With California’s Proposition 30 income tax hikes expiring in 2018, a coalition of education and other groups on Monday filed an initiative for next year’s ballot to temporarily extend those taxes on some of the wealthiest residents.
Whether California would move to keep the tax hikes on the books has been a recurring topic of debate during budget talks at the Capitol. Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, called for an extension of Proposition 30 as early as January 2014.
But Gov. Jerry Brown, who championed Proposition 30 as temporary, has repeatedly stressed that the sales and income tax measure should remain so. The initiative was approved by state voters in 2012.
The new “School Funding and Budget Stability Act” would boost income tax rates on couples earning more than $500,000 a year for 12 years, with the proceeds deposited into an account to support K-12 schools and colleges. The quarter-cent sales tax increase would not be touched, and expire as planned in 2016.
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