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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (451234)	9/1/2003 5:25:53 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 769667

The average house in the State costs over $300K. Doubling or tripling the property tax, would result in a property tax increase of $3000 to $6000 per year, for an average house! If prop 13 ever got overturned, property values would re-align in CA. CA's property values would probably move back toward the National average - a rather painful prospect, if you own property in CA. In such a case, do you really think tax revenues would go up? Yes I do think tax revenues will go up if prop 13 is overturned. I used to argue on the merits of fairness, because fwiw my employees and myself all pay over 6K/year in property taxes. But I don't bother with the fairness argument anymore, it is just simple economics. We don't have the employment base to subsidize homeowners anymore, its just that simple. The tech industry wants prop 13 overturned due to its inherent unfairness and implicit discrimination against younger tech workers. They already succeeded with prop 39, which overturned the 2/3 majority for some school measure tax increases, now those require only 55% majority- much more fair. Prop 13 for business is essentially gone, the big business lobbies are against it. If it were me making the laws, I would raise the % increase on properties from 2%-10%, for those that are currently assessed at under 50% fair value, something like that. So nothing earth shattering just a realignment. I would also LOWER the newer residents tax rates by 10% or something. My belief is that there will be a default in CA bonds, and prop 13 will be overturned by the courts as age discriminination or some other legality fwiw. Thats why there is so much crying about it now, the freeloaders know they are on their last legs. But crying won't help when the state defaults.