California Property Taxes Mapped
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California Property Taxes Mapped
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Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#2This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13.
Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them.
That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax system that way if they were starting from scratch.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#3This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
America is so setup for people who already have theirs. It's mind boggling
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#4This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#5This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
America is so setup for people who already have theirs. It's mind boggling
Do you know who voted it in? It’s not an officeholder. The voters of California voted for it. You want it changed? Go get a proposition to repeal it into the ballot and get it approved by the voters.
It’s as simple as that.
It wasn’t designed this way. There was a complaint that elderly were being driven from their homes by high property taxes.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#6This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
[deleted]
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#7This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
[deleted]
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#8This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Because everybody else's does.
If ownership transfer didn't reset the rates, it would be a slightly different story.
Edit: In that, it'd still be something that makes an economist cringe, and it'd still be "unfair" but in fewer ways.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#9This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Maybe the solution is to stop making property tax the main way that cities are funded.
Among other things, this method of taxation tightly couples school funding to local home values. Areas with expensive homes have the best schools. (And areas with cheap homes have bad schools, which is not really what you want if you are trying to do something about inter-generational poverty.) This is self-reinforcing because now parents compete with each other to buy homes that are located in the best school districts, which drives up prices even more.
When home values drop, such as they did in 2008, property tax revenue drops too (Prop 13 is not a one-way ratchet, you can get re-appraised and lower your taxes, and 2008-2009 was a pretty convenient time to do that).
It doesn't seem like a good idea to base city revenue on something that is so undependable, especially something that is so often treated as a speculative investment.
What I would rather do is come up with a system where a simple tax is paid per parcel, perhaps a flat tax or one based on the size of the parcel, and which is not based on the market value of the parcel.
The rest of city funding can be covered by income tax -- unlike the current system, at least that has a chance of being progressive. No old people will be priced out of their homes by tax increases, and school funding would be distributed somewhat more evenly because not all high earners live in the most expensive areas. And if you are worried about an influx of high earners flooding into your area and driving up the prices, a local income tax would certainly discourage them.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#10This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Property taxes going up would be a negative feedback on property values. Perhaps part of why property values are so absurdly high is because there is little incentive to sell, which would add more supply to the market