State of California is broke

[poindexter]

If you make $47,056 in the state of California, your CA income tax rate is 9.3%.

Compare that to other states.

 

[Stitch]

How much state corporate income tax does Apple, Facebook, and Google pay?

 

[LongTimeListener]

How much state corporate income tax does Apple, Facebook, and Google pay?

One of the themes of the NYT article was how much Apple avoided in state taxes by moving operations to Nevada, where there is no income tax. The state's tax rate is quite high. That may not result in the taxes being paid because of said money-moving, but that isn't really a problem that a state government can solve.

 

[poindexter]

People scamming CALPers every single day - this dude was getting $545,000 a year in state pension... but yeah, its a Prop 13 problem.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vernon-pensions-20120601,0,5371733.story

 

[poindexter]

$100 million in additional tax revenue is like getting a half an inch of rain during a five-year drought.

I don't understand what this means.

 

[LanceyHoward]

The fact that so many people want to continue on with the high-speed rail project, as costs have ballooned from $34 billion when it was approved to $98 billion now (and who really thinks that will be all of the cost increases), is a strong argument that giving this particular government more money to work with is a terrible idea.

I pay 9 percent in sales taxes and 9 percent in income taxes, and on my home I bought for $300,000 many years ago I pay about $5,000 in property taxes. That's plenty of contribution from a normal taxpayer.

Sure, Prop 13 probably does need to change, especially for the business side of things; it was sold as a way from keeping grandma in her house but in reality is a way for apartment complex owners and Fortune 500 companies from ever paying more taxes.

But a whole lot needs to change before Prop 13 does.

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_tot_tax_bur-total-tax-burden-per-capita

I just provided a link to the total tax burden by state. California is ninth highest and has a $2,392 per person burden, just ahead of Michigan. The U.S. median is $2,000 per person.

While California in has done dumb things it seems to me that for people like you to pay that much in taxes given the overall level of spending that Prop 13 must be a terrible distortion.

 

[Stitch]

You forgot to mention fur coat-wearing welfare moms driving Caddies. BTW, I'm sure there are plenty of Republicans and Democrats who profit from the status quo.

 

[Stitch]

$100 million in additional tax revenue is like getting a half an inch of rain during a five-year drought.

I don't understand what this means.

Neither solves the problem at hand.

 

[poindexter]

$100 million in additional tax revenue is like getting a half an inch of rain during a five-year drought.

I don't understand what this means.

Neither solves the problem at hand.

What is the number you need to start caring?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Public employee unions buy state legislators, lock stock and barrel. State legislators give salary and benefits that would make Goldman Sachs directors blush.

Its California 101, folks.

This.

It's bad everywhere, but it is so much worse in California, it's not even funny. There was that story last year about the city manager in some tiny area had voted himself and his assistant six figure salaries and pensions that would pay them six figures for the rest of their lives.

I don't even know if it would be legal, but just even to get started fixing this, they would need someone to go in there and retroactively change all of the absurd pension plans that have been handed out over the years. Like I said, probably not legal, and good luck finding anyone who would or could do it.

One of the other things that is killing them is the movie industry. The taxes are so high that nobody in their right mind shoots anything in Los Angeles. It's all in Louisiana or Vancouver or some place where it's more affordable.

"Breaking Bad" was originally supposed to take place in Riverside. When they found out they couldn't afford to shoot there, they just moved everything to Albuquerque.

It's my home state and I love it, but holy shirt is it a mess...

 

[Mizzougrad96]

The property tax issue is a huge one. The public schools are shirt too... Of my friends who have stayed there (very few) the ones who can afford it have their kids in private school. I tell them about having things like pre-K and all-day kindergarten and 25 kids per class where I live and it just sounds insane to them.

I graduated high school in California 20 years ago this week and we were living through the first round of big cuts to the schools. About five years after that, things had gotten much, much worse and it hasn't turned around.

 

[poindexter]

The fact that so many people want to continue on with the high-speed rail project, as costs have ballooned from $34 billion when it was approved to $98 billion now (and who really thinks that will be all of the cost increases), is a strong argument that giving this particular government more money to work with is a terrible idea.

I pay 9 percent in sales taxes and 9 percent in income taxes, and on my home I bought for $300,000 many years ago I pay about $5,000 in property taxes. That's plenty of contribution from a normal taxpayer.

Sure, Prop 13 probably does need to change, especially for the business side of things; it was sold as a way from keeping grandma in her house but in reality is a way for apartment complex owners and Fortune 500 companies from ever paying more taxes.

But a whole lot needs to change before Prop 13 does.

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_tot_tax_bur-total-tax-burden-per-capita

I just provided a link to the total tax burden by state. California is ninth highest and has a $2,392 per person burden, just ahead of Michigan. The U.S. median is $2,000 per person.

While California in has done dumb things it seems to me that for people like you to pay that much in taxes given the overall level of spending that Prop 13 must be a terrible distortion.

Per capita is a bogus statistic, since California has 12% of the population, and 32% of the welfare recipients. The tax burden isn't distributed evenly at all, those who actually shoulder most of the tax burden pay significantly more than the per capita amount.