An Initiative to Protect Proposition 13 for Our Children

Whereas the Repeal the Death Tax Act is an initiative to amend the state constitution to restore the ability of parents to transfer property to their children upon death without triggering a reassessment and increase in property taxes;

Whereas many voters did not understand that Proposition 19, which passed narrowly in November 2020, took away constitutional protections that allowed families to keep their properties that parents worked hard to acquire;

Whereas The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California’s most influential taxpayer advocacy group and the proponent of taxpayer protection initiatives including Proposition 13 (1978) and Proposition 218 (1996), is the proponent of the Repeal the Death Tax Act;

Whereas California voters have repeatedly and emphatically rejected death taxes;

Whereas two ballot measures that were overwhelmingly approved in 1982′ abolished and banned state inheritance and gift taxes;

Whereas soon after, with rising real estate values leading to unaffordable spikes in property tax bills upon reassessment of property transferred within families, the Legislature unanimously passed a measure to exclude homes and a limited amount of other property from reassessment when transferred between parents and children;

Whereas this became Proposition 58 on the 1985 ballot and was approved by more than 75% of voters;

Whereas in 1996, voters approved Proposition 193, extending the same tax rules to property transfers between grandparents and grandchildren if the children’s parents were deceased;

Whereas the problem developed in 2020 when Proposition 19 was presented to voters with a costly ad campaign that emphasized tax benefits for wildfire victims, disabled people and seniors, but failed to explain that the measure repealed the constitutional protections in Propositions 58 and 193;

Whereas Proposition 19 has effectively reinstated a death tax in California;

Whereas reassessment of long-held family properties to market value upon the death of a parent means children who can’t come up with the cash to pay the new annual property tax bill will be forced to sell the family property;

Whereas the impact re generational wealth-building, so important to families working their way up the economic ladder, was put at severe risk by Proposition 19’s repeal of Proposition 58 and 193;

Whereas hard-won progress in communities across California will be set back by the forced sale of homes, small businesses and mom-and-pop rental properties;

Whereas the solution is the Repeal the Death Tax Act which will restore Proposition 58 and Proposition 193 to the state constitution;

Whereas the Repeal the Death Tax Act is retroactive to February 16, 2021 (the effective date of Proposition 19) to further protect families, the measures adds an adjustment for inflation to the exclusion from reassessment for a limited amount of other property in addition to the primary residence;
therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the Republican Party of San Luis Obispo County strongly supports  the Repeal of the Death Tax Act – An Initiative to Protect Proposition 13 for Our Children.

Adopted November 17, 2021