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by curun1r 1405 days ago
> The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be

There’s a better way to handle this, though, than the Prop 13 approach of limiting taxes. You just allow a certain amount of property taxes to optionally go unpaid and accrue as a lien against the property that must be settled when the property changes hands. Old widows never get forced out of their houses, but they don’t get to leave them to their kids without paying the tax.

2 comments

... or you accept that the widow argument was a bogus special interest ploy to begin with and have people who genuinely need a prop 13 style exemption apply for an exception - rather than have it apply to everyone. From what I understand, Seattle does it this way.
> ... or you accept that the widow argument was a bogus special interest ploy

It's not either/or. The old lady (old guys don't like to be kicked to the street either) argument was very real and causing a lot of pain for real regular people.

It's also true that the special corporate interest saw an opportunity and sneaked in to a law that never should've applied to them.

How is everyone going to get rich then?!?!
Your suggestion is not bad, but I like HN User "stickyricky"'s suggestion better. It's more all encompassing. Would certainly be nice to maybe stack this on top of his suggestions.