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The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

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Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#61

Post by almost_usual »

aphextron wrote: post #59
almost_usual wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

>If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. He would not “lose” his house immediately. He would be forced to sell it for an outrageous profit and move somewhere he can afford to pay the taxes. Subsidies are subsidies, and I have zero sympathy for those who don’t feel like they’re getting enough when people are literally being forced into homel…

You can't force people to move this way, there is no way Prop 13 will change with this stance.

It's essentially the same sentiment as "Don't like the laws and don't want to pay more than natives? Leave the Bay Area then, you have the whole rest of the country to move to."

Both sides are extreme, comprises need to be made to get anything through.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#62

Post by jorgen123 »

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

I think this is too narrow a view, covering only the supply side. What about demand? Why does everybody only want to live on the peninsula?

Traffic is a big factor there. We have a total and complete lack of modern/fast public transport reaching out into the outlying areas and unlocking their potential.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#63

Post by almost_usual »

cobookman wrote: post #60
nerfhammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

That discourages people from moving up in pay. It'd likely be cheaper to make less money. You'd also encourage rich people to hide their money. Especially trust fund kids who's income is low as they only take out what they need to spend.

>That discourages people from moving up in pay. It'd likely be cheaper to make less money.

It discourages people from moving up in pay AND selling their homes.

>You'd also encourage rich people to hide their money. Especially trust fund kids who's income is low as they only take out what they need to spend.

Still creates more friction and difficulty for the wealthy.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#64

Post by zyang »

nerfhammer wrote: post #50
almost_usual wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

But it would selectively drive out productive members of community. Adding more rules to an already broken legislation would not work in the long run.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#65

Post by aphextron »

almost_usual wrote: post #61
aphextron wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. He would not “lose” his house immediately. He would be forced to sell it for an outrageous profit and move somewhere he can afford to pay the taxes. Subsidies are subsidies, and I have zero sympathy for those who don’t feel like they’re getting enough when people are literally being forced into homel…

You can't force people to move this way, there is no way Prop 13 will change with this stance. It's essentially the same sentiment as "Don't like the laws and don't want to pay more than natives? Leave the Bay Area then, you have the whole rest of the country to move to." Both sides are extreme, comprises need to be made to get anything through.

>You can't force people to move this way

There's 49 other states in this country where that's exactly what happens every single day. Should the city of Palo Alto subsidize them, too?

>Both sides are extreme, comprises need to be made to get anything through.

This is just a false equivalence. Prop 13 is the extreme here. There's nothing even remotely comparable anywhere else in the country. Asking people to pay their fair share of taxes is not "extreme". If we need to subsidize older homeowners who can't afford their homes, that's another discussion to be had and another funding source should be found. Doing it through property taxes has made this place unlivable.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#66

Post by francisofascii »

bluedino wrote: post #55
pm90 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a $2 mil FMV? Give me a break.

If they are both 1500 sq ft homes, what makes the other house $27,000 more taxable? Are you getting that much more municipal service?

Municipal services is not the point of property taxes. It is a fee paid to the community for occupying that space of land. It makes sense for the fee to be based on the desirability or value of that land.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#67

Post by refurb »

ng12 wrote: post #22
pascalxus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to add insult to injury: the ones paying 3000 a year in taxes rather than 30k, are the ones who made millions of dollars in equity off the gain. That's extremely Regressive and completely the opposite of what CA supposedly stands for: Progressive income taxes.

What I don't understand is why they can pocket that appreciation. When you sell the taxman should come knocking for all the abatements you've received over the years.

Not sure why CA doesn't do what a lot of cities do. Tell homeowners they can either pay the higher property tax or put a lien on the property, payable when the house is sold (take it out of the appreciation).

I agree it's ridiculous when the people getting tax breaks are the ones that made $1M on their home in a decade.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#68

Post by almost_usual »

zyang wrote: post #64
nerfhammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

But it would selectively drive out productive members of community. Adding more rules to an already broken legislation would not work in the long run.

What are "productive members of the community"? People who seek profit, hide their wealth, and flip houses to make more money?

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#69

Post by rdiddly »

"It illuminates the basic crisis and contradiction of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is an example of capitalism at its most innovative and dynamic, and simultaneously the site of severe inequality and failing public policies and infrastructure."

No contradiction there. Inequality was always both a feature and a bug of capitalism. Inequality is kind of the whole motivation for participating in capitalism. People start or invest in businesses because they want a little bit more "inequality" in their bank account. It's not to enrich everybody equally.

If you make widgets for $4.50 and sell them for $5 each to a million people, you just extracted $0.50 from a million people and made yourself $500,000. Inequality. It's weird how people have this blind spot where they fail to integrate the big bad word "inequality" they see in the headlines, with the supposedly good and morally harmless act of making oneself rich a.k.a. unequal. I guess it's a disconnect between the micro & macro scales.

A rising tide of water will lift all actual boats, but a 'rising tide' of money doesn't lift all boats, unless there's some intervention in a more socialist direction, such as progressive taxation, to make the money act more like water. Water spreads out flat and covers all ground equally, that's how it manages to lift all boats.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#70

Post by claydavisss »

nerfhammer wrote: post #50
almost_usual wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the transferring of the low tax basis is bogus but Prop 13 does protect blue collar families. I personally know someone who works for a low hourly wage and now owns his home he bought in the 1970s. If he did not have those tax protections he would lose the home he raised his family in and have to move immediately. I understand it's frustrating to outsiders who are new to the city and are trying to "make it" b…

on average prop 13 overwhelmingly benefits wealthy homeowners. So why not add an income level qualification to prop 13 so that it only benefits people that actually need it?

Then homes would simply get deeded only in the name of the stay-at-home spouse who has no income.
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