The author’s fundamental argument is in this sentence: > Taxation should not be so different among the same people. but he never chooses to define “same” (in

The author’s fundamental argument is in this sentence: > Taxation should not be so different among the same people. but he never chooses to define “same” (in the article it’s his neighbor, but I don’t believe he strictly meant local/adjacent). The usual definition in progressive tax circles is that “same” means similar percentile of either wealth or income. That is, there is no preference for seniority, location, etc. but only overall wealth or income. Prop 13 clearly was motivated/sold on the basis of income, particularly retirees. As others have asked: if you suddenly have a multimillion dollar home, why not get a reverse mortgage? The historical answer is that those were rare and unusual in 1978. Today, that’s a perfectly fine answer. I (personally) see no reason to argue that a grandmother “deserves” to have effectively free property tax and be able to gift her property to her children. Nobody would argue that for her checking account, so why is it so for her home? I’m all in favor of means-tested taxes, including property tax. The easiest first step is on the commercial side (Prop C and Prop D both attempted to grab a bit here), and you can exclude truly small business owners in the same manner (gross receipts). But tossing the whole thing out would be a huge step forward for California. There’s no need to do this debt thing, just reset and phase-in (or even grandfather-in, but as other folks have noted, this will make the sale of property even more rare).