Fortune? The problem is recognizing that appreciation without weathering the crushing taxes. Proposition 5 (portability of Jarvis Gann property tax bases) wou

Fortune? The problem is recognizing that appreciation without weathering the crushing taxes. Proposition 5 (portability of Jarvis Gann property tax bases) would have helped, but it was voted down. Take a single person with $1 million in appreciation. $750K gets hit with (unindexed!) Federal capital gains, full CA income taxes with surtaxes "for the rich" (likewise unindexed), and you'd be starting over with respect to property tax basis (with a few exceptions in 9 counties). You could eventually do a 1031, but you'd have to move somewhere in the meantime... probably out of state.