California appears unlikely to follow Tennessee’s example of refunding the property taxes of victims of natural disasters — even though the failure of state and local services, including water and firefighting, caused their suffering.
As local NBC affiliate WSMV-4 reported, the state refunded 130% of property taxes for those hit by Hurricane Helene (original emphasis):
On Wednesday, Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill that will give a 130% refund of property taxes to those whose home was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Helene.
Senate Bill 6007 (House Bill 6007) reads,
” In connection with a disaster certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) occurring on or after September 26, 2024, and before September 30, 2024 (“qualified disaster”) and subject to the requirements of this bill and an appropriation by the general assembly, this bill requires the comptroller of the treasury to disburse payments directly to owners of all real or personal property that is subject to taxation in this state, excluding intangible personal property or public utility property (“property”), (i) whose property was destroyed or damaged by a qualified disaster, as determined by the assessor of property by January 28, 2025, and is located in a county included in the FEMA declaration; and (ii) who owned the affected property at the time of the qualified disaster. This bill requires such payments to be in an amount equal to the total amount of the tax levied on the property for tax year 2024 plus 30%.”
The Tennessee bill passed both houses of the state legislature unanimously.
California does provide for refunds of property taxes to be considered — but only in extremely limited circumstances.
Residents affected by the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County have noted that firefighters were not sufficiently pre-deployed ahead of the anticipated extreme wind event on January 7; that brush clearance had not been performed sufficiently on nearby state lands; that police failed to arrive to direct evacuations; and that water was not available for firefighters, owing partly to the fact that a large reservoir atop Pacific Palisades was largely empty.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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