By Dion Lefler/The Wichita Eagle
Here’s a sentence I never expected to write: Kansas Republican conservatives are copying California in an effort to reduce property taxes.
And you may get to vote on it. Let me introduce you to Kansas Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1603.
If approved by two-thirds of the Legislature and a majority of voters in an election, SCR 1603 would amend the Kansas Constitution to cap property tax valuation increases at 3% per year, unless:
▪ new construction or improvements are made to the property.
▪ the property is rezoned, reclassified or reconfigured.
▪ the property is sold, or changes hands in some other way.
It seems to me I’ve heard something like that somewhere before.
Oh yeah, it was in California, where I used to live. They’ve been using that method to control property tax increases since 1978, when voters there passed Proposition 13.
Here’s the explanation of how property tax limitation works there, courtesy of the Los Angeles County assessor’s office:
“Prior to 1978, the law required reassessment on an annual basis. Not only was this process expensive, it meant that from one year to the next a homeowner’s property tax could double depending on fluctuations in the local housing market. In order to provide property owners with protection against strong fluctuations, Proposition 13 mandated that a property’s assessed value could not increase by more than 2 percent from one year to the next except in the event of a change in ownership, new construction, the property receives a temporary decline in assessed value . . . or the property is designated a restricted historical property.”
SCR 1603 is good idea and it’s off to a good start.
It takes 27 votes to pass a constitutional amendment through the Senate and the resolution already has 18 co-sponsors, including Senate President Ty Masterson.
The other co-sponsors read like a Who’s Who of Senate conservatives: Caryn Tyson, Larry Alley, Chase Blasi, Craig Bowser, J.R. Claeys, Joseph Claeys, Renee Erickson, Beverly Gossage, Jeff Klemp, Rick Kloos, Michael Murphy, Virgil Peck, Mike Petersen, Tim Shallenburger, Brad Starnes, Mike Thompson and Kellie Warren.
I have to say, I’d never have pegged that group to embrace a tax plan that originated with those nuts and flakes out there in what Kansas conservatives routinely call “Commiefornia.” Not to mention the ridicule and vitriol that president-elect Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans have heaped on the state this past week as Los Angeles battles devastating wildfires.
But here we are.
The main issue I have with SCR 1603 is it doesn’t go far enough.
For one thing, California’s property assessment increases are limited to 2% a year, 50% lower than the 3% the Kansas Senate is contemplating.
And Prop 13 also contains a provision limiting property tax to 1% of your home’s valuation, based on the 1978 appraised value if you’ve had it that long, or your purchase price if you bought it since.
It’s the reason my property tax bill in Kansas is substantially more than I’d be paying if our family had stayed put — even though our former California house is worth more than twice as much as we could get for our much larger and nicer home here.
The knock on this process is that two nearly identical homes next to each other can pay wildly differing property taxes, depending on when they were last purchased. And that’s true.
But on the upside, you knew when you bought your house that you could calculate your annual tax bill for as long as you owned it — and it wouldn’t increase just because somebody buys the house next door for 10 times what you paid for yours.
Best of all, almost no one winds up taxed out of their home, even if the house they bought for $80,000 in 1977 is worth $1.3 million now — an actual example based on the house I lived in in high school. So on SCR 1603, let’s do it.
And while we’re copying California, let’s pass the rest of Proposition 13 and solve the problem of property tax inflation once and for all.
They did.
This article was republished here with the permission of: The Wichita Eagle