On Wednesday, Sens. Loni Hancock and Holly Mitchell introduced an attack on California’s most important taxpayer protection, Proposition 13 (“It’s time to make Prop. 13 fairer for homeowners”; Viewpoints, June 10). SCA 5, a proposed constitutional amendment, would alter California’s constitution to create a “split roll” property tax, imposing higher property taxes on non-homeowner properties, including business properties.
They claim SCA 5 would raise $9 billion – that’s billions of taxpayer dollars in a time when California is seeing a record budget surplus, is able to pay all its bills and store money in the rainy-day fund and still have a multibillion-dollar surplus.
This is no time to raise taxes. Instead, we should be focusing on how to grow our economy and create a friendly business environment, not drive even more businesses out of state. California has been rated as the worst state in which to do business by CEO Magazine for 11 years in a row.
A Pepperdine University study found that a split roll property tax could result in the loss of up to 396,345 jobs in California over the first five years and increase property taxes for businesses anywhere between $6 billion and $10 billion per year.
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