Law Commons^™

Neighborhoods By Assessment: An Analysis Of Non-Ad Valorem Financing In California, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Ellen C. Seljan

Faculty Scholarship

Non-ad valorem assessments on property are a fiscal innovation born from financial stress. Unable to raise property taxes due to limitations, many localities have turned to these charges as an alternative method to fund local services. In this paper, we seek to explain differential levels of non-ad valorem assessment financing through the analysis of property tax records of a large and diverse set of single family homes in California. We theorize that assessments, as opposed to other forms of taxation, will be used when residents hold anti-redistributive preferences. We show that assessment financing is most common in cities with high …

Just A Matter Of Fairness: Tax Consequences Of The Service’S Revised Community Property Treatment Of California Registered Domestic Partners (Rdps), Francine J. Lipman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Proposition 13 And The California Fiscal Shell Game, Colin H. Mccubbins, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We study the effects of California’s tax and expenditure limitations, especially Proposition 13. We find that Proposition 13 was indeed effective at reducing both ad valorem property taxes per capita and total state and local taxes per capita, at least in the short run. We further argue that there have been unintended second- ary effects that have resulted in an increased tax burden, undermining the aims of Proposition 13. To circumvent the limits imposed by Proposition 13, the state has drastically increased nonguaranteed debt, has privatized the public fisc, and has devolved the authority to lay and collect taxes and …

California Biometrics: A Second Proposal For California's Commission On The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This proposal takes a long view to revenue reform. It seeks to fundamentally align the sales tax with the digital foundation of the 21st Century economy.

The core policy question is whether California is willing to change the way it defines sales tax exemptions; is it willing to move from product-centric to person-centric exemptions. Certified tax determination systems can be relied upon. A key element in this proposal is the encryption of exemption certificates in IDs (smart cards with biometric identifiers that will allow the poor or handicapped to make certain purchases tax free).

This proposal suggests that (for example) …

California Zappers: A Proposal For The Commission For The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

California has not uncovered a single instance of technology-assisted cash skimming - there are no zappers, and no phantomware in California. Is this because Californians are not skimming cash sales with technology, or is this because the California technology works so well that the fraud cannot be detected?

The record in foreign jurisdictions is reasonable clear. Automated sales suppression technology is widely used to skim cash sales, denying the state revenues from consumption taxes that have been paid by the consumer, reducing taxable business profits, and funding a cash hoard out of which unreported employee wages are paid. Government studies …

Groundwater And Intergovernmental Relations In The Southern San Joaquin Valley, California, Sally K. Fairfax, Barbara T. Andrews

Groundwater: Allocation, Development and Pollution (Summer Conference, June 6-9)

25 pages (includes maps).

Agenda: Groundwater: Allocation, Development And Pollution, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Groundwater: Allocation, Development and Pollution (Summer Conference, June 6-9)

Even before the [Natural Resources Law] Center was established [in the fall of 1981], the [University of Colorado] School of Law was organizing annual natural resources law summer short courses. To date four programs have been presented:

- July 1980: "Federal Lands, Laws and Policies-and the Development of Natural Resources"

- June 1981: "Water Resources Allocation: Laws and Emerging Issues"

- June 1982: "New Sources of Water for Energy Development and Growth: lnterbasin Transfers"

- June 1983: "Groundwater: Allocation; Development and Pollution"

(Reprinted from Resource Law Notes, no. 1, Jan. 1984, at 1.)

University of Colorado School of Law professors …

Cooperative Apartments: A Survey Of Legal Treatment And An Argument For Homestead Protection, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

“The homestead may be a splendid mansion, a cabin or a tent,” but can it be a cooperative apartment? The supreme courts of both Florida and Georgia recently have answered this question in the negative. The Florida Supreme Court denied to a widow a homestead exemption in her deceased husband's cooperative apartment, ruling that a cooperator has no proprietary interest in the apartment, the building, or the land on which the building is situated. The Georgia Supreme Court denied a homestead tax exemption to cooperators because they lacked the characteristics of ownership needed to bring them within the constitutional exemption …