California’s tax revenues jumped by 18.2 percent in 2013, thanks to an improving economy and the impact of a temporary sales and income tax increase approved by voters, a new Census Bureau report shows.
Three months after it painted Los Angeles as a metropolis stumbling into decline, the Los Angeles 2020 Commission offered 13 recommendations Wednesday that it said would “put the city on a path to fiscal stability and renew job creation.”
Business owners who have fled California often say their decision to leave wasn’t just about tax rates, but about the punitive attitudes sometimes found among tax and regulatory authorities here. A new wrinkle in a high-profile, 22-year-old tax case gives fodder to those who make such claims.
Preempting the mayor, a group of labor activists led by Service Employees International Union Local 1021 filed documents with city’s Department of Elections on Monday to place a proposal on the November ballot to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour – the highest in the nation.
CalSTRS said Thursday that its long-term funding shortfall has risen to $73.7 billion, a stark reminder of the financial issues facing the teachers’ pension fund.
The ongoing drought in California could dampen employment growth in coming years and have a ripple effect on several industries in the state, according to a UCLA report released Wednesday.
For the first time in months, most Californians are shelling out more than $4 for a gallon of regular gasoline. And with the busy summer driving season ahead, prices are likely to move even higher, fuel analysts said.
Women are starting 1,288 (net) new businesses per day, which is double the rate from only three years ago, according to the 2014 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, commissioned by American Express OPEN. . . Of the 25 most populous metropolitan areas, the cities with the highest combined economic clout for women-owned firms – a measurement averaging the rankings in growth in number, revenues and employment of women-owned businesses from 2002-2014 are: 1. San Antonio, TX . . . 25. San Francisco, CA (tied for twenty-fifth)
The county’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to send a five-signature letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and members of the Legislature asking them to “recognize the negative impacts high taxes and excessive regulations have on the entertainment industry and provide reforms to make California competitive with other states who are successfully luring film and television production away from California.”
California’s leaders often mock Texas and its Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has been on an almost evangelical mission to lure California businesses eastward. Earlier this month, Perry visited Los Angeles, Orange County and the San Jose area. He’s been in TV ads pitching Texas to businesses and has boasted that in the last two years California companies created 14,000 jobs in the Lone Star State.
WalletHub analyzed how state and local tax rates compare to the national median in the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. We compared eight different types of taxation in order to determine: 1) Which states have the highest and lowest tax rates; 2) how those rates compare to the national median; 3) which states offer the most value in terms of low taxation and high cost-of-living adjusted income levels.
The average American family pays nearly $7,000 in state and local taxes in a given year, but the actual amounts vary wildly. A Californian who lives on the western side of Lake Tahoe pays almost three times more in state taxes than their neighbor on the Nevada side of the lake. Someone living in Portland, Ore., pays more than twice as much as a neighbor living across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash.
This study presents detailed state-by-state estimates of the state and local taxes paid by businesses for FY2012. It is the 11th annual report prepared by EY in conjunction with the Council On State Taxation (COST).
To put the CT in context, we note that these tax payments represent a small portion of the overall tax burden borne by California businesses. According to a study of 2011-12 business taxes by the Council on State Taxation—a trade association of multistate corporations—corporate income taxes made up only about 10 percent of the entire amount of state and local taxes paid by California businesses. The two largest taxes paid by businesses—property taxes and sales taxes—were each much larger than the total amount of state corporate income taxes.
. . . Census data shows that in 2012, 7.1 percent of California’s overall state tax revenues came from corporate income taxes. . . . This is an above-average share of state tax revenues derived from corporate income taxes. Specifically, the average share among the 50 states was 5.1 percent of tax revenues.
Starting next year, the law will force fuel distributors into the same cap-and-trade marketplace as utilities and major manufacturers. The oil industry says it will lead to price increases of at least 12 cents a gallon immediately, while state regulators say any price spikes could vary widely, from barely noticeable to double-digits.