The Boston Tea Party was formed in 1773 in protest of a tax on tea by the English Government, and escalated into the American Revolution. The Tea Party believed this was taxation without representation. The same is true today. Under the city of Astoria’s ballot title, Measure 4-247, if someone has not lived in a house or six months, the owner can be fined $3,000 that year and $6,000 thereafter.
What if the person who owned the house had previous renters? The owners had a bad experience renting their house, and decided not to rent again. That should be the owner’s decision, and not Measure 4-247’s to make.
Perhaps the owner of the house wants to use the Step-up in Basis Rule, where inherited properties’ cost basis is reset to its fair market value at the decedent’s date of death, and comes from federal law: Internal Revenue Code 1014 (A)(1), which has been in effect since 1954. an illustration, in 1996 a couple bought a house in Astoria for $50,000.
Today that house is worth $500,000. The couple wants to keep the house until they both die; at which time their children can establish the Step-Up in Basis Rule. There would be no federal tax, and perhaps no state tax on the sale of the house.
I believe Measure 4-247 to be poorly written. It does not protect older people, and could cause them to sell their house without being able to use the Step-Up Basis Rule for their children or grandchildren.
TERRY SMITH