California income tax collections in April exceeded Brown administration estimates by more than $1.6 billion, according to data posted Friday by the state controller’s office, pushing income tax revenue for the year $8 billion higher than during a comparable period in 2013-14.
As measured by PIT levied per capita (per person), the Bay Area (specifically, the San Francisco/Oakland and San Jose MSAs) and Orange County are above the statewide average, while nearly every other part of the state is below. Outside of Orange County and those two Bay Area MSAs, only Napa County (grouped in the table above with two adjacent jurisdictions) has per capita PIT assessed ($1,856) at a level above the statewide average.
The latest version — the third in three years — brought down the cost from $25 billion to $17 billion. But it made the project even more risky politically.
The Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, disaggregated recently released 2013 income tax numbers from the Franchise Tax Board by geographic region. His staff discovered that on a per capita basis, the roughly six million residents of the immediate Bay Area paid an average of $3,119 in state taxes, well over twice the state average of $1,460.
The issue has little to do with what’s fair or isn’t, however. It’s about stabilizing the state tax system so it reliably produces enough money for education, social services, infrastructure and public safety in good times and bad.
BART will need voter help to meet more than $9.6 billion in capital needs through 2024, and it has no contingency plan if voters don’t come through to help, California’s state auditor says in a report released Tuesday afternoon.
The unusual new startup dangles the possibility of getting Draper’s seed funding — as much as $2-4 million — for putting an idea on the state ballot. But he says he’s also willing to provide seed for non-profits and for-profit ventures, or to help fund a campaign to push an idea through the legislature.
While impacts of extending the Proposition 30 income surtax would be confined to those at the top of the economic ladder, other looming tax hikes would have a much broader effect and could hit the poor particularly hard, as a new report from the left-leaning California Budget and Policy Center implies.
The analysis, which compared 2014 city and federal wage data, shows that three of the five largest job categories represented by Service Employees International Union Local 721 — the biggest and most prominent of the unions now in contract talks with the city — pay more than double the median salary of similar full-time, private-sector jobs in Los Angeles County.
California income tax collections in April have already exceeded the Brown administration’s January estimates, underscoring the surge of higher-than-expected money flowing into the state treasury and possibly offering health and welfare programs – not just schools – a piece of the windfall.
“School board members are counting on the state to pay for the plan, hoping California will send the district higher-than-expected revenues when calculations are revised next month. Alternatively, the district would look to cut programs and lay off educators to balance a budget deficit most recently projected at $140 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1.”
Local government authority is growing in corrections, school funding, and other areas in California, putting pressure on localities to diversify revenue sources. As a result, the parcel tax may become an increasingly important fiscal tool in the state.
To develop a vision and policies for moving a greater share of state transportation dollars to projects and outcomes that are more cost-effective and better aligned with environmental goals, a group of transportation advocates, experts and public officials gathered at the University of California, Los Angeles in October 2014 for a discussion sponsored by the University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles Schools of Law.
California’s rising traffic fines were the subject of debate amid the economic recession as legislators raised total penalties by expanding or adding on new assessments. Four years ago, with the state strapped for cash, then-Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg described the growing traffic penalties as “one of the patches that we’ve relied upon to avoid deeper cuts” to state programs.
Of those states taxing wages, eight have single-rate tax structures, with one rate applying to all taxable income. Conversely, thirty-three states levy graduated-rate income taxes, with the number of brackets varying widely by state. Three states—Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon—impose two-rate income taxes. At the other end of the spectrum, three states have ten or more tax brackets, led by Hawaii with twelve. Top marginal rates range from Pennsylvania’s 3.07 percent to California’s 13.3 percent.