Submitted by Jon Coupal Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Signature gathering is underway to place an initiative measure on the ballot that would impose a massive $6 billion property tax increase on both homeowners and business properties (Please forward this information to your contacts and urge them to visit the HJTA website www.hjta.org and sign up for free taxpayer alerts.)
The initiative, with the innocent sounding title of “Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act,” would impose a surcharge on more valuable properties.
This would reinstate a system where increases in home value would be penalized with much higher taxes as occurred prior to Proposition 13. Taxpayers know from hard experience that, for tax raisers, more is never enough. Once the door has been opened, less valuable property will be the next target. (Ironically, higher property taxes could become another a cause of poverty — before the passage of Proposition 13, escalating taxes were forcing many retirees and those on fixed incomes from their homes.)
Please be alert: HJTA asks taxpayers to be alert and not inadvertently help the tax raisers. Proposition 13 supporters should be extremely cautious when asked to sign a petition to place a measure on the ballot. Signature gatherers are unlikely to volunteer that the “Raising Children” measure will raise taxes, so you should ask before signing on in support of any initiative measure.
Excerpt from the proposed ballot measure
“(g) How will this plan be paid for?
It will not raise sales or income taxes. It will avoid any additional tax burdens on middle
and lower income Californians. Those most at risk should not and cannot bear these costs.
Instead, a sensible and fair surcharge on properties with values of over $3,000,000 will be
assessed to pay for this bold anti-poverty initiative, while keeping all Proposition 13 property tax protections against reassessments and limitations in place.”