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Property tax bills were deadly until voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13 in 1978.
Howard Jarvis, the namesake of the Taxpayers Association he founded, witnessed a woman suffer a heart attack at County Hall after being told she would have to pay higher new property taxes to keep her home. did.
We’ll explain how property taxes were calculated before Proposition 13, but if you have a pacemaker, stop reading now.
Property taxes were assessed based on the market value of the property, and the average rate across the state was 2.67%. Now imagine this. However, if you have a pacemaker, you must pay 2.67% of your home’s current market value each year to keep it.
It’s okay, breathe. Proposition 13 would lower the tax rate to 1% and limit appreciation to 2% per year for as long as you own the property, regardless of market value.
But now there’s something on the ballot that could cause property taxes to permanently increase every election. This is Proposition 5, and if it passes, in just a few years people will start losing their homes again to unaffordable and stifling property taxes. .
Proposition 5 would raise the cost of housing and living for everyone because apartments and commercial properties would also pay these taxes. Rent and prices will rise. And pay attention to this trick. Prop. 5 takes effect immediately and even lowers the voting threshold for municipal bond measures on the same Nov. 5 ballot.
Proposition 5 would eliminate a taxpayer protection that has existed since the signing of the California Constitution in 1879: requiring a two-thirds vote of voters to approve local debt. The handwritten 1849 Constitution also directed Congress to limit the ability of local governments to incur debt to “prevent abuse.”
Prop. 5 would reverse that and lower the approval vote required to pass municipal bonds, the government’s way of borrowing money, from the current two-thirds to just 55%.
California voters agreed in 2000 that school bonds should pass by 55 percent, and now every local government, from cities and counties to transportation districts and local government associations, wants the same deal. . So the Legislature put Proposition 5 on the ballot, and if it wins a simple majority of the statewide vote, it would erase taxpayer protections that have been in the Constitution since 1879.
Municipal bonds raise property taxes. With hundreds of government agencies desperate for more money, municipal bond measures, perhaps two, will almost certainly be on every ballot for the remaining elections. Once government consultants finish writing the sugar-coated ballot language that hides the real costs, many of these measures will reach the 55% vote threshold and raise property taxes for decades. .
Over and over again.
Proposition 5 is a turbo engine to raise property taxes. The lower voting threshold applies to government housing projects, including broadly defined “infrastructure” bonds and types that cost about $800,000 per unit for homeless housing.
Voter-approved municipal bonds raise property taxes. This avoids Proposition 13. That’s why it’s so important to maintain a two-thirds vote to approve debt that will burden taxpayers for more than 30 years.
Early Californians had the right idea. To prevent abuse, local governments must not simply drown us in debt.
John Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
