Homeowners gather signatures to repeal Prop. 19 by January 16, 2024

(SAN FRANCISCO) In November 2020, Proposition 19 which changed the rules of tax assessment transfers was passed by 51% California voters to become law. Three years later today, people are trying to repeal the law by gathering signatures for a petition to put the state measure back on the ballot in the November 2024 election.

A group of Prop. 19 opponents and homeowners held a rally on December 8 in front of City Hall and urged California voters to sign the petition in support of overturning the proposition.

In order to place the measure on the November 2024 ballot , 1.2 million signatures are needed by the deadline on January 16, 2024.

Prop. 19 is also called the Death Tax on Property. Its full name is the Property Tax Transfers, Exemptions, and Revenue for Wildfire Agencies and Counties Amendment.

The amended property tax transfers in Prop. 19 include to affect inherited properties from parents or grandparents to their children and grandchildren. This amendment has angered a large number of homeowners and parents including members of the Chinese community.

Prior to Prop. 19, parents or grandparents could transfer primary residential properties to their children or grandchildren without the property's tax assessment resetting to market value. Other types of properties, such as vacation homes and business properties, could also be transferred from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild with the first $1 million exempt from reassessment when transferred.

According to Prop. 19, it eliminated the parent-to-child and grandparent-to-grandchild exemption in cases where the child or grandchild does not use the inherited property as their principal residence, such as using a property as a rental house or a second home. When the inherited property is used as the recipient's principal residence but is sold for $1 million more than the property's taxable value, an upward adjustment in assessed value would occur.

Beginning on February 16, 2023, the $1 million amount would be adjusted each year at a rate equal to the change in the California House Price Index under Prop. 19.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association started the petition to repeal Prop. 19 by collecting signatures statewide for a new ballot measure at the November election in 2024.

"As more and more Californians find out what has happened, anger is growing," Jon Coupal, President of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, wrote on the petition website. "Parents should be able to transfer property to their children without triggering reassessment to current market value and a huge tax increase. For more than 30 years, they could. It was a right enshrined in the California constitution. But now, it’s gone."

"That constitutional right was removed by Proposition 19 in 2020, a measure that seemed to be only about helping wildfire victims and seniors. Hidden in the fine print was the biggest property tax increase in state history, on the backs of people who have just lost a parent," Coupla wrote.

"Under Prop. 19, property transferred from parents to children is reassessed to current market value, with only limited exceptions. Grieving families find out about it in a letter from the assessor’s office that arrives in the mail along with the sympathy cards," said Coupal.

Community activist Leanna Louie was among the participants in the rally to support the petition. "Prop. 19 had a very deceptive title which misled voters and passed narrowly in 2020, resulting in unaffordable property taxes for many Californians because it took away the rights of parents/grandparents to transfer tax base to children or grandchildren," Louie said.

"The new tax reassessment will be based on a subjective market value. When 15% of Californians can afford to buy, Prop. 19 is forcing families to sell once affordable housing. Countless Californians are being forced to sell their family homes and businesses when parents/grandparents pass away. Renters are being evicted when inheriting landlords cannot afford skyrocketed property taxes and must sell. This will negatively impact all future generations," Louie said.

"It is an unfair tax. We pay high taxes year after year. It is also a tax that has made many people leave California," said Gina Tse-Louie, one of the organizers of the rally.