As a stay at home mom what time is left for your kids after your efforts in exposing the writers and bloggers here on this site?

If you have not already figured this out let me help you. No one cares about the comment section and not once has an opinion been changed as a result of a comment section.

Don’t believe me? Check out the comment section of the North County Times Oceanside section for more than a month and you will find the same people professing their opinion with passion and the same others with their opposite opinion. Nobody and nothing changes as a result.

Do your kids a favor and put away the keyboard.

You do have a choice — meekly accept what you’re told by An Expert or look for yourselves! It isn’t hard. Many county assessors now provide parcel maps and assessment information online. Google maps’ street view and overhead views will supplement your own knowledge of the business property around you. And, to get the lessee data, call your assessor’s office — with a little prodding, they put that online, too!

And, yes, ladies — before we ladle on the WHOLE tea party, we always make sure the table is level and the cloth is flat, don’t we?

Also commercial properties are not like residential properties which typically have only one use. Commercial properties have MANY uses allowed under the zoning codes. If there is a 100-year old house used for renting rooms on commercial zoned land which use should get taxed? Residential or commercial? There are different types of gas stations: gas stations with retail food stores, with billboards, with auto repair shops, with tire shops, or just pump gas. Each different type of gas station is typically located on different types of properties. Key corner properties on major arterial roadways with high traffic counts near a freeway offramp are the best sites. Minor corner properties in an older neighborhood are the least desirable for gas stations. These are complex issues which only those qualified can understand.

That is the beauty of Prop 13 – a sale, is a sale, is a sale. Whatever the property last sold for sets the assessed value and that base value is not increased until the property is re-sold. The assessment ratio however is typically increased by 2% per year. That is the way capital gains taxes work on stock. If the paper value of stock goes up one day should you be taxed on that value which you never realized? NO!!!!!!! Capital gains taxes only apply when stock is sold and you realize a profit (or loss). It is the same way with properties under Prop 13.

Prop 13 is a TAX, not a welfare benefit. AS I STATED IN MY ARTICLE YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE WHOLE TAX BURDEN NOT MERELY PROPERTY TAXES. The overall tax burden in California is the highest in the nation by any measure. California has a spending problem not a revenue problem.

Jennifer, there is no amount of information that I could present to persuade you otherwise. You would just keep sending long emails and try and find reasons to support your belief that Prop 13 is a welfare benefit. This response is merely for third parties reading this website to evaluate for themselves. Nonetheless, best wishes to you.

Meanwhile, haven’t you observed how Prop 13 has fed the union machine? Where were you in 1978? When did you come to California? Prop 13 has both lulled homeowners out of our local debates (or are you unaware that property taxes fund local services?) and created gush-and-sputter funding that strengthens unions. When the property market tanks (like now), unions circle the wagons to protect their employees — when it rebounds, they’re first at the spigot. Who wouldn’t join a union in a state with an unpredictable revenue flow?

But perhaps you ARE an avid supporter of a Prop 2-1/2-like structure (after all, it was those Bay Staters who staged the first Tea Party)? There, community tax growth is strictly capped and individual properties maintain appropriate value parity, rather than creating personal entitlements. As a result, the citizenry has to stay involved in decision making — and, amazingly, they’ve managed to maintain a school system that turns out educated productive residents for tomorrow.

In the meantime, appreciate that it’s homegrown analysts like me who keep your institute funded! Imagine if there were no one questioning the billions in subsidies that benefit a small percentage of commercial landowners. Horrors.

You, meanwhile, are lobbying for the collapse of California. Who, exactly, does that benefit?

Bottom line: every resident is getting poorer as a small group of commercial real estate owners take 800% advantage of Prop 13. In Los Angeles County, per the Assessor’s annual report, Commercial/Industrial property has fallen from 46.6% to 30.8% of the total roll.

Why? Why don’t you analyze it and find out? You’ll discover that some of the change is exogenous (falling value of the homeowner’s exemption, land use changes), but a lot of it is the ability to transfer business property ownership without incurring reassessment.

The effects? First, an uneven and economically unsound playing field for business property — serving as a disincentive for new or growing businesses to expand in California. Second, disintegrating public schools and state-wide fiscal instability — which further discourages new businesses. Third, incentives for public employee unions to tighten their grip on their members.

Business property should be reassessed every 15-20 years if it hasn’t gone through an arm’s length transaction. Why are we handing one in five commercial property owners an 80% tax subsidy — and strangling residents and local businesses in the process?