Posted on March 9th, 2020
Find below a complete transcript of this video.
What’s up fellow entrepreneurs? It’s John Fagerholm again. And today I wanted to talk about a new initiative that’s on the 2020 ballot.
And it’s called the Split Tax Roll Initiative. So this isn’t usually what I get into, as far as employment law goes, but I’m always interested in things that can affect businesses.
And this is an article I was reading from the Sacramento Bee, so I’ll kind of get into the article a little bit.
And it made me think how this is going to affect businesses. And I can see, once again, a potential California law really doing some damage to businesses, especially small businesses.
So what this article from the Sacramento Bee is talking about is that there’s an initiative going on the 2020 ballot where the politicians want the property tax rates or the or the property tax that’s currently being charged on commercial businesses worth $3 million or more to be assessed every year.
So what they’re pitching it as is a way to make big business pay their fair share. That’s the buzzword for everything.
But it never really, or it rarely affects big business. You know who it usually affects, is the small business owner.
So one thing interesting when I was reading this article is that they were saying the proposed initiative would tax commercial properties worth more than $3 million.
Well, we’re in California. Every commercial property is worth more than $3 million. What isn’t worth more than $3 million?
There’s homes worth more than $3 million here. So this is just another sneaky way for California to figure out a way to take money out of business owners’ hands.
So think about the guy that owns the corner liquor store. If he also owns that business; if he also owns that building, that building certainly probably worth $3 million or more.
So now, when you tax 1% per year on the reassessment, if it’s worth $3 million, but when he bought it, it was only worth, I don’t know, $500,000 that’s what he’s paying the property tax on, because that’s the way the rules are now.
He’s paying the property tax on the $500,000. He could probably afford that.
Now you jump it up where he’s paying the property tax on $3 million, because that’s what the government is now assessing it as; well, now you’re driving that guy out of business.
But let’s talk about even big businesses. Big businesses, if they’re going to be taxed more, they’re going to pass that on to their consumer.
So now you’ve got a large business that owns a big office tower. Well, that’s all going to be transferred to the businesses, because now rents are going to go up for all of those small businesses, medium sized businesses that are in that office tower.
This is just another way for California to collect excessive taxes against businesses and pretend that they’re trying to make “big business” pay their fair share in taxes.
So there’s probably going to be an initiative going around. If you see this on the ballot, trust me when I tell you to vote against it if you are a business owner.
It’s not going to be good for you.
All right, fellow entrepreneurs. Until next time, be productive.
