{"id":8420,"date":"2009-03-31T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-03-31T18:31:02","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T18:31:02","slug":"us-census-proves-it-california-not-the-highest-tax-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/03\/31\/us-census-proves-it-california-not-the-highest-tax-state\/","title":{"rendered":"US Census Proves It: California NOT the Highest Tax State"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> (see page 18 of the PDF), and yet people like Jerry Brown continue to repeat the myth<\/a> of California as leading the nation in taxing its people.<\/p>\n

Today the US Census Bureau published data which says the CBP and I are right and the zombie lie is wrong: California is 12th<\/b> in per capita taxes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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). <\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> (see page 18 of the PDF), and yet people like Jerry Brown continue to repeat the myth<\/a> of California as leading the nation in taxing its people.<\/p>\n

Today the US Census Bureau published data which says the CBP and I are right and the zombie lie is wrong: California is 12th<\/b> in per capita taxes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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). <\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-87"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2bO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}