NATIONAL
January 10, 2014 | By Alana Semuels
SCRANTON, Pa. - When Detroit filed for bankruptcy, hundreds of residents took to the streets to protest what they saw as a drastic approach to fixing the city's budget problems. But in this hilly town of 76,000 in northeastern Pennsylvania, residents have a different view of Chapter 9: They want the city to declare bankruptcy. And soon. "The silent majority would like to see bankruptcy," said Bob "Ozzie" Quinn, president of the Scranton and Lackawanna County Taxpayers Assn.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 28, 2013 | By Jack Dolan and Richard Winton
Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez and tax consultant Ramin Salari, who are accused of orchestrating a wide-ranging pay-to-play scheme, were hit with a dozen new felonies Monday charging them with illegally lowering taxes on three more commercial buildings. Both men pleaded not guilty to the new charges, which include grand theft and embezzlement, and have denied wrongdoing since their arrests in October 2012. Prosecutors say Salari paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes over the years to get Noguez and two of his deputies to illegally lower property taxes for his clients.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 2, 2013 | By Lee Romney
SAN FRANCISCO - Sandwiched between rows of homes in the fog-kissed Mission Terrace neighborhood, Little City Gardens provides salad greens and fresh-cut flowers to local restaurants from what was once a weedy vacant lot. Like many of California's urban agriculture practitioners, however, Caitlyn Galloway is plagued by a key uncertainty: She is on a month-to-month lease with a landlord who must recoup the lot's steep property taxes and may soon...
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 21, 2013 | By Laura J. Nelson
Los Angeles lawmakers Wednesday agreed to pursue further analysis of an ambitious $3-billion proposal to fix thousands of miles of the city's most deteriorated streets. The money could come from a mix of sources, officials say, including a property tax or borrowing against future sales or gas tax revenues. One option would be to ask property owners to increase taxes the equivalent of 1% of their property's value, paid over 29 years. On a home worth $600,000, that would mean paying about $200 more a year.
NEWS
August 5, 2013 | By Patt Morrison
Has anyone started a pool on how long Proposition 13 will remain standing, the way it now stands? The process that made Proposition 13 possible is 100 years old, but the revolutionary tax makeover is 35. And it could be argued that its effect on the Golden State has been almost as fiscally immense as those 1913 reforms that gave us the initiative, proposition and recall have been for the body politic. But like those reforms, the unwritten law of unintended consequences means Proposition 13 is showing some unlovely signs of aging.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 4, 2013 | By Abby Sewell
Labor groups are targeting one of Los Angeles' most prominent real estate operations, mall giant Westfield, in a new campaign to highlight business property tax breaks tied to Proposition 13. A group of unions and anti-poverty organizations calling itself the ReFund LA Coalition launched a campaign last week against Australia-based Westfield Group, which they say has benefited from harmful tax policy established by the 35-year-old tax limiting initiative....