Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty Proposes Property Tax on ‘High-Priced’ Homes to fund Homeless Housing

Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty wants to nearly quadruple a real estate transfer tax to fund homeless housing. McCarty says this tax could generate at least $9 million each year to help first-time homebuyers, renters and the homeless, and he claims he can do this “without affecting most homeowners.”

Why should homeowners pay for first-time homebuyers, renters and the homeless? What an unaccountable pot of money for the Mayor to have access to.

“The tentative proposal would increase the city’s real estate transfer tax from 0.275% to about 1% — roughly from $2.75 to $10 per $1,000 in property value — but only on high-value transactions, likely targeting properties selling for more than $1 million or $2 million. The mayor said he expects it to help residents locally who are struggling with housing,” ABC10 reported.

If the Mayor is serious about helping first-time homebuyers and renters, he should work with the county to cut permitting, fees and regulations on home building. That’s a start. And taxpayers and homeowners should not be footing that bill.

Sacramento has provided tiny homes, renovated hotels, renovated SRO apartments, sheds and RV trailers to the drug-addicted homeless, most of which sit empty. The government-run homeless fraud needs to end rather than spending more taxpayer funding on the grift.

California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that the state has spent $37 billion on homelessness since 2019, but there is a lack of data to determine the effectiveness of these expenditures. That means most of the $37 billion is unaccounted for, but there are still hundreds of thousands of junkies living on California streets.

Homelessness is not about housing, and never was. Nor is calling the drug-addicted, mentally-ill street vagrants “the unhoused.”

As Mayor McCarty makes abundantly clear, this proposal is a redistribution of wealth – from homeowners to first-time homebuyers, renters and the homeless, to be skimmed by the non-profits and NGOs in the middle.

Think about this: McCarty is proposing a real estate tax increase on the sale of “only high-priced homes.”

Um, No.

Most decent middle class homes – and not just “high priced homes”- have inflated to $1 million+ in California.

“It’s called the property transfer tax and is a fee paid each time a home is sold in Sacramento, with the amount based on a home’s value. For example, a home that sells for $500,000 currently pays $1,375,” CBS 13 News reported in October. “Last year, the tax raised more than $12 million although the annual amount is volatile due to market fluctuations.”

The city explains that the transfer tax is charged at $2.75 per thousand on the full Value of Consideration (VOC) / Purchase Price, and they laughably use this as the Example: [VOC] $155,237 X .00275 = $426.90 [tax due].

A $1 million home would fetch $2,750 at the current rate of $2.75 per thousand. That would balloon to nearly $11,000 under Mayor McCarty’s new “high-priced home” tax.

Tying his new “high-priced home” tax to homelessness is a dishonest way to get the tax passed by voters. Why not say “it’s for the children.”

McCarty’s and Democrat’s “housing first” policies for the homeless have been an utter failure… for the homeless, but a boon for contractors, developers, non-profits and NGOs.

If McCarty said he planned to use the additional “high priced homes” tax to help fund a facility to address the root causes of homelessness by offering programming tailored to the specific needs of the individual, as Haven For Hope in Texas does, maybe he’d have our attention. But McCarty and Democrats are not serious – they just want the never ending stream of taxpayer money to do with as they please, and then blame the drug-addicted homeless vagrants when they multiply on Sacramento’s streets.

I would venture that the state has failed miserably to manage the homeless crisis, but it is a crisis created by the Left and Democrats, and their supposed solutions aren’t solutions at all.

Increasing taxes on the responsible property owners and taxpayers is the least creative “solution” and most punitive – on the people who already pay for everything that government spends.

Mayor Kevin McCarty is stuck on stupid and should be recalled for this ludicrous proposal.