A measure currently making its way through the state Legislature would strip counties of their authority to assess takes on airlines, moving that duty instead to the state Board of Equalization.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports, “SB 661 is supported by the airline industry, which says it wants to deal with one government entity on property tax issues rather than with each of the 11 separate California counties they fly into.
“The bill “reforms a broken system of aircraft assessment which has resulted in unnecessary costs and red tape for taxpayers, governments, airlines and courts,” says Airlines for America, the industry’s Washington-based trade group.”
Locals fear if the responsibility moves to the state, they will lose out on an existing source of tax revenues.
““The state Board of Equalization has been recognized for decades as a ‘pay-to-play’ environment,” Santa Clara County Assessor Lawrence Stone told the Journal. “I’m not saying that it’s illegal. It’s the way the game is played.”
“But county assessors in the 11 counties served by the airlines say they already work under a 10-year-old “lead county” system, in which each airline is assigned only one county to work with, and that county does the tax valuations for the other 10. The counties also meet twice a year with the airlines to identify and resolve problems.
The real reason the airlines want to deal with the BOE, assessors say, is that the current lead county law — which includes a 10 percent discount on aircraft values in effect since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — expires Dec. 31. They say the airlines are using that as an opportunity to switch to a government body with a history of yielding to large businesses.