'ACCOUNTABILITY' ACT UPS TAXES, NOT LEARNING.

Byline: Jon Coupal

THEY'RE back!

A loosely knit band of Silicon Valley's wealthiest has returned with a new scheme to increase the burden on property-tax payers.

This group is mostly the same billionaire boys' club members who spent $60 million in 2000 on a successful campaign to make it easier to increase property taxes for school bonds, while vigorously defending tax breaks for their own industry. Since then, local districts have successfully passed more than $39 billion in local school bonds, but for these high-tech industry elites, it's not enough.

Now they have filed a new tax-hiking initiative that would hit every property owner in the state, although you would never know it from its benign-sounding title.

The ``Classroom Learning and Accountability Act,'' submitted to the attorney general for official title and summary - the first step in qualifying for the ballot - sounds like something everyone would want to support. After all, who opposes classroom learning and accountability?

Noticeably absent in the title is any mention that the measure would place a new tax, known as a parcel tax, on every piece of property in the state, regardless of owners' ability to pay. The newlywed buyers of a tract home, a retired couple in a bungalow and a multimillionaire in a mansion would all pay the same amount.

Because the CLAA would be a constitutional amendment, it would dismantle the taxpayer protections contained in Proposition 13, which caps property taxes at 1 percent of assessed values. Although parcel taxes are allowed at the local level under Proposition 13, they now require a two-thirds public vote to be enacted. By going to a statewide election, promoters hope to impose the new statewide tax on property owners with a simple majority vote.

That the CLAA was submitted without fanfare is probably no accident. By keeping it under wraps for as long as possible, backers can limit criticism, then launch a massive P.R. effort when they get the green light from the attorney general to circulate the measure for the ballot.

However, there may be another reason the financial backers have kept a low profile. Surely they know they face an uphill fight. Not only does the CLAA reflect bad policy, but it has innumerable political weaknesses as well.

First, by its nature, a statewide property tax that hits every parcel with the same flat amount would be characterized - accurately - as a declaration of war by the rich against the middle class. A possible television ad against the tax would only have to show the home of one of the billionaire backers of the proposal compared to a modest home with a tag line that simply notes that their taxes would be the same flat amount.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that parcel taxes are highly regressive.

Second, unlike any other property tax, this tax would be a direct levy by the state. Currently, all property taxes are local - with local control. This proposal would, for the first time, constitute an automatic tax on a community even if the proposal lost by 90 percent of the vote in that community.

It is unclear whether the backers of this proposal have totally thought through the policy and political ramifications of proceeding. If they do decide, however, to qualify the measure and conduct a campaign, we can surely expect plenty of deception.

So when that guy with the clipboard approaches you in front of the supermarket or post office and asks you to sign in support of ``classroom accountability,'' be sure to ask if it will raise taxes. The honest answer would be ``yes.''