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> 3) I am 75 years old living with my wife who is 70 years old in the house that we bought in 1950. We are both retired farmers. Our pension is 500 euros in tot
by Kalium 10y ago
> 3) I am 75 years old living with my wife who is 70 years old in the house that we bought in 1950. We are both retired farmers. Our pension is 500 euros in total. In 1950 the area we selected for our house turned out to be a popular one (in 1950 it was just an empty field).
This was regarded as a major incipient problem in California at once point. So a policy to address it was put in place - Proposition 13. It caps property tax increases to a quite low level.
Cities and counties cope by voting on a random assortment of taxes and assessments every two years. In major cities, where most people rent, this means property owners have their taxes go up very unpredictably. Though rarely more than single digit percentages.
This sounds great, but in practice it's created havoc. Turns out some solutions are worse than the problems.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago> In major cities, where most people rent, this means property owners have their taxes go up very unpredictably. Interesting. I've heard about the predictable 2% YOY residential property tax increases allowed by Prop 13 (in Los Angeles), but I haven't heard about people experiencing significantly larger, unpredictable property tax hikes. I'm curious about the very unpredictable property tax hikes you're describing. How big have these been? Are these on apartment buildings or other commercial properties?
- Kalium 10y agoProp 13 limits direct property taxes, but voter-approved direct assessments aren't limited. Depending on how votes go in Oakland and Alameda County next week, assessments might go up anywhere from $0 to $600+/yr on a single family home. I cited places where most people rent because it's easier for renters to think of property taxes as taxes that get paid by people who aren't them and it's always easier to vote for taxing someone else. Some of them are property value percentages. Some of them are flat parcel taxes. The two fall differently on multi-family and single-family buildings. I believe commercial property is generally not exempt. I'm not aware of any tax hikes that large in recent history, but sometimes the re-assessment at sale from Prop 13 can cause jumps bigger than that.
- jtmcmc 10y agoyeah prop 13 was a fucking trainwreck
- vondur 10y agoI think one big issue with Prop 13 was having it apply to business property, which makes no sense to me. How did they push that proposition to people with that? I can sympathize with the elderly being taxed out of their housing, but businesses? Not so much...
- Kalium 10y agoIt turns out that if you ramble on enough about Grandma Multi-Millionaire-Moneybags enough, nobody stops to think about businesses.