What's being talked about here is whether or not Oracle's acquisition of the Sun property triggers a reassessment under Prop. 13 provisions. When a property is sold or acquired, the selling price becomes the new assessed value according to Prop. 13, often raising the property tax. Companies usually find ways to get around this through loopholes (the Howard Jarvis organization doesn't talk much about this). However, when regular citizens buy a used home, and then have to pay much higher property taxes than the former occupants -- well, they don't have any such loopholes that I know of!