California homeowners are paying a growing share of state’s property taxes, while corporations’ property tax bills have shrunk, according to a report issued Thursday by advocates of raising commercial property taxes.

In 1978, voters approved the landmark Proposition 13, which capped property taxes, for businesses and residents alike, and said land values would only be reassessed when property changed hands.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano… Read More...

By Phil Marshall, Published May 10, 2010

Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco will introduce a bill into the California Legislature today that could close tax loopholes in Proposition 13. Some believe industrial and commercial property owners are using the loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Others, however, believe the problem is overstated and that the bill will only hurt the state’s economy… Read More...

Say what? How can it be that one of the world’s largest wineries (E&J Gallo of Modesto) based right here in California can skate its way out of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual property taxes or a conglomerate configures a stock purchase of Mammoth Mountain and ends up not paying $4 million a year in property taxes.

If you read the OC

Democratic lawmakers are determined to close tax loopholes they say cost state and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars each year, as they search for ways to trim California’s enormous deficit.

     A report by the union-funded California Tax Reform Association found that the share of property tax paid on residential property has increased since two-thirds of voters approved California’s landmark Proposition 13 tax law in 1978… Read More...

PD Editorial: Old Prop. 13

KENT PORTER / The Press Democrat

Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee, Published May 11, 2010.

Proposition 13, the famous – or infamous – property tax limit passed by voters in 1978, requires property to be reassessed upon a “change of ownership.”

For homeowners, that’s an easily understood provision. When one buys a house, its base tax value is pegged at its sales price.

When it comes to commercial property, however, change-of-ownership rules adopted by… Read More...

By DANIEL WEINTRAUB

Like wine? Swallow this:

E&J Gallo of Modesto, one of the world’s largest wineries, bought Louis M. Martini in 2002.

Gallo – with annual sales of some $2 billion – got 1,765 acresof some of the best vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties, worth an estimated $75 million. But since Gallo split the purchase among 12 family members – so no one person owned more than 50… Read More...

June 3, 2010, by Teri Sforza, Register Staff Writer

Has ownership of Disney changed hands since 1978, when property-tax-shrinking Proposition 13 changed the face of California government?

One could argue that such publicly-traded corporations have changed hands many, many times since then – but Prop. 13 was not written to consider such complex forms of ownership, or decide when a reassessment might be prudent.

So… Read More...