LA Mayor Calls for $8B Property Tax Hike

Taxes Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

By James Nash and Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg.com

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed dismantling California’s Proposition 13, which helped begin a nationwide anti-tax movement, in favor of a “grand bargain” that would boost levies on business property.

The Democrat who leads California’s largest city called on Governor Jerry Brown not to shrink from making sweeping changes in state tax laws that Villaraigosa, 58, said could produce as much as $36 billion a year in new revenue.

Villaraigosa urged the removal of Proposition 13’s limits on commercial-property assessments while retaining its cap for homes. The mayor said boosting tax revenue in the most-populous state would shore up the University of California system, promote budget stability and restore public-school funds.

“It’s time to address the unfairness inherent in a system that allows Wall Street hedge-fund managers to devise complex real-estate investment trusts that give the super-rich a free pass on taxes every ordinary homeowner in California has to pay,” Villaraigosa said in a speech at the Sacramento Press Club. “Let’s apply, as an idea, Proposition 13’s protections to homeowners and homeowners alone.”

The 1978 referendum, which allows unlimited reassessments for tax purposes only when property is sold, excludes some commercial transactions in real-estate investment trusts, or REITs, according to the mayor.

To read more, visit:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-16/l-a-mayor-calls-for-8b-property-tax-hike.html

Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=3220