During the holidays, most Californians are focused on their homes. This is the time when homeowners – and renters too – are decorating and extending hospitality to friends and neighbors. But heavy taxes and fees imposed on homes by the Grinches in government make it hard for Californians to hang on to their homes .

Homeowners, who work hard to pay for and maintain a house, pay property taxes that often do not fund property related services. These revenues go into local government coffers and can be spent for any purpose. To pay for services to property, like sewer, water and refuse collection, the homeowner pays extra through fees, assessments and other charges added to the property tax bill. Additionally, homeowners throughout California are also hit hard with bonds. Virtually all bonds for schools that must be repaid by property owners pass due to Proposition 39 that reduced the two-thirds voter approval requirement to 55 percent.

Even now, there are lawmaker Scrooges in Sacramento who want to make it even easier to load up your property tax bill even more. They argue that because of Proposition 13’s low property tax rate, they should be allowed to squeeze more from average homeowners by making it much easier to increase local taxes. They ignore the fact that while the property tax rate may be lower than in many states, because the median price of a California home now stands at about $450,000, while nationally it is at $208,000, what the homeowner actually pays is comparatively high. (California is in the top third of states in per capita property tax collections).

To read the entire column please click here http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/the-ever-shrinking-homeowners-exemption/

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2014 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.