Prop 13
In the early 1970's property tax rates peaked and were still rising each year, which was driving people out of their homes. Even though this gave the state and county governments a surplus of $3.8 billion by the end of the1970's, something had to be done. Homeowners' were also getting angry because as their property taxes rose the quality and quantity of their public services didn't. Legislature tried to respond with an introduction of three major reform packages in 1977, that was not enough. When legislature returned in 1978, which happened to be an election year for statewide officeholders, two men have already been working and submitted 1.2 million signatures for an initiative. This was enough signatures to place what was called Proposition 13 on the June ballot. The Governor at the time disliked the idea of cutting property taxes because he didn't want to use the states surplus to make up for the lost revenue. He put forth an effort against Proposition 13 and legislature rushed to put a competitor proposition, but it was too little, too late.Therefore, in June of 1978 California voters went out to the polls and Proposition 13 passed by a vote of 65 percent to 35 perce
New home and property owners also lose do to the fact that every time a property changes ownership it will get reassessed. The overall result of SMART's proposal is to allocate $450 million in funding to offset the loss of property tax revenue and increase tax revenue on a county wide basis. A tax policy subcommittee considered whether property tax should be permanently returned to local government and schools and not go to the state. Then in 1979 an Assembly Bill was passed (AB 8), which was suppose to be a permanent resolution on how to distribute the reduced amount of money. Government spending on the public and public services also changed, in fact government as a whole decreased after the passing of Prop 13. This might work and it might not, why couldn't you just go to a county with a lower sales tax and buy what they need. The federal and state government are winners because property tax can be claimed as a deductible by home and business owners on their income taxes. This gave the cities or counties with higher taxing ability a much high budget than low taxing areas. Immediately after Proposition 13 pass legislature had the very difficult task of how to distribute a significantly diminishing amount of tax revenue to local governments. 8 billion surplus, legislature still had to pass a bill (SB 154) to provide relief to local governments to lesson the direct impact of the loss of tax revenue. Government shifted the burden of paying for public services from local to state levels. But if the state does not equalize sales tax and guarantee $150 million in local assistance all retail revenues would become a non-issue in the future. 1 billion, that is a 53 percent decrease.
Common topics in this essay:
Assembly Bill,
SmithEric MWF,
Advisory Team,
Kathleen Connell,
Kathleen Connell's,
Immediately Proposition,
property tax,
proposition 13,
sales tax,
local governments,
local government,
property taxes,
prop 13,
tax revenue,
assembly bill,
bill 8,
assembly bill 8,
property changes ownership,
property tax rates,
change prop 13,
home business owners,
|