Hole in One for Rich Golfers
By Olivia McHaney
Los Angeles Country Club - The Clubhouse
Rolling hills of green, soft sandy patches, the smell of fresh cut grass… and who could forget, millions upon millions of dollars in tax avoidance!!! It’s easy to conjure up the bucolic image of a golf course, but we cannot forget that they occupy a strange and extreme tax haven, particularly in California.
We all know that because of Prop. 13, those who have owned property in California the longest have the lowest tax rates. It’s no surprise that golf courses, which are primarily owned, operated, and established by wealthy white men, benefit heavily from Prop. 13. But Prop. 13 isn’t the only tax law empowering golf courses to get out of paying their fair share. Proposition 6, passed in 1960 and spearheaded by golf enthusiast Bob Hope, prevents the value of non-profit golf courses from being assessed according to their “highest and best use,” as other properties are. Instead, they can only be assessed according to their value as a golf course. As a registered non-profit the 300-acre Los Angeles Country Club is assessed at $18 million for tax purposes, even though it’s surrounded by homes that are regularly sold for millions on a tiny fraction of that land. Based on current market values, the land alone is worth around $8 BILLION!!!
How is it okay that we essentially have an entire section of tax breaks carved out specifically for wealthy and exclusive institutions which are not accessible to those who aren’t wealthy and primarily white? Does the argument of retaining the tax carve-outs because golf courses are essential “green space” really hold when the $250,000 initiation fee bars almost all of our communities from accessing it? Beyond that, this “green space” is often an environmental nightmare, using tons of water and massive amounts of pesticides which ultimately seep into surrounding communities. Maybe the “green” in “greenspace” is referring to the millions of dollars the Club is raking in each year.
Because of Proposition 13, average Californians are forced to shoulder the burden of underfunding across many public services, especially education. Beyond that, we’re essentially subsidizing the leisure of the mega-rich who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to belong to prestigious golf clubs, which pay 30 times less than they should in property taxes. No other sport receives this kind of special treatment, and we must question why. Our schools and communities deserve to be fully funded — and clearly, California and its institutions have the money to do so.
If we as Californians want to do right by our progressive values, we can no longer allow these specific privileged groups to receive ridiculous tax breaks at all of our expense. It’s clearly well past time to change Prop. 6 and reform Prop. 13 so golf courses pay their fair share just like the rest of us.
