One of the most persistent zombie lies that conservative spread is that California’s taxes are among the nation’s highest. I have repeatedly pointed out that this is untrue, as the California Budget Project has proved (see page 18 of the PDF), and yet people like Jerry Brown continue to repeat the myth of California as leading the nation in taxing its people.
Today the US Census Bureau published data which says the CBP and I are right and the zombie lie is wrong: California is 12th in per capita taxes.
Since California taxation is on many people’s minds, it’s timely that the U.S. Census today released its latest data on state taxes. Total taxes collected by the 50 states (plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) reached $781.8 billion in 2008. That’s a 5.1 percent increase over 2007. These figures cover the whole range of state taxation — from property, sales, and income taxes to the various licenses fees, such as vehicle, alcohol and hunting. There’s a spreadsheet breaking out each type of tax for every state. California amassed $117.4 billion in 2008, with the biggest share coming from individual income taxes ($55.7 billion).
Ranked by per capita taxes collected, California comes out 12th in the nation (see table below). Alaska leads the states by a large margin because of its huge oil severance tax.
The chart shows little overall trend – big states and small states, states with high unemployment and low unemployment, they’re all there. One cannot draw a conclusion from this chart that there’s any correlation between high taxes and high unemployment or poverty rates.
Of course, no amount of evidence or fact is likely to change the minds of California conservatives and their fellow travelers, who continue to cling to 30 years of failed policy and insist that any tax increase is going to destroy our state.
Instead California needs to improve its public services, repair the safety net, and use government to provide jobs – all of which will require new taxes – if we are to avoid a statewide Depression.
Since those statistics include property tax rates (and corporate property taxes are WAY out of whack in CA) while the total average tax may be lower in CA the GREATER burden is payed by the non property owning lower class.
What should be said is CA has one of the most REGRESSIVE taxation systems in the country. And our to income tax and near top sales tax rates affect the middle class the most.
Alaska has no state sales tax (though municipalities can charge up to 7%) and no income tax. I don’t have time to look it up but I doubt Alaskans are paying several hundred dollars to register there pickups…
Once again the so-called liberal position is to tax the poor an middle class while refusing to take on corporate and union interests.
Why do some here complain about Feinstein and some of the other corporate Dems (phil “REstate deals” Angi-whatever being another) you essentially advocate there continuance in power by supporting this silliness.
However the fundamental problem with the current state of CA “liberalism” is that in this economy people are not going to vote to tax themselves so that means the only way to balance the budget is with quite a bit of spending cuts or more borrowing which would lead to insolvency sooner rather than later.
My problem with the corporatist Dems is they have no moral high ground upon which to attack Republicans. If they wanted to they could have pushed through reform of Prop 13s corporate provisions long ago. Packaged with a tax cut for middle income earners it would have been a win win that could have kept us out of this hole.
But instead they conspired with the Republicans to gerrymander safe seats for themselves. NONE of these Politicians have the best interest or the general welfare of CA at heart. I see a few to many kool-aid drinkers who would rather just hate the other side than see what is really going on.
Honestly do you think Don Perata or Fabian Nunez along with Abel Maldonado or any of these other hacks tuly give a shit about you or I???
who do tax analysis combine state/local tax burdens.
Not just state.
The most appalling illustration of California’s regressive tax system: if you make at least $47,500 per year, you pay the same state income tax rate as someone making $999,999. Yep, that’s right. An income of $47,500 puts you in the same tax category as someone making 21 times as much money.
Remember that when your legislators come around asking for support for Prop 1A, which would make the state tax code even more regressive.
Persistent zombie lies? Well, I guess that you can go through some contortionist’s logic to arrive at a conclusion that California taxes really are not high, but lets just look at the facts.
California’s sales tax rate WAS 7.25%, although in some “self-help” jurisdictions it can be higher. 7.25% was the highest in the nation. New Jersey, Mississippi, Tennessee and Rhode Island all have 7% rates and tie for second place. Now we are going to 8.25%.
California’s personal income tax rate used to top out at 9.3% at $44,815. Vermont tops out at 9.5% but that’s if you make $357,000 per year. The next highest is Oregon at 9% if you make more than $7300 per year. So there is no clear cut way to say which is higher or lower. Now we have gone to 9.55% so clearly we have the highest rate in the nation, but there are more variables than just the rate.
Which brings us to property tax. We have a very low property tax rate, but our property values are much higher than the rest of the country. The tax feels heavy even though the rate is relatively low. In terms of tax rate, we rank near the bottom. In terms of median tax, we rank number 10.