There’s been a lot of chatter about how low property taxes are in California. How low are they? Here’s an example from Warren Buffet (via Uggabugga) :

Billionaire financier Warren Buffett, an adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign for California governor, suggested in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday that the state’s property taxes should be higher.

But he used his own properties to illustrate an example.

Buffett’s home in Omaha, Nebraska is valued at about $500,000, and recent yearly property tax on the home totaled $14,401, he said in the report.

He paid $2,264 in annual property taxes on his $4 million home in Laguna Beach, California — about 16 percent of the tax he paid Nebraska for a much cheaper property.

Buffett said in the interview that taxes on his Nebraska home grew by $1,920 this year, while those on the California home rose by only $23, thanks to limitations on increases in property tax established by Proposition 13.

For those of you who don’t want to do the math, Uggabugga’s provided that as well :

Property tax in Nebraska: 2.88 %
Property tax in California: 0.05 %

With property values as high as they are in California, raising the property tax could probably bring in billions. Of course there’s an argument to be made that Prop. 13’s low tax rates have led to an artificial inflation of those property values. I dunno if it’s a bubble waiting to burst or not, but it’s clear that the minuscule property tax is in need of some sort of “correction”.