The idea of getting rid of property taxes is generational warfare.

@dancingtongue
Perhaps because it would show the great difference in their incomes!

It seems you are making the argument for even higher property taxes. Why? To pay for services that could just as easily be paid for with a more progressive state income tax rate?

Proposition 13 addressed the issue that was taxing seniors out of their homes by forcing them to pay taxes on what someone else was willing to pay for their property rather than what they paid for it.

The 1978 voter-approved initiative rolled property taxes back to 1975 levels. Properties were then only reassessed when sold (at 1% of the sale price) and taxes could not rise more than 2% per year.

@beckyromero

The newest home owner on my block has to be paying at least 10 times what I am in property taxes. I doubt seriously he is earning 10 times what I am.

I am not making an argument for higher property taxes; only a more equitable spreading of that tax base since it directly affects the value of that property through better infrastructure controlled locally.

Prop 13 made it easier for seniors to keep their homes; we both acknowledge that. But it also greatly restricted local revenue streams for local infrastructure, shifting those revenue streams to the state and Federal levels, which increased income taxes (which the truly rich avoid through their many loopholes, in addition to the substantial tax breaks they now got on their real estate).

@dancingtongue
He was able to afford a house that has a tax basis ten times yours though. Could you afford to buy that house?


The state legislature could (and still can) have tackled that by raising state income taxes in a progressive way.

You and other voters also have the power to do that.

@dancingtongue

Like Deep Throat said, "follow the money."

From the CA Board of Equalization, April 2025:

For county-assessed properties, the total local property tax revenue generated is approximately $95.3 billion, contributing $51.1 billion to schools and $44.2 billion to counties, cities, and special districts. This is an additional $6.3 billion, or a 7.1% increase, in property tax revenues from the prior fiscal year. For state-assessed properties, schools and local communities statewide will receive approximately $2.6 billion in revenue, or a 13% increase, in property tax revenues from the prior fiscal year. (emphasis added)

But California's population in January 2025 was 39,529,000, an increase of only 108,000 from the prior year (an increase of 0.27%).

Moreover, according to your state's Department of Finance, California experienced the 7th consecutive decrease in total Public K-12 Enrollment in the 2023-24 school year (-14,900 students), enrolling 5,837,700 students.

So, whereas your state's revenue from property taxes continues to grow, fueled by higher property values, your #1 ticket item - public schools - seems to need less money each year (not adjusted for inflation).

@beckyromero You are looking at only one aspect of school expense: declining PUBLIC school enrollment. It overlooks nearly a half-century of deterioration of the school buildings through deferred maintenance and minimal new construction because of revenue reductions from property taxes; increased teacher compensation (although still at near poverty levels); the increasing need for construction of teacherages -- a relic from Great Depression Years that lured my mother into her first one-room school district -- to provide affordable housing for teachers in the districts they are teaching in; and the fact that a portion of that decreased PUBLIC school enrollment is being siphoned off by better financed PRIVATE and CHARTER schools, which can cherry pick the best students with no requirements to provide for physically and developmentally challenged students, and non-English speaking students.

@dancingtongue

Voters in your state have had the opportunities to change that. One thing they did was pass the lottery, which helps fund public schools.

And you are overlooking that property tax revenue has outpaced inflation.

As longtime California political reporter Dan Walters noted in 2020:


Walters concluded:


https://calmatters.org/commentary/2017/07/despite-proposition-13-california-property-tax-revenue-soared/

@beckyromero Valid points, but skirts the fact that property taxes in the aggregate have grown because housing costs have skyrocketed and affordable housing become practically extinct. Thus the 1% can afford housing while marginal workers are being squeezed out of the market if not entirely out of housing and on to the streets. And the 1% get a further tax break because their property taxes are capped. And every aspect of living costs have increased correspondingly for schools, firefighters, police, infrastructure construction and repair, etc. along with the increased revenue. Making local governments more dependent upon state and Federal funding. A tax base that the 1% even more tightly controls through paying lobbyists to build in loopholes, and donating huge amounts of campaign funding to control politicians.

This idea of pushing the tax base up the ladder to state and Federal levels -- which goes back to at least Nixon with his collecting taxes for the states and then returning it to the states in approved block grants -- as a way of minimizing taxes overlooks the fact that the further up the food chain you push the taxing, the less influence you have over how your tax money is being used. When it is local politicians spending locally generated taxes, you have a far better chance of having a say in how that money is being spent. The corporations, the billionaires, the ideological PACs of unnamed, have far more difficulty spreading that money down to the grassroots than they do at the top of the food chain.

@dancingtongue
And if property values didn't skyrocket in California for the past four or so decades? What's your alternative to come up with all that Prop 13 did bring to the coffers? Continue to reassess the property values every year in, year out?

I gave you an alternative to come up with the monies you feel were robbed from local government. A higher but more progressive state income tax. And over time, California has moved in that direction. But it was slow to do so. The state should have done that after Prop 13's passage.

But your state had a governor at the time who was more interested in preparing to run for the U.S. Senate as a steppingstone for the presidency. A governor, who I might add, that when he finally did make a run for the White House made a regressive "flat tax" a central plank of his campaign platform.

There are plenty of ways the state legislature could have tackled the property tax issue prior to Prop 13, including giving tax credits back to property owners based upon their income. The constant rise in assessments didn't occur overnight. The legislature could have acted, but it didn't.

So the result was a voter-passed initiative with 62.6% of the vote. No president since 1820 has receive that high a percentage of the popular vote. Almost five decades later, Prop 13 is still a third-rail of politics in California.

@beckyromero
They are reassessed every year under Prop 13 as well, only capped at 2% each year beginning with the year you bought.


Actually, not that slow. It is exactly what Governor Jerry Brown, whom you disparage in the next paragraph, actually did in order to bail out local governments. Which addressed the financial issue, but ceded a large degree of local government control over finances to Sacramento.


Is a flat tax actually regressive, if it means there are no loopholes for the rich? What good is a progressive income tax on the rich, if the rich can avoid paying most, frequently all, income tax through loopholes and a flotilla of CPAs and tax attorneys? It would certainly be regressive for the Tax Preparation industry that lives on the backs of those of us who don't have CPA's and tax attorneys on our payroll to make our way through the Byzantine corridors of the existing tax codes. Sales taxes--even those with exemptions for food--are far more regressive, imho. VAT taxes, where high end consumption bears the biggest tax obligation, that is used by a large number of industrialized nations, is best, imo.

That we can agree upon. The other bigger issue at that time was the struggling mom-and-pop farmers whose land happened to be in prime locations for ever-increasing sprawl were being assessed at the market rate for the land IF developed. It was driving agriculture out of arable land into far less arable land, aggravating water issues while driving agriculture into the arms of corporate farming.

@dancingtongue
That is absolutely 100% incorrect! (except for the 2% increase that can occur annually)

California real estate is reassessed to reflect current property values when there's a change in ownership of more than 50% (or when additions cause a higher value).

That's why the new ownership of the Dodgers is renting the parking lots from former owner Frank McCourt - to prevent a reassessment that would send their property taxes sky high.

Here are a couple of stories about it in case you don't want to take my word for it.

https://hanfordsentinel.com/opinion/california-focus-the-dodger-deal-and-a-big-prop-13-loophole/article_c27dbf2a-7dc0-11e1-8d75-001a4bcf887a.html

https://gregorybecker.com/prop-13-dodgers-mccourt.html


You (and Jerry) and I apparently have a way different definition of what a "regressive" tax is and how it effects low and middle wage earners..


https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-26-mn-6383-story.html

But the bottom line is that Republicans and conservatives LOVE the idea of a flat tax.

Which is why good 'ol Jerry got so much flak for proposing it.

@dancingtongue
That 13% VAT that Jerry proposed is higher than the sales tax in any California county. I wonder what THAT would do to the overall cost of food for consumers?

@beckyromero But it was replacing income tax and was not a VAT as I recall. Some county sales taxes have crept up as high as 12%, partially in response to Prop 13 property tax cuts. While property tax revenue in the aggregate may have gone up significantly, it varies greatly by county depending upon demographics. It has enabled seniors to remain in their homes if they so chose, but in older communities that means they have not benefited greatly from the upswing in property tax revenue in communities where the booming housing market is churning, meaning new owners are paying the escalated taxes.

@dancingtongue
You recall incorrectly. And for your benefit and everyone else's, here are the facts.

Brown did indeed propose a 13% flat tax on income AND a 13% VAT to replace the then-federal income tax system.

What would that have done to low and middle income earners?

It would have been even worse than President Trump's "big beautiful bill"!

Citizens for Tax Justice at the time said at the time that even with Brown's proposal, the federal government would still raise about $200 billion less in revenue per year. The research group said that the rates for both would have to be 16.3% to prevent a big revenue drain.

The group called Brown's proposal "stupid" and said that under the California governor's proposal "taxes on poorest Americans would go up 19.5 percent, but that taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans would drop 15.1 percent."

The group's president, Robert McIntyre, said, "It would be the greatest thing for the rich and powerful since Andrew Mellon was was Calvin Coolidge's Treasury secretary in the 1920s."

The group estimated that the lowest 20% in income ($8,270 or less in 1992) would see what they owed in federal income tax soar from 6.7% of their income to 26.2%. Meanwhile, the richest 1% ($566,700 and up) would see their federal tax liability drop from 28.6% to 13.5%.

Why? Because as the Gannett News Services noted the reason why Brown's proposal would slam low and middle income Americans is because "they have fewer deductions and tend to spend most of their income, they would bear the combined weight of the 13 percent income tax and the 13 percent sales tax."

New York Governor Mario Cuomo also criticized Brown's proposal, noting that Brown's proposal would wipe out the deductability of his state's high state and city's taxes from federal returns. So, too, would the effect have been in other high-tax states like, oh, California.

Peter Merrill, senior tax economist with Price Waterhouse, noted how unfair the tax would be for seniors on Social Security.

"Not only would they have paid (the Social Security wage tax) all their lives, but now they'd pay the VAT that replaces it. So they would be paying twice."


No, not even in part to a ballot measure passed by the voters -- when JIMMY CARTER was president. The legislature in California has mostly been controlled by Democrats in the past 47 years. Brown himself was governor when Prop 13 passed and was elected to a second term five months later. He and the Dems had four years to address any feared shortfalls before a Republican governor was elected in 1982 (the same year when Jerry couldn't even beat the mayor of San Diego for the U.S. Senate).

Local governments do not exist in a vacuum. The Constitution of the State of California gives citizens the right to put ballot measures up for a vote. And Prop 13 is how they decided by nearly a two-thirds margin to address property tax crisis. Like it or not, it necessitated a shift in how local government funded many of their services.

One of those services was education, which already was under fire for the great disparity between the state's poorest school districts and the wealthiest. In 1971 the state Supreme Court, in Serrano v. Priest declared the state's public school financing system unconstitutional because it discriminated against the poor. It was a system financed by property taxes and administrated at the local level. The wealthier a school district was the more funding that poured into their schools, higher salaries to acquire better teachers, newer text books, more funding for extracurricular and nonacademic activities, routine repairs to buildings and restrooms.

But the Court, in a 6-1 opinion noted:


The Court went on to note that the amount of funding varied greatly per district, from a low of $103 per child to a high of $952,156 - a ratio of almost 1,000 to one!


The Court further wrote:


And in its conclusion:


That decision was written nearly seven years before Proposition 13 was passed by voters. It was THAT decision, not Prop 13, that required the state to assure a more leveled playing field by making sure that property taxes were more equally distributed across the state.


Yes, new owners who are making so much income that they can afford to pay it.

How do you get a mortgage for a $2 or 3 million dollar homes unless you are making mid-six figure incomes - or already have it in the bank.


Or what? Send them to the deserts of Phoenix or the swamps of Florida?

@beckyromero Obviously you have researched this more than I have, while I have primarily lived it. On both sides of the financial spectrum, I might add. So I have a few questions and quibbles. And that is what they are -- not an argument in support of Brown's long ago failed flat tax proposal nor an argument that the property tax system of the 70's didn't need reform of some sort.


Understand the point that sales and VAT taxes take a bigger chunk out of those with less disposable income to spend. But haven't all flat tax proposals included wiping out the myriad loopholes and deductibles that the 1% have far more access to? To talk strictly about the statute percentages is disingenuous, imho, when the effective[b][i] tax rates for the two groups are so different. It is like arguing that corporate tax rates in the U.S. are tpo high compared to other countries, when the [b][i]effective corporate tax rates in the U.S. are comparable in the aggregate, and many of the largest corporations are paying nothing due to all the loopholes their lobbyists have gotten for them and their CPA's have taken advantage of. Like they say, statistics don't lie -- but statisticians do, by cherry picking which ones they use.


Social Security is a payroll tax, neither an income nor a sales tax. Did the flat tax and VAT tax proposals include wiping out payroll taxes?


True. And why most can no longer afford housing anywhere near their employment, if at all, contributing to the homelessness and transportation problems.


Actually, most I know who are leaving the state are opting for Oregon, Idaho, or Nevada where they can live quite well on the tremendous return they got selling their house in the inflated housing market of today. They got to enjoy low property taxes for decades, and then a huge ROI on top of that while the homeless live on the streets.

Now back to the extremely conflated school discrimination issues. My mother taught on and off in parts of 6 decades, all in poorer school districts serving marginalized students, including special ed classes for developmentally challenged. So I have some perspective. Yes, using property taxes alone to fund education would greatly skewer education to the wealthiest neighborhoods. But California schools never relied solely on property taxes. The state paid a per student per diem allocation for students as well. My mother got her first job teaching in 1929 by being able to bring two of her school-age siblings with her to assure that the one room school would have the mandatory minimum of 5 students every day to qualify for the state per diem allowance. During WWII she taught in a much larger, middle class school district, except she taught in the school on the wrong side of the tracks, which was primarily for the Latinos. Very different teaching environment than the schools on the right side of the tracks, but same district. Had nothing to do with property taxes; just outright discrimination by the School Board and local control didn't work, but not because of property taxes. The Latino population had a far more difficult time registering and voting, so had little voice politically at that time.

Good discussion. Appreciate your viewpoints from afar.

@dancingtongue
Do you really think the person struggling to pay their bills with their low or middle income really cares that millionaires will see loopholes closed when the amount they pay in taxes would double or triple? 😂


THAT is your defense of the flat tax? 😂


Brown's proposal included eliminating Social Security payroll taxes and it would have also eliminated corporate income taxes - it would have been like Christmas morning for corporations. Estate taxes would have gone away as well.


On one hand you are alleging that Prop 13 has reduced funding for local governments and on the other that it's property taxes the reason that real estate is too expensive. But if real estate prices drops, the assessments revenue drops.

As already mentioned, revenue from real estate assessments has risen higher than inflation. That's a GOOD thing for those wanting funds for the government to use for services. Talk to Gov. Newsom and the super-majority Democratic-controlled legislature as to their priorities over helping the homeless and solving the state's transportation issues.


Good for them! That will help them pay And when the sell their homes that means the inventory of homes for sale goes up, helping those looking to buy.

But you make no mention of high wage earners who do or can later the same with deferred salaries and stock options.

Case in point: the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani.

You keep bringing up the homelessness. But apparently you believe that working class homeowners are the ones that have to pay to solve that problem, not the millionaire CEOs, athletes, actors, politicians, or the corporations who aren't paying wages decent enough for people to be able to afford homes.


The California Supreme Court in Serrano v. Priest noted that "over 90 percent of our public school funds derive from two basic sources: (a) local district taxes on real property and (b) aid from the State School Fund." (FN)

(FN) California educational revenues for the fiscal year 1968-1969 came from the following sources: local property taxes, 55.7 percent; state aid, 35.5 percent; federal funds, 6.1 percent; miscellaneous sources, 2.7 percent. (Legislative Analyst, Public School Finance, Part I, Expenditures for Education (1970) p. 5.


Yes. Thank you. We just have differing opinions how best to fund government services.

@beckyromero And differing views on the unintended consequences of going after tax relief for one segment of the population, as well as ignoring that most of the property is owned by rich corporate real estate developers and the 1%; that the real estate developers tend to hold on to property longer than the average home owner so benefit the most from Prop 13's approach; and if only the rich can afford to pay the high housing and property tax expenses resulting from those policies, it is going to contribute to the affordable housing crisis.

@dancingtongue
"Real estate developers" as in landlords?

Keep in mind that the average retired senior citizen homeowner who needs Social Security to make ends meet couldn't care less that an apartment owner near her is paying taxes based on a purchase price from thirty years ago. She's more concerned about the price of prescription drugs, her Medicare payment and the cost of skyrocketing energy and water costs.

And since you want to RAISE the property taxes on both of them, which would force her out of her home, she won't be able to even afford an apartment once the apartment owner raises rents to pay for the higher taxes you want that "developer" to pay.

@beckyromero Good point, IF all those apartment complex owners based their rents on costs vs. what the market will bear. And we both know it is market rates they charge. That's nearly $3,000/mo for a studio WITH their property tax breaks.

And it is this sole focus on ME, ME, ME that drives so much bad public policy, particularly around taxes and housing. I have agreed with you that some form of property tax relief for seniors on fixed incomes was needed, but Prop 13 was a bad solution that helped corporations more and widened the income gaps as well as aggravating the affordable housing shortage and diminishing local community finances, imo. Tax policies need to be based on what is best for communities, states, the nation and not whatever self-interest group that has the clout to get loopholes or finance Propositions in the guise of only helping the marginalized.

@dancingtongue
You said that you're a longtime California resident. So you have no doubt been subjected to nearly five decades of Prop 13 bashing by left-leaning groups, media and politicians for all your state's ills. But sometimes it's best to see things thru the perspective of an outsider.

Because if you are looking to find blame for widening the income gaps in your state, you're looking in the wrong place.

In a 1996 study of income distribution in California, authors Deborah Reed, Melissa Glenn Haber and Laura Mameesh of the Public Policy Institute of California found that:



The trend in California’s income inequality began to diverge from the national trend in 1987. Inequality in household income started to increase faster in the state than in the nation, with especially rapid increases during the most recent recession. The period beginning in the late 1980s stands out as the only time when California has had substantially higher household income inequality than the nation for so many consecutive years. This divergence is also found in male earnings but not in female earnings.

So, for nearly a decade aftger Proposition 13 passed, income inequality in California pretty much was as bad as in the rest of the nation. Then came the market crash in 1987 and the recession in 1992. I assume you're not going to blame Prop 13 on those things, too?

It is interesting that the authors found that the "divergence is also found in male earnings but not in female earnings."

I wonder how much the so-called "prace dividend" had to to with that, with California losing quite a few high-paying defense industry jobs after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

@beckyromero 1994 was 30 years ago -- longer than Prop 9 had been in existence at that time. Yes, we lost some defense industry jobs -- and quite a few military bases -- to the "peace dividend" as you note, but the more likely culprit for the divergence is that the tech industry took off from Silicon Valley and became a dominate industry, and California increasingly became a more industrialized, international economy not as reliant on agriculture (although we remain one of the biggest agribusiness states).

And this focuses only on income, if I am reading it correctly. It does not take into account living expenses, which is where the impact of Prop 13 is greatest felt on current generations' inability to afford housing.

And yes, I am a life-long Californian for nearly 86 years (86+ if you count in utero) and one of those rare fourth-generation Californians in my age bracket.

@dancingtongue
That's not because of Prop 13.

That's occuring all over the country.

You may have seen my posts about the need to raise the minimum wage and upward adjust the "poverty" level definition so that more people will qualify for government benefits.

It's INCOME that pays for living expenses, including housing (and property taxes).

And I don't think you realize that in bashing Prop 13 you are undermining your own argument to make housing affordable.

Because if California does away with Prop 13, the guardrails are off and property taxes will rise.

And property taxes ARE part of those living expenses that you say you wish to lower.

@beckyromero
Ah, the either/or binary choice of our digital generation. Never argued that some form of property tax reform was and is necessary. Just abolishing Prop 13 would certainly raise the property taxes for me and others who have had the luxury of it for decades, but at the other end of the scale they would diminish for the new, first time house buyer. They consistently say it is not just the high housing prices, saving enough for the high down payment, and the high interest rates that are keeping them out of the housing market and in the grip of corporate apartment complex owners, but the fact that if they could scrape enough together to buy they then face paying huge property taxes because new owners got no tax relief--their property is being assessed at full current market rates while their neighbors are at some fraction of that. I paid $23,500 for my first house in 1969. My property tax is still capped at the assessed value on that property in 1978, plus 2%/year since then. I sold that house for $800,000 in 2003 and bought my current one for $310,000. It is now worth somewhere in the $1.5M range, but I am still paying property tax based on 1978 (with modest adjustments reflecting renovations I have made plus 2% a year) because we downsized as empty-nesters. A mere fraction of what the guy across the street is paying for the house he bought this year as a first-time buyer. There needs to be a more fitting middle ground, addressing the real tax relief that many seniors on minimal fixed incomes need but not seniors like myself who are fortunate to have more than Social Security nor corporate real estate holders.


Those government benefits that are so rapidly being pared back or totally axed by the current administration?

@dancingtongue
How so? If you abolish Prop 13 and go back to re-assessing properties each year, how will that change anything for newer homeowners?

In fact, they will get stuck paying just as much (or more) as they do now but without the 2% annual limit for increases.

All you would do is keep property taxes high (or make them higher) for newer homeowners - and raise everyone else's, too!

Why? Because there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that California will lower 1% base rate based on the property value that will be assessed.

The super-majority Democratic legislature you have out there will go hog wild! They'll be like kids in a candy store!

Of course, voters would have to pass such legislation via a state Constitutional amendment - a very unlikely scenario.

@beckyromero There you go again with binary options. How about a true reform of the property taxes, with the disparity is not so regressive on new, first time buyers, and there is selective reduced rates for those who truly need it vs. blanket for all seniors, corporations, landlords hanging on to their property for decades? Why does it have to be one or the other?