Bound by a visible thread: your ballot choices this year will show up on next year’s tax bill

Image by Krissy and Dennis

This November, hundreds of state and local measures seek to raise property taxes across California. HJTA’s Jon Coupal recommends homeowners look at the Voted Indebtedness category of their tax bill—yearly charges that skirt Prop 13 protections. The historic safeguard of a two-thirds voter approval requirement for these tax hikes was already repealed to 55% for school bonds. Now Prop 5 seeks to do the same, adding billions more in tax burdens for CA property owners.

The second category of charges is Voted Indebtedness. These charges reflect the repayment cost of bonds approved by the voters. Local general obligation bonds for libraries, parks, police and fire facilities and other capital improvements are repaid exclusively by property owners. Because a minority of the population is required to pay the entire amount, the California Constitution of 1879 established a two-thirds voter approval requirement for these bonds.

Until the year 2000, local school bonds also required a two-thirds vote, but the passage of Proposition 39 lowered the vote requirement to 55 percent. Because it is easier to pass school bonds, many homeowners are seeing a significant increase in the Voted Indebtedness column on their tax bills.

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Now, knowing the above, open your mailed election ballot. Statewide, voters are being asked to approve more than 400 local tax and bond measures. On top of that, Propositions 2 and 4 are statewide bond measures each seeking $10 billion in additional indebtedness.

Even worse, Proposition 5 would repeal the two-thirds vote for local bonds that has been an important homeowner protection since 1879. This opens the floodgates for higher property taxes as even the California Legislative Analyst predicts that passage of Prop. 5 will lead to billions of dollars of additional tax burdens.

It is undeniable that your election ballot and your property tax bill are inextricably connected. One asks for more of your hard-earned dollars while the other reflects how much you are already paying. The question that bears repeating is what have our politicians and bureaucrats done to prove that they need more?

Read the whole thing here.

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Related:

• HJTA’s Susan Shelley: Prop 5 helps local governments trick voters into generational debt (part 4)

• Opinion: Prop 5 empowers local gov't to over-buy, over-tax, and over-borrow

• Prop 5’s bonds will hit Bay Area taxpayers hardest, expert says

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