The proposition 13 is still in effect, and so "tax scam benefits" are still being reaped by all new companies. Your logic does not add up.
Yeah it does, because the tech companies who owned property at the time, Intel being one of the largest property owners in SV, reaped a huge windfall in property value escalation and frozen tax rates. HP is another one, through their acquisition of Tandem Computers especially, own a huge RE portfolio in SV. These firms never sell their properties they lease them for exhorbinant rates to the next new company be it Google or whoever. Google and any 90s firm pays through the nose, Intel and HP just sit there and watch the money flow in.
Since Intel was probably one of the largest corporate beneficiaries of this "tax revolt", I find it somewhat disingenuous that Barrett complains about California tax rates. I am sure that dollar for dollar, adding up all taxes that Intel has to pay to be in CA, they probably pay *less* taxes than if they relocate to another state, assuming their effective property tax is zero. (If a new company wants to complain about California taxes ok but these old firms that are part of the problem shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth imho).
Anyway the point is that there are a lot of excesses in the system and to say that these 70s/80s companies were somehow superior to their 90s counterparts leaves off some of this inequity, that is my only point. |
