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S.F.’s Painted Ladies: Why does one pay $1,000 in property tax and another $44,000?
(www.sfchronicle.com)
It's because of an unfair system of taxation that uses the current assessed value of a property as its base and not the ability of the owner to pay. If not for the grandfathering of Prop 13 protections, a lot of old people would lose their homes. But there's also a downside. Those same people are trapped. They can't afford to buy a more suitable home because they can't afford the full property tax on the new property. That's why there are so many 3+ bedroom homes occupied by one or two elderly people. They bought when they had kids and are now empty nesters. They remain in their Prop 13 home where the tax is based on the $80k purchase price 45 years ago instead of the current $2M market value.
Property tax should be abolished. Local goverment should be funded from state income tax on a per capita basis. That would also solve another problem - wealthy areas having lots of cash while poor areas have little.