Real Estate and Taxes

Why the modesty in Dick Turpin’s column (Jan. 22)? Nearly everyone knows that the Los Angeles Times is indirectly behind every real estate movement that takes place in the Southern California area. Mr. Kyser of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce may have put together a list of the pros and cons of the growing ownership of Los Angeles real estate by foreign nationals and companies, but his list is superfluous to the beliefs (and holdings) of the Los Angeles Times.

In any case, I doubt his list mentions one of the largest contributors of all to the development of the real estate now being sold to foreign interests. I refer, of course, to U.S. taxpayers. For years, real estate has been subsidized by extraordinary tax breaks given to developers and their investors. (Remember the bold giveaways written into President Reagan’s 1981 Tax Act?)

I wonder if U.S. Congress members would have been so generous with real estate if they had realized at the time that the ultimate beneficiaries of their largess would be foreign nationals--not U.S. citizens. But then this isn’t the first time that we deficit-burdened taxpayers have been taken for a ride, is it?

A. DANIEL ELIASON

Santa Barbara

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