With federal budget cuts looming, California needs to close a tax loophole for big business.
As part of CalNonprofits’ campaign Nonprofits Standing Up for California Communities, CalNonprofits is on the steering committee of a collaboration working to close a long-standing corporate tax loophole, and as a result, bring more than $11 billion per year to California — for education, for social services, and for basic local services such as water systems and trauma centers.
These funds will stay local — within the counties where they are collected. What is this loophole, anyway? When we Californians enacted Proposition 13 to stabilize property taxes for homeowners, we unintentionally created a boondoggle for corporations. Older companies (like those having held property for 40 years) — are paying as a little as one tenth the property taxes of newer companies.
The Schools and Communities First (SCF) ballot measure initiative will level the playing field among companies, so that old and new companies will pay comparable rates. Doing so will also eliminate the incentive for companies to create complicated shell corporations to benefit from the loophole.
Melanie has a petition to add this to the November ballot; please come by the JRP office – 75 S. Grand Ave – to sign the petition.