Prop. 13 Shifts Tax Load to New Buyers

Dick Turpin’s column of Sept. 1 stated that 52.1% of single-family homes in Los Angeles County now are taxed based on post-Prop. 13 appraisals and that 47.9% of pre-1975 homeowners are now paying only 27% of the taxes on single-family homes. We now place the burden of 73% of single-home taxes on 52.1% of the homes. And the situation can only get worse, especially for every young person who has yet to buy his first home.

There is a new element of Prop. 13 injustice on the horizon under the proposed Reagan tax reform plan where property taxes will no longer be deductible from the federal income tax. A person who pays a non-deductible $2,000 property tax is twice as bad off as the one who pays a non-deductible $1,000 property tax on a home of similar value owned since 1975.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King: “How long, Oh! How long, must an unjust two-tier tax system go on?”

HARRY MASS

Tarzana