OPINION: Require All Businesses to Pay Their Fair Share
No Consumer Ever Got a “Prop. 13 Discount”
Since Prop. 13 was passed in 1978, the taxable value of California business property has increased no more than 2% per year regardless of its market value, unless there is a change in ownership. Owners of such properties have used various legal mechanisms to avoid a change in ownership. These owners, whether operating a business or renting property to others, pay far less property tax than competing businesses that acquired property more recently.
Prices and rents, however, are set by markets. Consumers and renters don’t get a “Prop. 13 discount” that reflects the property owner’s low property tax; the property owner just pockets those savings while the rest of us pay not only the market price, but also more in all kinds of taxes to make up for the lost business property tax revenue.
Prop. 15, on the November ballot, will fix this situation by allowing the taxable value of business properties worth more than $3 million to gradually rise to market value. Opponents claim that Prop. 15 will cause prices and rents to rise as property owners try to pass along the increased property tax. That’s extremely unlikely—if those property owners could charge more, they already would be.
Please vote in favor of Prop. 15 to require all businesses to pay their fair share and fund our schools.
Richard W. Raushenbush, Former School Board Member
