AB 2372 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) passed the Assembly on a bi-partisan 59-9 vote. As we have reported in the past two weeks, CBPA along with the CalChamber and several other business groups, have been working with the Chair of the Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) to negotiate with the author and sponsors of the measure. A potentially historic agreement was reached last week and we have been cautiously supportive of the measure as we have been assuring that language in the bill does not have unintended consequences.
Over the years, some complicated property purchase deals have been used by anti-Prop 13 advocates as “examples” of skirting Proposition 13’s change of ownership rules, whether they were doing that or not. These “examples” have then become cause celebre and used as a weapon to galvanize anti-Prop. 13 grassroots groups, and coupled with the sophistry of claiming revenue declines, to undermine the law as a whole. This agreement is meant to update some of the laws implementing statutes to address that specific issues that some transactions have been designed to “game” the system.
As an organization, we have always staunchly defended Proposition 13 and will continue to do so. However, part of an effective defense of the law recognizes that some of the original implementation language may need to be updated to assure the goals of Prop. 13 are being met. We believe this is one of those cases.
CBPA has worked very closely with tax lawyers from many of our member companies to make sure that the language is addressing the area we are trying to fix and not bleeding over to other parts of the law. We are also closely coordinating with other business groups in Sacramento to make sure your interests – and the legitimate protections that Prop. 13 was meant to provide – are protected.
Click here to read the language that is currently in AB 2372
