1981 and selling it in 2006....

I retired to Boise, and found out that Idaho's property tax system protects the "little old ladies" just fine. When people complain about Prop 13 they really need to propose an alternate property tax scheme. I submit that California would do a good thing by adopting the Idaho property tax scheme.

In Idaho, all property is assessed annually by the county assessor. All property is taxed at a mil rate of a little over 1% depending upon the county's needs (e.g. mosquito abatement).

HOWEVER all owner-occupied primary residences get an approximately $100,000 exemption right off the top of the assessed value. Since the average Idaho house is maybe $150K at most, this is a HUGE tax break for the middle class homeowner. I paid $1,050 last year for my large comfortable house here in Boise.

And if this tax break isn't enough, poor seniors may get further tax reductions based upon demonstrated NEED. Rich seniors on the golf course need not apply.

corntrollio says

It makes sense to raise money for schools since Prop 13 and the State of California aren't helping us enough to educate our kids.

Wouldn't it make more sense to increase class sizes and do away with the teacher's union.

DennisN says

In Idaho, all property is assessed annually by the county assessor. All property is taxed at a mil rate of a little over 1% depending upon the county's needs (e.g. mosquito abatement).

HOWEVER all owner-occupied primary residences get an approximately $100,000 exemption right off the top of the assessed value. Since the average Idaho house is maybe $150K at most, this is a HUGE tax break for the middle class homeowner. I paid $1,050 last year for my large comfortable house here in Boise.

Isn't that how it's done in most places? I'm pretty sure that's how it's done in Baltimore City, except the exemption is WAY lower than 100K (the average house here sells for less than that).

Thread title is misleading. It should say Property Taxes.

zzyzzx says

It should say Property Taxes.

Nah, all land is property but not all property is land.

Parcel taxes would be a great way to tax land value.

They could be abated for productive enterprise, but to the extent landlords are charging their tenants for the locational advantage, we should seek to capture this ground rent, since the landlord did absolutely nothing to create this locational value.

Same thing for desirable land in general. Coastal land would yield immense parcel taxes, without actually affecting the monthly cost of ownership.

That premium will be paid regardless, the parcel tax -- ie Land Value Tax -- just captures it.

It takes no entrepreneurial effort to profit from rising land value. Those who are profiting from mere land value should be taxed up the ass.

http://wealthandwant.com/themes/LVT.html

Why is it parasitical to own a house and rent it out? He's performing a service to the renter.

Why do people post that renting is so much better than owning (due to flexibility, don't have to do maintenance, etc) and then attack the very landlords who make it possible for someone to rent?

~ says

How is it fair that someone who has purchased his home and diligently made the payments over many years suddenly has his taxes raised 10 times because some idiot next door overpaid?

How is that fair? Why should MY taxes be completely dependent on what YOU do?

This is a silly rationale. If you sell your house, you would reap a huge windfall too. If you want to live in a good neighborhood, you have to take the consequences too. Otherwise sell your house and move to the ghetto -- guarantee you will pay less property tax.

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't it make more sense to increase class sizes

How large do you want to increase them? This has already happened many times in the past, and classes are already considered unmanageable in some cases.

No fan of the way teachers' unions operate, but smaller class sizes are better for education generally.

Thread title is misleading. It should say Property Taxes.
Note that CL said especially in California. And make that especially in the SF Bay Area. Parcel taxes are based on square footage of residential or commercial buildings. This is as opposed to ad valoreum taxes which are based on property value (and limited by Prop 13). Both are included in CA property tax bills. The parcel taxes require a 2/3 majority to pass.

Parcel taxes are not based on square footage. They are PER PARCEL. That means each assessed property (parcel) is taxed the same amount extra. The school district parcel taxes are added to your property tax bill, and it's the same amount for a condo, a house, or a 3000 unit apartment complex.

corntrollio says

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't it make more sense to increase class sizes

How large do you want to increase them? This has already happened many times in the past, and classes are already considered unmanageable in some cases.

No fan of the way teachers' unions operate, but smaller class sizes are better for education generally.

I just think class sizes should be increased to what they were when I went so school in the 70's.

madhaus says

Parcel taxes are not based on square footage

well that really blows. But not surprising of course. This state can't do anything right. Hell, nobody around here can.

SiO2 says

Why do people post that renting is so much better than owning (due to flexibility, don't have to do maintenance, etc) and then attack the very landlords who make it possible for someone to rent?

If we taxed land ownership more intelligently, land ownership wouldn't be the dominant expense in all our lives.

Landlordism is part of the problem, a trillion-dollar-plus suck from the working class to the investor wealthy.

This goes along with the trillion-dollar tap in health care, the $500B+ tap in energy, and the $2T+ tap with overcosted government services, but at least much of these parasitical draws result in middle-class jobs.

Rent-taking in land is just a pure tap. It is one of the most significant imbalances in the system because of this.

madhaus said: Parcel taxes are not based on square footage.
Sigh... you're giving out bad info. Here is an enumerated list of parcel tax items that you pay in the PRoB. Note that for all items you multiple sq.feet by the rate (either residential or commercial).
@Troy - The parcel tax items (based on square feet) are all local (county or city) items. State items and local bonds are ad valoreum (based on property value limited by Prop 13).

zzyzzx says

I just think class sizes should be increased to what they were when I went so school in the 70's.

And what are those class sizes?

Maybe we can go back to one-room schoolhouses? Those were awesome too.

In defense of madhaus, I did some checking and it looks like some cities do have a flat, fixed parcel tax to support schools (see Cupertino, Albany, and Palo Alto). Others have parcel taxes based a combination of land use and lot or building size (see Piedmont, Berkeley). The ones based on square footage do have some administrative overhead, but also tend of pass more easily as they have a 'tax the rich' bent to them. YMMV...

EBGuy, I didn't know there were any parcel (per property ) taxes that were size-based, due to my lack of news on non-South Bay and Peninsula practices. Every one of those tax measures was per property.

Thanks to patrick.net, I have learned something today.

Edit: The word parcel appears once in your link, in reference to lot square footage. None of the other taxes are called parcel taxes. If they are by building square feet, then they aren't parcel taxes. But it does show a parcel tax could tax by property size.

corntrollio says

And what are those class sizes?

It was around 50 in the SouthBay,,, but we also had more schools which were shut down by 1980.

Bellingham Bill says

They stopped making land millions of years ago.

In the Bay Area that would have been around mid 70s or so when Foster City was "created" by man.. dirt and all. About 100 years ago ,man actually made the land around San Francisco much bigger, where the Transamerica tower sits was actually a ship harbor.

Crazy stuff...

thomas.wong1986 says

It was around 50 in the SouthBay,,, but we also had more schools which were shut down by 1980.

If that is actually accurate, it is far far far above California's average.

There are studies on this:

Look at the third chart, where you can see California's average was near 25 in the early 70s and was down to a little over 20 by 1978, and then steadily rose through the 80s (when they did close some high schools in favor of consolidating districts), rose in after 1989 despite SB 1777, and the number didn't drop again until the mid-90s when there were some initiatives to lower class size:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG186.sum.pdf

The reasons to lower class sizes were because of various studies, some of which suggest 18-20 is best, as in the linked article below.

Note that California's average class size has consistently been above national averages since the 1970s:

There is no better example of the trade-off between desire and fiscal reality than here in California, where class size reduction has been discussed and desired for years, but class size has inexorably increased beginning in the 1970s, until today we are generally ranked either 49th or 50th in the country in this category.

http://www.calstate.edu/ier/reports/reduction.pdf

The other thing to note, if we're going to cite the 1970s as some sort of golden age for education, is that California spent more per student than the national average throughout the 70s and into the early 80s. Starting in the late 80s, California consistently spent less per student than the national average, and it only appears to have gotten worse over time. (see the first chart from the first link)

thomas.wong1986 says

Bellingham Bill says

They stopped making land millions of years ago.

In the Bay Area that would have been around mid 70s or so when Foster City was "created" by man.. dirt and all. About 100 years ago ,man actually made the land around San Francisco much bigger, where the Transamerica tower sits was actually a ship harbor.

Crazy stuff...

Yeah, this is very commonly known. We have filled in many parts of the Bay. The Marina was filled in for the 1915 expo. There are other parts of San Francisco built over various creeks, watersheds, and channels -- there is a rich history of San Francisco's lost waterways, and it still affects us today, since many buildings have to pump their basements to remove the water (including Powell BART station which has a huge pumping operation). Various portions of the Bay have been filled in at various points -- Redwood Shores is another example of an entire community built on Bay mud.

In addition, there is plenty of land in the Bay Area. Much of it is protected for one reason or another -- as open space or via various other land use restrictions that limit growth.

madhaus said: If they are by building square feet, then they aren't parcel taxes.
That (possible) technicality is not lost on me. However, both Piedmont and Berkeley (PDF - see Section 8) refer to their size based 'school assessments' as parcel taxes.