New ballot initiative to Repeal the Death Tax

We’re excited to announce that HJTA has filed a new ballot initiative with the attorney general’s office. The “Repeal the Death Tax Act” will reverse Proposition 19’s tax increase on property transferred between parents and children, and grandparents and grandchildren.

As you know, Prop. 19 repealed important taxpayer protections that were in the state constitution. Proposition 58 (1986) enabled parents to transfer a home of any value and up to $1 million of assessed value of other property to their children without triggering reassessment and a sharply higher tax bill. Proposition 193 (1996) extended these same rules to transfers between grandparents and grandchildren if the children’s parents were deceased.

The “Repeal the Death Tax Act” will reinstate these important protections for California families. It also includes an adjustment for inflation, raising the $1 million limit to $2.4 million.

The full text of the initiative is available on the attorney general’s website, at this link.

Between now and September 27, the attorney general is seeking public comments on this initiative. We encourage you to click here to add your voice by writing a public comment. We must repeal the death tax. It is wrong to hit children with a devastating tax increase that forces them to sell family property when parents pass away. State law should allow people to keep the properties their parents worked hard to acquire. 

Here’s more information that we hope you’ll share with friends and family:

Website: www.HJTA.org/RepealTheDeathTax

Click here to download the Repeal the Death Tax Act FACT SHEET (printable) 

Click here to listen to the HOWARD JARVIS PODCAST in which Jon Coupal announces the initiative. 

Click here  or here to read my latest column about the effort to Repeal the Death Tax.

It’s a tremendous challenge to get an initiative on the ballot, but with your help, we believe it can be done. HJTA needs 500 volunteers throughout the state who are willing to help us collect signatures. (Signature gathering begins after November 1, once the official petitions are approved by the attorney general.) Please click here to sign up to volunteer, and we’ll send you materials to help you recruit more volunteers.

Of course it also takes significant financial resources to qualify an initiative for the ballot and HJTA relies on contributions from our members. To help with the effort to pass the Repeal the Death Tax Act, we encourage you to donate—but only if you are comfortable doing so—to HJTA’s Protect Prop. 13 committee, which supports all our work on ballot measures, including this one. Please click here to donate online, and thank you!

With urgent thanks,

Jon Coupal, President