SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 12.17.2023
One of the most onerous California ballot measures, passed unwittingly by the voters in 2020 as Proposition 19, may be headed for a second vote next November.
In order to place the measure on the November 2024 ballot, 1.2 million signatures are needed by the deadline on January 16, 2024.
That ballot measure struck down the ability of parents and grand parents to pass on their homes to their offspring and not suffer a huge property tax hit. Prior to passage in 2020 children and grand children could inherit these homes without incurring a potentially huge increase in property taxes.
Under CURRENT law when a property passes onto the children it is reassessed at current market value. For example a family which purchased their home in the mid-1980’s, raised their family and still live in the same property, currently pay approximately $3000.00 in yearly property taxes.
Under CURRENT law the property is reassessed to market value. The revised property tax could increase to at least $12,000 yearly based on current market value. A burden which has forced children and grand children inheriting family property to sell.
Excerpted from The Wind 12.17.2023
(SAN FRANCISCO) In November 2020, Proposition 19 which changed the rules of tax assessment transfers was passed by 51% California voters to become law. Three years later today, people are trying to repeal the law by gathering 1.2M signatures by January 16, 2024 for a petition to put the state measure back on the ballot in the November 2024 election.
Prop. 19 eliminated the parent-to-child and grandparent-to-grandchild exemption in cases where the child or grandchild does not use the inherited property as their principal residence, such as using a property as a rental house or a second home.
Prop. 19 is also called the Death Tax on Property. Its full name is the Property Tax Transfers, Exemptions, and Revenue for Wildfire Agencies and Counties Amendment.
The property tax transfers in Prop. 19 affect properties being handed down by parents or grandparents to their children and grandchildren. This amendment has angered a large number of homeowners and parents including members of the large Chinese community.
Prior to Prop. 19, parents or grandparents could transfer primary residential properties to their children or grandchildren without the property’s tax assessment resetting to market value.
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association started the petition to repeal Prop. 19 by collecting signatures statewide for a new ballot measure at the November election in 2024.
“As more and more Californians find out what has happened, anger is growing,” Jon Coupal, President of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, wrote on the petition website. “Parents should be able to transfer property to their children without triggering reassessment to current market value and a huge tax increase. For more than 30 years, they could. It was a right enshrined in the California constitution. But now, it’s gone.”
“Under Prop. 19, property transferred from parents to children is reassessed to current market value, with only limited exceptions. Grieving families find out about it in a letter from the assessor’s office that arrives in the mail along with the sympathy cards,” said Coupal.
Top photo: Concerned San Franciscans gathered at City Hall on December 8th to push ballot measure repealing Proposition 19.
Lee's Perspective 