In 2020, voters were told that Proposition 19 would ensure a new source of extra funding for state firefighting efforts. The measure was approved by a narrow margin, but as it turns out, the margin of extra funding was even thinner.

For the third consecutive year, the amount of revenue transferred to the newly created California Fire Response Fund was exactly: Zero.

Proposition 19 contained, among its multiple provisions, the biggest property tax increase in state history.

Previously, parents could transfer their primary residence of any value, plus as much as $1 million of assessed value of other property, to their children with no change to the property tax assessment.

Now, property transferred from parents to children is reassessed to current market value as of the date of transfer, with only a partial exception for a parent’s primary residence that becomes the child’s permanent primary residence within one year.

Prop. 19 requires the Department of Finance to calculate, every year by September 1, the amount of money that the Controller will transfer to the Fire Response Fund as a result of the tax increase on inherited properties. So far, not even a nickel.

“Finance calculates that there were no additional revenues and no increased savings to the state from the implementation of [Proposition 19] in fiscal year 2023-24,” the department informed the legislature in a letter.

One reason cited: property taxes are deductible on state income tax returns. That means the higher property tax bills result in lower income tax payments, and no net gain of revenue.

The loss of the parent-child transfer exclusion from reassessment has been devastating to hard-working families. The high prices of real estate in California, and the high property taxes on those valuations, are forcing working families to sell homes, rental housing and small business properties they’d rather keep. After commissions are deducted and loans are paid off, what remains is soon eroded by inflation. Prop. 19 was a bad deal.

The legislature should place a measure on the 2026 ballot to restore the right of parents to pass a limited amount of property to their children without a tax increase.