Percentages:

From Buffett Suggests Calif Property Tax Too Low (excerpts)

Billionaire financier Warren Buffett, an adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for California governor, suggested in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday that the state's property taxes should be higher.

But he used his own properties to illustrate an example.

Buffett's home in Omaha, Nebraska is valued at about $500,000, and recent yearly property tax on the home totaled $14,401, he said in the report.

He paid $2,264 in annual property taxes on his $4 million home in Laguna Beach, California -- about 16 percent of the tax he paid Nebraska for a much cheaper property.

Buffett said in the interview that taxes on his Nebraska home grew by $1,920 this year, while those on the California home rose by only $23, thanks to limitations on increases in property tax established by Proposition 13.

Property tax in Nebraska: 2.88 %
Property tax in California: 0.05 % (that's one twentieth of one percent)

From another wire story:

"Warren's right," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. "It's an unequal system. But all the polling indicators I've seen show the appetite for changing the system is very low."

posted by Quiddity at 8/16/2003 12:05:00 AM