System Failure: California’s Loophole-Ridden Commercial Property Tax
Our new report documents the county-by-county shift in the property-tax away from commercial property to residential property in part 1, and in part 2 shows how many major properties fail to pay their fair share of property tax. Read the full report (pdf) here. A summary of the examples of corporate mergers and buy-outs which avoided reassessment is available here as well as in the full report.
Executive Summary
As California faces a severe fiscal crisis at the state and local level, all aspects of our tax system, including the property tax, must be examined. This report provides an examination of the property tax system as it applies to commercial property, and provides significant new data which comes to two clear and related conclusions:
1. In virtually every county, commercial property is paying a far smaller share of the property tax since Proposition 13 passed in 1978.
2. Commercial property is able to exploit huge loopholes in the law to avoid reassessment upon change in ownership.