Proposition 13 has been a blessing for California homeowners and businesses since 1978, setting state property taxes at 1% of their value and capping annual increases in property tax to 2% per year.
With tremendous growth in property values in California, homeowners and commercial property owners are exempt from staggering tax increases, and can continue to live in their homes and operate their commercial properties without fear of additional taxes for now.
Despite the immense and lasting popularity of Prop 13 among California residents California, left-wing Democrats want to undo this celebrated legislation in the 2020 election.
There is a statewide ballot initiative that qualified to appear on the November 2020 ballot to amend Prop 13 by raising taxes substantially on commercial property by reassessing the properties to their current levels. This qualified initiative is under revision after low polling numbers, and will likely be submitted again in the following months.
Despite having a several billion dollar surplus, and an overtaxed population, California Democrats want to tax their own constituents even more. Amending Prop 13 and increasing taxes on commercial properties will only increase rent for small business owners.
Even though California has already allocated significant tax dollars to improving K-12 education, students still test near the very bottom in the nation. California has also put significant tax dollars towards the homelessness problem with no positive results.
Amending Prop 13 will push more of the middle class and businesses out of California, increasing the trend of California becoming a state of only the rich and poor. Extra taxes on business owners always make things even less affordable, because everything from haircuts, to groceries, to restaurants, to tools is going to cost more when the business rent is higher due to the new property taxes.
The California middle class cannot afford to pay higher prices on everyday goods, and hundreds of thousands of people have already left the state for places like Arizona, Nevada, and Texas because of the high taxes.
If Democrats succeed in implementing their new tax plan, they will come for your house next. California Democrats not only dislike private property ownership, they despise it, and they hope you are not paying attention. California gets most of its revenue from income tax and if they continue to raise this, they will have even more residents leaving for lower tax states.
Democrats will argue the next best thing to tax is property in order to pay for their out of control government programs and free services. California Residential property tax accounts for about 70% of property tax revenue, and if this initiative passes in 2020, there will be a ballot measure to tax homeowners. This is the test case to raise taxes on your home in just a few years.
What happens in California is the testing ground for the rest of the country. California voters need to reject this at the ballot box next November, or they will face an even bigger threat to their homes in just a few years’ time.
Meghan McNulty is an attorney, political commentator, and biomedical engineer based out of Southern California. She is a frequent commentator on national television and radio programs across the country.