California Property Taxes Mapped • Hacker News Board

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#71

Post by lambdaops » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

babesh wrote: post #5

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whenever you hear someone bring up the "elderly being priced out" issue, please point out the property tax postponement program: https://sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#72

Post by lambdaops » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #28

twblalock wrote: post #2

This 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…

I found a few places in Beverly Hills where people were paying over 100x less than their neighbors, which is insane. I wonder if posting screenshots of this map up in various neighborhoods showing nearby inequality would be enough combat the "poor old grandma getting kicked out of her house" counterpoint that's pretty much entirely fictional.

Note: seniors can use the property tax postponement program https://sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#73

Post by lambdaops » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #61

refurb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s really unfair is someone whose home goes from $100k to $2M, for a total capital gain of $1.9M gets a 90% discount on their property taxes. The people with the greatest ability to pay are the ones getting the biggest tax break.

> The people with the greatest ability to pay are the ones getting the biggest tax break. They don't necessarily have any ability to pay, which is the scenario that brought prop13 to life in the first place (low-income grandma kicked to the street by taxes). Someone of modest income who bought a modest 100K house years ago isn't cash-flow rich today just because the paper value of their house went up. They are probab…

There are property tax postponement programs in California for that person and honestly, they should be downsizing: https://sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html

Also, I think low-income grandma was and always has been a useful narrative piece. Howard Jarvis, the author of prop13, was literally a lobbyist for apartments and businesses. Please watch The First Angry Man when you get a chance: https://www.kcet.org/shows/the-first-angry-man/episodes/the-...

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#74

Post by nathanvanfleet » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #14

twblalock wrote: post #2

This 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…

It's kind of insane. But it's also kind of insane that when the housing prices double or triple, you can expect your property tax to go up quite a bit as well, which makes it hard to plan for the future. I think if the value increase cap was raised (gradually) to something like 4-5% per year, you would still have assessed values trailing market values, but not by nearly as much. People could still make worst case pro…

The problem is that there are so many people with locked in tax rates that the residents of san francisco has consistently prevented developments that would actually create relief for tax rates. But since their rates are locked they don't have any reason to ruin their view.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#75

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #41

On my block we have five nearly identical houses. My house, which I bought 12 years ago, my neighbors house, which they have been in for 22 years, my other neighbor, who has been there 45+ years, the neighbor two over who bought about five years ago, and the neighbor two over the other way who bought two weeks ago. If my tax bill is X, the rates are as follows, for nearly identical houses, all valued nearly the same…

> So basically the people who just moved in are subsidizing the rest of us significantly.

Not as much as the ratio of property taxes would make you think; given Prop. 13’s other provisions, like the limit on nominal rates, much of the revenue functions that are served by ad valorem property taxes in places that aren't crippled by Prop 13 are, in California, served by a combination of:

(1) Mello-Roos fees (per-parcel assessments that are weighted by value and so aren't affected by the Prop 13 assessment increase discrepancy),

(2) state and local income taxes,

(3) state and local sales taxes.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#76

Post by lambdaops » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #9

seiferteric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wealth should definitely be taxed, especially land wealth. It's super easy to hide money in land wealth if you don't tax it. We need land to go to the highest best use for cities. Otherwise you end up with terrible strip malls, low density housing, and traffic everywhere.

Whoops, I just described Santa Clara County. And LA.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#77

Post by tzs » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #12

seiferteric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the money is being used to pay for local services that "you" are enjoying. Someone has to pay the taxes. It is difficult to see a good argument that having been a landholder for a long time gives some sort of moral right to be supported by others.

The cost to the city/county to provide those local services does not depend on the current market value of my house or my neighbor's houses.

What the service costs depend on is how many houses are in an area, or how many people are in an area.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#78

Post by cheriot » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #55

cameldrv wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to let people run a tab with the government. Make the minimum payment the Prop 13 rate, but if there's a change in ownership, you have to pay back the difference plus a fair rate of interest. This ensures that no one has to move because their home appreciated, but it also ensures that no one gets to pay taxes like their home never appreciated, but then pocket appreciation at sale time.

This seems like it might introduce a different perverse incentive for people to remain in their homes indefinitely even if they’d prefer to downsize / move. Might further exacerbate supply / demand issues.

That's the status quo. People avoid moving because buying a house worth the same amount means paying far higher taxes.

At least with paying taxes on a sale then everyone is paying their fair share. It also reduces the incentive to vote in favor of a housing shortage.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#79

Post by cheriot » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #77

roenxi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the money is being used to pay for local services that "you" are enjoying. Someone has to pay the taxes. It is difficult to see a good argument that having been a landholder for a long time gives some sort of moral right to be supported by others.

The cost to the city/county to provide those local services does not depend on the current market value of my house or my neighbor's houses. What the service costs depend on is how many houses are in an area, or how many people are in an area.

The value of the house didn't go up because the owner did anything. So why should the homeowner reap such a massive reward? And now that they've won the lottery the rest of us have to subsidize their taxes! It heavily incentivizes people to vote in favor of a housing shortage.

It's gotten so bad in SF that high housing prices actually are driving up the cost of services. Every worker from barista to bus driver has to be payed enough to afford living here or to commute in.

Re: California Property Taxes Mapped

#80

Post by yonran » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #35

pc86 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you move. That's how it works; if you can't afford the property taxes, you can't afford to live there.

Or abolish property taxes and fund cities with consumption taxes or some other tax

Property taxes are a consumption tax on the property that you occupy. Even better, the land portion of the property tax can also be considered a Pigovian tax because it is a tax on the natural resources that you are depriving others of occupying.