Ways to tax California's 1% to stem budget crisis (Good read)

[Auggie]

The San Francisco Chronicle / June 13, 2012 — by Lenny Goldberg, Roy Ulrich

Gov. Jerry Brown's most recent budget proposal takes a meat-ax to vital programs, including Medi-Cal and in-home support services.

Why do we refer to them as "vital"? In-home services, for example, helps the disabled and seniors live safely in their own homes, obviating the need to place them in more costly outside facilities.

The governor's plan represents the latest and worst in a cuts-only approach in which California seems to specialize. Reaping the benefits of this approach are the rich and powerful. The losers are those without high-priced lobbyists: the poor and the weak.

There are several potential revenue sources the rich and powerful have been able to avoid that other states, including a few very red ones, have seen fit to tap.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/13/ED751OVBLN.DTL

Summation of reforms from the op piece:

• Oil severance tax: Est. $2 billlion added annual revenue @ 10% tax rate
• 51 percent turnover in publicly held stock: Est. $2 billion added annual revenue (see article)
• "Loss Carrybacks" elimination: Est $200 million added annual revenue (see article)
• Change in taxing overseas profits: Est. $300-500 million added annual revenue
• Eliminate tax-free property exchanges at the state level: Est. $350 milion added annual revenue (I don't agree with this one)
• The Steyer initiative (force out-of-state companies to calculate their tax liability based on the percentage of sales in CA):
Est. $1 billion added annual revenue

[BlueCaliDem]

1. If Brown and our legislature really are Democrats

they should follow those guidelines, but tax the oil companies at 25% like Palin did. That would nearly triple the revenue for the state. But I would certainly want to see CA tax the oil companies at 50% since we're already running out of oil and the oil companies have had a free ride for far too long.

Enough of taxing and cutting programs for the weak and vulnerable! It's time the 1% begin paying their fair share.

[Auggie]

2. Dems lack the two-thirds majority in both California houses to raise taxes

Brown is powerless, except to raise awareness of the problem -- the Repukes.

[KamaAina]

3. The Jerry Brown of old would have locked everybody in a room

and told them that they were going to pass a budget, and it would include new revenue.

Why is Jerry Brown, Release 2.0, so cuddly to business? Perhaps because he's been sleeping with the enemy for 15 years. Anne Gust Brown is a former Gap executive whose daddy was once Mittens' dad's running mate in Michigan.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. The question is, have they even proposed anything?

I know they lack one or two votes to have the 2/3rd majority to pass new taxes, but what bothers me is, they're willing to entertain raising sales and income taxes on the working Americans now, so what's stopping them from proposing the hikes as you've listed in your OP?

[Auggie]

6. The income tax and sales tax is a ballot initiative

The income tax is affectionally referred to as a "Millionaire's tax," not a tax on the poor. It targets top wage earners.

And yes, the sales tax is a real head scratcher.

More info here: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Jerry_Brown's_California_Tax_Increase_Initiative_(2012). Interesting -- there was an initiative proposed for the tax on oil but that was apparently dropped in favor of the above. "The concern, among those who generally support a tax increase, that if there are multiple tax increase proposals on the November 6, 2012 ballot, they might all fail."

Uh-huh

The sales/Millionaires tax dosen't appear to have qualified for the Novemer ballot yet: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_2012_ballot_propositions

[Starry Messenger]

8. I know from one of our meetings with my Local that the Millionaires Tax got 1.2 million sigs.

I don't know why it hasn't officially qualified yet, but the CFT rep was optimistic that we'd crossed the threshold and then some.

The oil tax proposal only got 500,000 (I think, I'm working without my notes but that's what I remember) sigs, which was a lot considering that they couldn't afford to hire professional sig. gatherers-it was all volunteer effort. But it failed to qualify, sadly.

[Auggie]

9. Many thanks S.M.

[kelly1mm]

5. The article outlines about 6 billion in additional revenue. CA budget deficit is projected at 16

billion for this year. While these proposals may be a part of the solution, where does the other 10 billion come from?

[Auggie]

7. Probably from the pending ballot initiative (see post #6)

And (maybe) and upturn in the economy?