Forty years after Proposition 13 was approved by California voters, the issue of property-tax limits could be back on the state ballot in 2018.

A coalition of liberal groups is trying to qualify an initiative for the November ballot that would remove Prop. 13’s restrictions on reassessments and tax increases for corporate-owned property.

The backers say the initiative would keep Prop. 13’s protections for homeowners, residential renters, small businesses and farmers.

They say a projected $11 billion in new revenue from corporate property taxes would be used to provide needed funding for schools and community colleges as well as parks, libraries, health clinics, home-building, homeless services, roads and bridges.

But those promises haven’t kept low-tax advocates from slamming the would-be initiative, called the California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2018.

“It’s still a foot in the door to changing a fundamental feature of Prop. 13,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, founded by and named for Prop. 13’s driving force in 1978. “The way the law is now, businesses can predict with certainty what their property taxes will be in the future.”

Prop. 13 limited property taxes to 1 percent of a property’s cash value and capped increases at 2 percent per year, allowing reassessment of a property’s value and a larger increase in its owner’s tax bill only after it changes hands or new construction is completed. The incipient measure would change that for commercial property.

“Why do they need more money?” Coupal said of state officials. “To spend it on something stupid like high-speed rail?”

Coupal said money earmarked for education could end up going to bail out teachers’ pensions.

The initiative’s proponents, who include the League of Women Voters, say they’re only seeking to eliminate a “loophole” that allows corporations to avoid paying as much as homeowners, and say it would help small businesses by eliminating taxes on their fixtures and equipment.

The initiative is the latest in a series of attempts to establish a property tax “split roll” that treats residential and commercial property differently. It was filed Friday, Dec. 15, with the California Attorney General’s Office, which must prepare an official title and summary. By law, 585,407 petition signatures (8 percent of total votes cast in the last election for governor) would be needed to qualify it for the ballot.