Developments this year indicate an accelerated spending-lobby agenda in 2001 to increase property taxes paid by businesses in the form of a split roll, which is clearly the single most damaging tax policy change that could occur in California.
Splitting the roll,extracting more taxes from owners of commercial property,would substantially undercut competitiveness, cost jobs and grow the size of government in California.
There are soundings from Sacramento that point toward increased activity by those who advocate a split roll:
n Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the public employee union-financed California Tax Reform Association, called for several billions of dollars from additional property taxes paid by businesses in a recent commentary that was circulated nationally. He has crusaded for a split roll, so that commercial property can be taxed more than residential property. He has supported several legislative measures and wrote Proposition 167, an initiative rejected by voters in 1992.
n In the Legislature last spring, Assemblyman John Dutra, D-Fremont, introduced split-roll legislation to require periodic reassessment of commercial property to current market value. He dropped the bill, but the concept was kept alive in the context of a Senate-Assembly conference committee dealing with local government fiscal reform.
n Led by State Sen. Steve Peace, D-El Cajon, and Assemblyman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, the local government finance conference committee is slated to resume hearings after the 2001-02 Legislature convenes in December. Its agenda continues to include a split roll.
Based on these developments, there is greater risk of higher taxes on commercial property than at any time in recent years. Ironically, this spending-lobby effort seems to be getting louder despite billions of dollars in budget surpluses in recent years.
Problems associated with a split roll include the fact that even the most limited split roll will increase taxes several billion dollars annually. Also, split-roll property taxes are new hidden taxes on consumers, because businesses will raise prices of products to cover the higher tax.
A split-roll property tax increase remains a destructive, ill-advised idea.
Larry McCarthy
President
California Taxpayers’ Association
Sacramento
