That's an interesting idea, but I see three main problems:

1) It doesn't solve the immediate revenue problems of the taxing authority

2) It doesn't provide any more incentive to move than the current situation in California

3) It exposes taxing authorities to risk in a housing market downturn where people may start surrendering their property rather than sell because selling would net them little money, or even cost them money.

It's better than the status quo, and reduces the lost taxes to a far smaller number of units (every corporation and person vs some older people). Solutions don't have to be %100, especially when you can stack them to get to a target revenue number.

It also allows older people to move without 'losing' a prop 13 tax benefit, since they can retain more value of the large house they don't need anymore with a smaller lower maintenance condo.

> It's better than the status quo

Without putting more thought into it, I don't know. I don't see how this changes the revenue picture.

> reduces the lost taxes to a far smaller number of units (every corporation and person vs some older people)

That is independent of the tax lien idea.

> It also allows older people to move without 'losing' a prop 13 tax benefit, since they can retain more value of the large house they don't need anymore with a smaller lower maintenance condo.

This I can see. I know Florida had issues with people who wanted to downsize but couldn't afford to because of the tax jump from selling their homesteaded property.

That said, I'm not sure this alone would open up enough inventory to actually reduce prices.

>I don't see how this changes the revenue picture.

The government gets all of the deferred taxes on the next sale. That’s immensely better than the current scenario where they don’t get any reasonable amount.

So, they go from getting a reduced amount each year to getting nothing each year with the expectation of a larger lump sum at some indeterminate point the future. I'm not sure that's a good deal in a housing market where turnover is low, and I don't see anything in a simple tax lien plan that is going to drive increased turnover.

It removes the incentive to stay in a home to keep the low tax rate. That’s a big deal.

And the deferred revenue can be significant. A friend bought a house where the owner was paying $600 per year when the rate for the same home should have been $11,000 per year.

Government can apply prop 13 style 'minimum payments' along with the deferred payment. Or make people do reverse mortgages and make the market sort it out.

Usually although, you have provide some sort of incentive to people adopt something, and no taxes vs some small amount taxes is attractive to a voting block. And democracy is getting enough voting blocks to get you over the pass rate.

Also since government works over large numbers and is very long term, they can do actuarial calculations to see when revenue would kick in and issue fairly reliable bonds based on it.

No, stop assuming the stupidest way to implement it and then attacking that implementation. People get the same annually capped increases and then the lien of the remainder of the normal increase.