
Wealthy SF residents to get private street back, despite skipping taxes - tanderson92
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/29/wealthy-san-francisco-residents-to-get-private-street-back-despite-skipping-taxes-for-decades
======
CalChris
Of course, taxes are for little people and really little taxes ($14/yr) are
both unimportant and worthy of a personal letter from a Senator.

Now you might wonder how the taxes are so low for a parcel in one of if not
the most exclusive pieces of real estate in SF. That would be because of Prop
13 which locked in that $14/year way back in 1978. Most of the houses on that
private block are also the beneficiary of Prop 13 because you wouldn't want to
raise taxes on grandma. For example, here's the tax bill for 5 Presidio
Terrace:

[https://ttxonlineportal.sfgov.org/content/San-Francisco-
Form...](https://ttxonlineportal.sfgov.org/content/San-Francisco-Forms-
Portal/Residents/propertyTaxAndLicense.html?addressStreetNumber=5&addressStreetName=presidio&addressStreetSuffix=TE&addressAppartmentNumber=&addressBlockNumber=&addressLotNumber=&submit=Begin+Tax+Search)

Not bad for a $10M house. Now I'm sure that grandma really appreciates Howard
Jarvis (and Dianne Feinstein) but for us little people, we pay more so they
can pay less.

[https://www.zillow.com/homes/5-Presidio-Ter,-San-
Francisco,-...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/5-Presidio-Ter,-San-
Francisco,-CA-94118_rb/)

This reeks.

~~~
candiodari
The senator in question, by the way, is Diane Feinstein, a longstanding and
very senior member of what passes for a "socialist" party in the US.

And how do we fix this ? Obviously this is the result of government being
corrupt, and for decades in the pocket of a small group of rich people,
regardless of who gets elected.

I mean, this cannot be fixed by more government regulation, since if it so
much as forces these people to buy the land they use privately, it immediately
gets repealed. Don't tell me that this organisation is going to really raise
taxes on them, because ... it's not. It's just not going to do that.

Obviously smaller government is also not the answer. But ...

~~~
CalChris
Actually, the reason the taxes on this parcel were only $14/yr was Prop 13 and
Prop 13 was passed by the Californian electorate. And calling Feinstein any
kind of Socialist is a hoot.

~~~
candiodari
That's the point of my comment. She is a democrat, the supposedly left leaning
party of the US.

And if a senator personally intervenes on anyone's behalf for personal reasons
(like obviously here), that by itself is very wrong in my book. Even if it
actually costs them money I would still find it corrupt.

------
huac
> “In the United States, no one should lose property at the hands of the
> government without knowing it,” Feinstein wrote.

Wish she would say something about asset forfeiture then, but nope, she and
Harris are hugely in favor of that despicable practice. For shame!

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449668/jeff-
sessions-c...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449668/jeff-sessions-
civil-asset-forfeiture-plan-government-sanctioned-stealing)

> It is unclear how Cheng and his wife will get their money back.

Wait, what?

~~~
mc32
I surely hope they get their money back.

The gov holds an auction, they bid, they win, but now they take the thing they
auctioned off and _don't plan_ on reimbursing with interest and perhaps good
will?

Take the city to court.

------
mnm1
If this isn't favoritism, I don't know what is. It goes without saying that if
these neighbors hadn't been obscenely rich, the sale would not have been
overturned. This seems to be another way that money can buy one injustice in
the US. How does the couple who bought the land get compensated for their
loss? That $90k could have been invested in any number of things and put to
work making more money. They should at least get the maximum possible interest
allowed by law. The proper solution would have been to let the sale stand, of
course, and let the neighbors buy their street back because they are such
irresponsible idiots. But no, we don't hold the rich responsible for their
actions. Maybe we ought to think about doing so at some point while it's still
possible ...

~~~
rkeene2
If they were to buy it back then the taxes would be reassessed (due to Prop
13), and they would have to pay a lot more n on-going taxes versus a one-time
cost of donating to a US Senator.

------
halflings
"despite skipping taxes"

From another article: > For at least 17 years, the city's Office of the
Treasurer and Tax Collector mailed tax forms to the address of a now deceased
bookkeeper, who worked for the homeowners' association before retiring in the
1980s. Over the years, the $14 annual property tax went unpaid by the people
who live on Presidio Terrace. (San Francisco taxes the private street as a
separate parcel from the homes on it.) The bill racked up hundreds more
dollars in penalties and interest.

Presidio Terrace, along with 1,400 other parcels (mostly vacant lots), hit the
auction block in 2015. The tax collector's office sent advanced notice to the
same outdated address, which was later returned to sender and marked as
undeliverable, according to José Cisneros, treasurer of the city and county of
San Francisco. Still, the sale went on.

So, this is mostly sensationalist coverage.

~~~
pwinnski
Properties that don't abut wealthy people's properties are auctioned off for
unpaid taxes all the time, and they're never given back after the intervention
of a U.S. Senator.

~~~
jimbob21
I mean I'd argue they probably would be given back if a U.S. Senator argued
for them, but that doesn't happen.

------
dvdhnt
It would be super easy to jump on them because they're rich and live in a
mansion, but if this happened to homeowners who weren't rich, I'd want them to
have the opportunity to buy it back, too.

They need to pay their tax bill (which actually isn't that much) and call it a
day.

~~~
tanderson92
I find the interesting question to be: if the homeowner were not rich would
they have a sitting U.S. Senator write a letter on their behalf and have a
special hearing to decide the issue? By the way, there were 549 other tax
sales dispensed with in an identical manner.

~~~
dvdhnt
> if the homeowner were not rich would they have a sitting U.S. Senator write
> a letter on their behalf and have a special hearing to decide the issue?

Almost certainly not and I do believe that the Senator's interference is
unethical.

~~~
cylinder714
I'm pretty sure Feinstein used to live on Presidio Terrace. Her longtime
friend, the late Merla Zellerbach, lived there as well, so she has a personal
interest in the situation.

------
PatientTrades
"In the United States, no one should lose property at the hands of the
government without knowing it" Feinstein wrote on their behalf.

Are we allowed to use this defense in a court of law? I know many people,
myself included that have had assets both (monetary and physical) taken by the
government both (local and state) without direct knowledge of its potential
occurrence. Seems like this case could open Pandora's box

~~~
valuearb
Name one.

------
chrisbennet
The gist of the responses seems to be that it is unfair that the home owners
got treated in a reasonable fashion only because they had a senator to
interceded on their behalf.

If instead, Grandma got evicted from her house because they stopped sending
$14/yr tax bills to her because the address was wrong, would you think it was
“fair”?

If the system is f __ked up, we shouldn’t be up in arms when someone gets
treated reasonably. Instead, I’m hearing something analogous to “We shouldn’t
pardon some innocent people on death row, it wouldn’t be fair to all the other
innocent people on death row.”

~~~
joshribakoff
If a group of innocent millionaires on death row were to be pardoned while a
group of innocent poor people were not pardoned that would definitely raise an
eyebrow for me and it would be worth considering that maybe their innocence
was not the motivating factor

------
5706906c06c
Feinstein is one outstanding oligarch.

------
m0llusk
The atmosphere and oceans are nearly destroyed and this is what we choose to
discuss? Irrelevant.

------
ArchReaper
This is super clickbaity and full of rich-hate. The city sent a bill to a
deceased person for years, and it's basically pocket change to the people that
live there. It would be absurd for the city to sell the street over something
like this.

~~~
kwillets
The tax bill is a public record, and any responsible property owner would make
sure it's paid.

~~~
chrisbennet
_“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and
demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in
Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to
lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about
it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for
heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry,
but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your
own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”_

-Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy

~~~
classybull
Do you not think that once in 30 years one the ~50 rich, seemingly very
intelligent people that live on that street didn't step out onto it and think,
"Hey.. this is a nice private street we have here. The property taxes on it
must be killer. Hmm.. I wonder who pays those.. maybe I'll bring it up at the
next HOA meeting."

Why do I get the feeling that the same people defending the residents of this
street wouldn't bat an eye at condemning a poor person whose electricity gets
shut off because the bill was sent to their former address and they simply
forgot abou tit?

~~~
chrisbennet
I think you are confusing your animus for selfish rich people with what it
fair. Property taxes on that street were _$14_ year per home I believe. When
you depend on your HOA dues to pay them [and the HOA apparently hired an
accountant to actually pay them], you probably aren't going to notice a
discrepancy.

