BILL ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1493| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: SB 1493 Author: Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Amended: 6/21/10 Vote: 21 SENATE REVENUE & TAXATION COMMITTEE : 5-0, 4/14/10 AYES: Wolk, Walters, Alquist, Ashburn, Padilla SENATE FLOOR : 33-0, 4/22/10 (Consent) AYES: Alquist, Ashburn, Calderon, Cedillo, Corbett, Correa, Denham, DeSaulnier, Ducheny, Dutton, Florez, Hancock, Hollingsworth, Huff, Kehoe, Leno, Liu, Lowenthal, Maldonado, Negrete McLeod, Oropeza, Padilla, Pavley, Price, Romero, Simitian, Steinberg, Strickland, Walters, Wolk, Wright, Wyland, Yee NO VOTE RECORDED: Aanestad, Cogdill, Cox, Harman, Runner, Wiggins, Vacancy ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 76-0, 8/2/10 (Consent) - See last page for vote SUBJECT : Property taxation SOURCE : California Assessors Association California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors DIGEST : This bill makes five changes to the property tax law relative to (1) assessors sending information via CONTINUED SB 1493 Page 2 electronic mail, (2) assessors posting information on the Internet, (3) clarifying inflation adjustments for the low-value exception, (4) destroying scanned records, and (5) price adjustments during tax sales of welfare-exempt property. Assembly Amendments make a clarifying change in the provisions concerning destroying scanned records. ANALYSIS : Specifics of SB 1493 I. Assessors Sending Information Via Electronic Mail Existing law requires the Assessor to mail all notices via the United States Postal Service to taxpayers. This bill allows assessors to instead send base year value notices (Section 75.31 of the Revenue and Taxation Code [RTC]), and property tax valuation information (RTC Section 619) via electronic mail at the written request of the taxpayer. II.Assessors Posting Information on the Internet Existing law requires the Assessor to annually inform property taxpayers of the value of their property, as well as its increase or decline over the previous year, and its Proposition 13 value, based on the 1975-76 value or the most recent sale, plus a maximum two percent growth for each succeeding year (SB 1105 [Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee], Chapter 940, Statutes of 1997). The Legislature added this requirement as a result of market declines, when property values fall below the Proposition 13 value, triggering Proposition 8 (November 1978), which requires the County Assessor to assess the property at its fair market value. In subsequent annual assessments, such fair market value can rise up by an unlimited amount until it reaches the Proposition 13 level, at which time the two percent limit caps the property's taxable value. Assessors may send the information to the taxpayer via mail, or having published lists in newspapers, or both. CONTINUED SB 1493 Page 3 This bill allows assessors to publish relevant lists on the assessor's Web site upon approval of the county board of supervisors. III.Clarifying Inflation Adjustment for Low-Value Exception Existing law refers to the "base year value" when determining whether the low-value exception from assessment applies. However, the term is ambiguous: it could mean the original base year value or the factored base year value. Section 155.20 refers to Section 50, which in turn ties to Section 110.1, which refers to Section 51, both of which include an inflation adjustment, implying that the factored base year value is appropriate. This bill codifies the inflation adjustment, thereby removing the ambiguity. IV.Destroying Scanned Records Existing law requires assessors to keep paper documents for six years even though they have been scanned and stored on microfilm and microfiche. This bill allows counties to destroy documents if upon preservation in a medium that provides access to the documents such as microfilm, microfiche, electronic document imaging, or other such media that captures a true image of the document that may be later retrieved. V. Price Adjustments During Tax Sales of Welfare-Exempt Property Existing law (RTC Section 3698.5) allows treasurer-tax collectors at a lower minimum price at the same or the next scheduled tax sale if no acceptable bids are received. However, the treasurer-tax collector does not have the same discretion for welfare-exempt properties (RTC Section 3698.7), only allowing the treasurer-tax collector to offer the welfare-exempt property at a lower minimum price at the next sale. CONTINUED SB 1493 Page 4 This bill reconciles the conflict, thereby allowing the treasurer-tax collector to treat both kinds of properties similarly. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local: No SUPPORT : (Verified 8/3/10) California Assessors' Association (co-source) California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors (co-source) ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : Sponsored by the California Assessors' Association and the California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors, this bill is a technical, non-controversial bill that improves local administration of property tax laws for the benefit of taxpayers and assessors alike. Consolidating the measures into a single bill negates the need for individual bills to enact each change. Additionally, this bill only contains items with universal agreement; items that are controversial or problematic will be removed from the bill. ASSEMBLY FLOOR : AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Bass, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gilmore, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez NO VOTE RECORDED: Caballero, Nielsen, Norby, Vacancy DLW:mw 8/4/10 Senate Floor Analyses CONTINUED SB 1493 Page 5 SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END **** CONTINUED