L.A. Mayor Karen Bass Says City Considering Suspending Measure ULA Tax to Help Rebuilding

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — LA Mayor Karen Bass said Tuesday that she and the city council are considering ways to shut down ULA, a controversial property transfer tax, in an effort to rebuild the area that was destroyed by recent wildfires.

Several state and federal lawsuits have put ULA's constitutionality measurements into question. Tuesday was the first time Bass publicly admitted that it could suspend taxes.

“We're considering that,” Bus said in response to questions from Breitbart News at a press conference. “Because there are two ways of thinking. One is that it doesn't happen, you have to go back to voters. And the other is that it may be possible to happen with actions from the council and the mayor's office. So we are now being investigated through our lawyers.”

As Breitbart News pointed out Tuesday, Measure ULA is dragging the local real estate market and by eliminating it, it could encourage reconstruction.

Measure ULA was sold to voters as a “mansion tax,” but in reality it applies to all kinds of real estate, including hospitals, factories, office buildings, and small homes that family landlords often use to provide income to themselves.

Breitbart News said in early 2023 that ULA “requires that it collect 4% tax on sales of more than $5 million and 5.5% tax on sales of assets worth more than $10 million.” (The minimum threshold was seen increasingly increasing.) It was supposed to raise $900 million a year, and sold to voters under the concept of supporting the homeless.

But taxes were flops. A month after it came into effect on April 1, 2023, it killed taxes on LA's high-end real estate market.

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Furthermore, as wealthy homeowners pulled their property off the market, measurements couldn't even bring in half of what was supposed to rise because transactions were slower.

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The Los Angeles City Council voted to spend the majority of its $168 million in its 2024-5 ULA funding measurements for the 2024-5 social housing.

Rather than directly benefiting the economy, the funds were also spent on non-governmental organizations and overhead costs.

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For so many people, at such a devastation point, a measure of ULA suspension or abolishment can send oxygen to real estate markets strangled with invalid taxes.

Bass was touring one of four affected workers and family recovery centres the city had set up to help workers who lost their jobs due to the fire and not necessarily reside within the boundaries of the fire zone.

Many of the stores and office buildings in which those workers were employed were destroyed in the fire.