Joan Youngman, senior fellow and chair of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Department of Valuation and Taxation, recently wrote a book covering property taxes in depth. In A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the United States, Youngman defends property taxes as a more powerful revenue source than the federal income tax (generating $472 million and $297 million, respectively, from 2005 to 2015) and a vital support for independent local government.
Youngman argues that property taxes should be stable, efficient, fair, and transparent to maintain their status as a “good” tax. Limits on property tax assessment, such as the limit created by Proposition 13, generate problematic consequences, like rewarding longtime property owners at the expense of recent purchasers.
Proposed changes for Proposition 13 are at least being discussed. One source with good ideas is the Better Institutions blog. Will the ideas of Youngman and Better Institutions find open ears in Sacramento?
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Written by Dima Galkin, an Associate at RSG