The vast majority of states don't have anything like Prop 13. When you see ads for homes in other states they tell you the price of the home and the local tax rates. If you can't afford the price or the taxes, then you look elsewhere.
In Boulder County, in order to keep seniors from fleeing as taxes increased, they allowed the seniors to pay less than what they owed while in their homes. When they passed on, their children could either pay what was owed and keep the home, or sell the home and use some of the proceeds to pay back what was owed. This was a good compromise in my mind.
How would you like to pay a Mello-Roos fee? A fee that is not deductible from Federal Income Tax? That is what I have to do because the Dems who were unable to increase taxes were able to pass legislation that allowed cities to impose fees on new owners.
Now the situation is even more unfair. Someone who purchased a home in my neighborhood a year before the imposition of the Mello-Roos fee pays a lower tax AND pays no Mello-Roos fee. I have to pay a higher tax (based on a higher appraised value for a similar home) and I get to pay Mello-Roos.
How fair is it that corporations can sell their properties to other corporations in such a way that the property doesn't have to be reappraised, but individual citizens like you and me can't? There is corporate owned property that has passed through various owners that is still being taxed at the rates when Prop 13 first went into effect.
My feeling is that if corporations weren't getting the benefits they do from Prop 13 they would fight harder against all of the other nonsense that Sacramento sends their way.
In any case, the vast majority of the benefits of Prop 13 go to corporations. The largest chunk of the small remainder of benefits goes to those homeowners who purchased their homes before or soon after its implementation.
Hardly a model for free market incentives that are supposed to apply equally to all market participants.
Although I was in my late teens at the time, I do remember that this is how things were. What I also know is what happened to California real estate pricing when Prop. 13 passed; it went through the roof, immediately.
What you are effectively admitting is that pricing IS modulated by taxes. Change the tax rates, and prices will go down. Guess what that does to the value of loans in the bank portfolio? They are required to value their assets as "marked to market." When that happens, the value of their reserves drops like a stone. When that happens they cannot loan. When they cannot loan, they go broke. QED.
In Boulder County, in order to keep seniors from fleeing as taxes increased, they allowed the seniors to pay less than what they owed while in their homes.
So much for equal protection.
This was a good compromise in my mind.
Property taxes as a rent on private property is a socialist idea, originating from the likes of Henry George. The idea was to force the property into its "highest and best use." In other words, it is government control of property. So if that is where you your preferences lie, you are on the wrong forum.
How would you like to pay a Mello-Roos fee?
I did, some $34,000 when I built my house.
How fair is it that corporations can sell their properties to other corporations in such a way that the property doesn't have to be reappraised, but individual citizens like you and me can't? There is corporate owned property that has passed through various owners that is still being taxed at the rates when Prop 13 first went into effect.
My views on 14th Amendment "equal protection" for corporations are found here.
My feeling is that if corporations weren't getting the benefits they do from Prop 13 they would fight harder against all of the other nonsense that Sacramento sends their way.
A bigger bunch of whores cannot be found, but at least they have the smarts to pay for the government money can buy. Conservatives are too stingy for their own good in that regard. Campaign contributions are cheaper than taxes.
In any case, the vast majority of the benefits of Prop 13 go to corporations. The largest chunk of the small remainder of benefits goes to those homeowners who purchased their homes before or soon after its implementation. Hardly a model for free market incentives that are supposed to apply equally to all market participants.
When one buys a house, it is a long-term decision, not one to be reassessed every day, so when somebody changes that deal they drive those people outside the envelope of what they can afford. They then must make a distressed decision, which NO economist would regard represents a system that optimizes the use of capital. Economic theorists might think continuous reassessment of "highest use" optimal, but it is only with regard to those variables they choose to measure, a professional obsession that apparently clouds your judgment as well. Somehow, they forget about continuity in a community or stable upbringing for a child as part of their calculations. Yet I do not think you would doubt that there is long-term economic value in fostering those benefits to a society over the long run. That's where your model fails. That's (supposedly) why we elect representatives to account for those intangibles in political decisions involving taxation.