LA County - A tax on driveways, rooftops and patios? No joke.

SCV News. ^ | 10/29/2018 | dragnet2

[dragnet2]

A parcel tax lands on the ballot this November. If Measure W goes through, property owners might have to pay a tax for impermeable land like driveways, patios, parking lots, rooftops and other paved surfaces that don’t absorb water.

Also known as the Safe Clean Water Program, Measure W would tax 2.5 cents per square foot of impermeable area. The tax would raise an estimated $300 million a year to capture billions of gallons of stormwater, clean it, and reuse it for future water supply.

https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2018/10/26/63836/airtalk-debates-2018-ballot-initiatives-measure-w/

[Dilbert San Diego]

Isn’t everyone already paying property taxes? This seems like a very odd tax.

[cnsmom]

Maryland had this. Big Lib, Martin O’ Malley, thought this Rain Tax was a good idea.He was voted out.

[Billthedrill]

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.

[editor-surveyor]

.
This should go down 2:1

Only land owners can vote on land tax measures in CA.
.

[Steely Tom]

Sounds like a way to get around Prop 2½.

[House Atreides]

Maryland had this. Big Lib, Martin O’ Malley, thought this Rain Tax was a good idea.He was voted out.
********************************************
Yep, Maryland’s ruling ‘RATS thought the “Rain Tax” they passed was clever. But the result was that even Maryland’s largely “progressive” electorate though that it was a bridge too far and voted in a Republican Governor.

[GraceG]

Property taxes.... another excuse to put off home improvements until right before you sell your home otherwise you get soaked for improving the value of your home...

It is sickening how taxes are used to manipulate behavior and how they people who implement them never consider the long term consequences, or if they do they are evil enough to actually recognize their long term consequences to intact “good intentions with bad consequences” against the common folk.

[Jamestown1630]

I remember hearing about this in Maryland. It never went anywhere, and nobody else is still pushing it?

[TexasGator]

Your link goes back to FR

[rstrahan]

Let them approve it. All the taxes and fees are causing California to crater.

[mountainlion]

An old guy when I was a kid said the way things are going they would hang a meter around your neck and charge you for the oxygen you breathe.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

After he was voted out, was the rain tax repealed?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“put off home improvements until right before you sell your home”

That is the dumbest thing you can do as most home improvements return 40% to 60% of what you paid in the ultimate house sale price. You make improvements so YOU can enjoy them while you live in your home, not to improve the sale price (unless the place is an uninhabitable dump that no one will ever buy).

[dragnet2]

lol...I was going to ask the same thing!

[newfreep]

Fun fact...Paul McCartney played the hot lead guitar solo on “Taxman”

[Don W]

They already have a similar tax in (R)Edmonton Canada. They charge a fee for storm water drainage based on the area built up on your lot. (Square footage of buildings.)

[TexasGator]

Nate Nov 9 2016 Chance of winning

Hillary 71%

Trump 29%

[snarkpup]

Here in western Colorado there is a drainage district that is or was trying to impose such a fee to pay for storm water runoff infrastructure. I think it might have been struck down by a court.

[snarkpup]

That is the dumbest thing you can do as most home improvements return 40% to 60% of what you paid in the ultimate house sale price.

If a realtor tells you it's a good idea to do this, it may have something to do with their commission.