Posted on 04/16/2006 11:04:54 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO — As Californians hit the tax deadline, an independent think tank is handing voters political ammunition in an election year — the burden of funding state services has shifted from corporate to personal income taxpayers in the past two decades.
And Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides — the only gubernatorial candidate talking about closing corporate tax loopholes and taxing the wealthy — has sunk to underdog status in the polls.
"New, increased and expanded corporate tax breaks and the 1996 corporate rate reduction are responsible for the decline in the share of state revenues provided by the corporate income tax," according to a California Budget Project report.
"Tax cuts enacted between 1993 and2005 alone will reduce 2005-06 state general fund revenues by $9.9 billion," says the study by the think tank that focuses on issues affecting the poor and middle class.
Among the three leading gubernatorial candidates — Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won a recall election with his anti-tax stance; Democratic Controller Steve Westly, a multimillionaire former eBay executive; and Angelides — only Angelides is talking taxes.
Angelides wants to tax the income of California's wealthiest and close corporate tax loopholes — leaving regular residents alone — to boost school funding and balance the deficit-plagued state budget.
But heading toward the June Democratic primary, the latest Field Poll shows Westly has jumped to a 37 percent to 26 percent lead over Angelides, a one-time Sacramento real estate developer.
Angelides has support in the Democrat-dominated Legislature for easing the tax burden on the poor and middle-class, but it's muted amid the turbulence of an election year and fierce, behind-the-scenes corporate resistance.
With the state's shift from dependence on corporate to personal income taxpayers, "the personal income tax is expected to provide more than 53 percent of general fund revenues in the coming fiscal year 2006-07, up from about 35 percent in 1980-81," CBP director Jean Ross said in her report.
Measured as a share of family income, California's poorest families pay the most in taxes, according to experts.
The poorest fifth of the state's non-elderly families, with an average income of $11,100, spend 11.3 percent of their income on state taxes. By comparison, the wealthiest 1 percent, with an average income of $1.6 million, spend 7.2 percent of their income on state taxes.
"The total tax burden on California's families is a function of the state's highly progressive personal income tax and regressive sales and excise taxes — higher income households pay more in income taxes, lower income households pay more in property taxes," Ross said.
Households also bear a share of the burden of taxes imposed on business through higher prices and reduced corporate earnings, experts say.
Higher-income households pay a relatively greater share of the corporate income tax. Lower-income households pay a greater share of businesses' sales and excise tax burden.
Overall, California is a moderate tax state, according to the CBP and other groups. In 2004-05, California ranked 12th among the 50 states when it came to state taxes as a percentage of personal income. The state ranked 18th with respect to total "own source" revenues — the broadest measure of state and local funds — raised by state and local governments.
California ranks relatively high regarding personal and corporate income tax collections and relatively low on property, vehicle fuel and alcohol taxes.
Cut state services (i.e. handouts for the lazy/ignerent)!
The sound you are hearing is the mass exodus of taxpayers and capital leaving the PRK.
Anyone have an idea what California spends on services (education, hospitalization, welfare, etc.) for illegals?
The sound you are hearing is the mass exodus of taxpayers and capital leaving the PRK.
which is overcome by the sound of all the illegals scurrying in to "take their place".
I was spelling it phonetically in the way a truly ignorant person would pronounce it.
Never mind.
Regardless of who writes the check, only people bear the economic incidence of taxation.
I've seen figures that range from $4 billion to $10 billion being spent and that is over and above any money paid in by illegals.
The state has to cut tax burdens on businesses or they will leave the state, or not enter in the first place.
What the state also needs to do, is cut the tax burden of private individuals.
Gutting commissions and cutting servies are the only ways to do this. Get on with it!
Exactly. Any taxes placed on corporations are just passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
$10.5 Billion per year, or $1,183.00 per year per household, for 2004.
The congress knows where the votes are, so they don't tax the "people". They know full well however, that the people who they do tax will not simply reach into their pockets for the money, they instead increase their prices. So, the congress gets the money, without the bad rap, because after all, they did not tax the "poor".
The voter however, does indeed get stuck with the bill.
I've written it here before and I'll write it again -- businesses are leaving the state, the richest individuals are either leaving the state or becoming CA residents in name only, the illegals are becoming a higher percentage of the population but have nothing to take, and renters are free to flee to another state.
Thus before too long homeowners will be the most exposed and hopeless targets for the state government. Ultimately the state will "have no choice" but to declare a "fiscal emergency" and "temporarily" suspend Prop 13.
I see this happening within nine years. (I first proposed this a year ago or so when it became clear that defecit spending and uncontrolled borrowing would be the first and only choice of the Democrats, RINOs, and socialists running the state -- and that these are the only people I see being elected in the forseeable future.)
We think alike. My post from late last night:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1615863/posts?page=32#32
Or, to quote myself,
"The higher incomes are fleeing the state (there's a net outflux of native-born citizens of around 200,000 per year) and this skew in income will mean that not only will the tax burden reach lower and lower, but proposition 13 will eventually be breached in toto so that the non-mobile assets that can't flee (i.e., real estate) can be taxed into oblivion."
And illegal. California is between 10-15 billion in the hole. Coincidentally, we spend between 9-10 billion on services to illegals.
Get rid of the illegals, tax revenue goes up as illegals are replaced by citizen employees, and costs go down.
Just refuse services to the illegals. I betcha a whole bunch of them would deport themselves if they could no longer received benefits.
Most estimates show it to be about $10 Billion a year, or about 10% of the total budget.
About $8 Billion of that is on education, alone.
Here are some relevant links:
THE COSTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TO CALIFORNIANSCost of illegal immigration in California estimated at nearly $9 billion (VERY INFORMATIVE!!!)
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
True. And because corporations are not all based in California, but still do business there, taxing corporations may spread the taxes across people who would otherwise be spared.
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