Opponents of Jerry Brown’s November Tax Increase Initiative Already At Work

4 Comments »

1. 

   I’m an independent citizen and I too am already at work against Governor Brown’s ill-conceived (and un-democratic) tax hike.

   First, allow me to put the Governor’s tax hike into a little perspective. How do California’s tax rates compare nationally?

   HART: California Income Tax Brackets and Governor Brown’s Tax Hike Proposal Compared to the HIGHEST Marginal Tax Rate in the Other 49 States
   http://www.twitpic.com/9g2pka/full

   CHART: California State Sales Tax Rates and Governor Brown’s Tax Hike Proposal Compared to the State Sales Tax Rate in the Other 49 States
   http://www.twitpic.com/9gfz3z/full

   Funny how only one state is tops in both in both categories. Despite ALREADY having high taxes, California seems incapable of living within its means.

   Who is bankrolling Governor Brown’s tax hike initiative?

   CHART: The Big Government and Union Special Interests Bankrolling Governor Brown’s Tax Hike
   http://www.twitpic.com/9gi4e1/full

   Strange how these same names also appear on the list of California’s biggest political spenders.

   CHART: The 15 Biggest Spenders in California Politics
   http://www.twitpic.com/75tc0v/full

   Comment by Soquel by the Creek — 5.24.2012 @ 9:47 am

2. 

   Are they crazy? No one is going to read a 5 page screed, even the true believers. It makes sense to go this route if political consultants are getting paid per word but otherwise…really?

   Comment by Think Chick — 5.24.2012 @ 2:27 pm

3. 

   I don’t expect accuracy from the CRP, but for fun I made a spreadsheet of _actual_ impact on taxes paid, so I can count the ridiculous items:

   * “Could cost me $19,000 a year” – but “if you were almost a millionaire”; it is true in the sense that, if you made $990,000, your state taxes would go up by $18,700, which can be rounded to $19,000, but that’s still basically millionaire territory. If your income is $390,000 (which is the bottom of the top 1%), your state taxes go up by $1,800. Scaaary.
   * “Increase the tax rate you pay by as much as 29%”: This only makes sense if you divide the new effective tax rate by the old one, so the percentage rate by which your percentage rate grows. I’m not an accountant but I suspect they would tell you how much more you would pay, not that rather useless number. Based on my spreadsheet, someone making exactly $1 million would go from 9.08% to 10.98% effective rate, which is a “percentage increase” (God!) of 21%. This figure levels off as income increases; you’d have to make $3 million for it to be 29%.
   * An accountant would also tell you that since you can deduct state and local income taxes from your adjusted gross income for federal income tax, the overall impact to an individual of higher state taxes is lessened. Figuring it simplistically (single salary income, no other deductions, etc.), someone making $1 million would pay $19,000 more state taxes but with a federal marginal rate at that point of 35%, they’d save $6,650 on federal taxes, for a net impact of $12,350 more taxes. The 99.00%-percenter mentioned above would have a net impact of $1,170 more taxes.

   Comment by Minivet — 5.24.2012 @ 6:58 pm

4. 

   What everyone is missing is that these people making over $250K per year are California’s small business owners. They employ the lion’s share of workers in California. Perhaps most will not lay off a borderline employee to make the books balance when faced with higher personal income taxes, but it will certainly put a damper on expansion and new hires.
   You cannot tax California back to prosperity. California was recently voted as the worst state in the country to do business in. Brown’s Amazon debacle caused the shutdown of 25,000 small businesses in our state. We need lower business and personal taxes to promote small business growth, and prevent small businesses (like mine) from moving to another state (and we are seriously considering it- moving our business to Nevada would net my family almost $40K per year in CA Taxes alone). The only thing keeping us here are our loyal employees, but Brown is rapidly making the equation so one-sided it is inescapable.

   Comment by Dennis — 6.09.2012 @ 6:05 am

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