11/24/2024

Voters will likely be asked for 12 more years of higher income taxes on the wealthy

When Gov. Jerry Brown asked California voters to raise taxes in 2012 , he made clear that it was temporary, revenues needed to balance the books for only a few years.

On Wednesday, a coalition of labor and healthcare groups said some of those taxes are needed for a while longer.

“It simply extends the current tax rates on the wealthiest 2% of Californians,” Laphonza Butler, president of Service Employees International Union California, said of an initiative to extend the 2012 personal income taxes through 2030.

Butler and a group of education and healthcare groups announced on Wednesday that they’ve gathered more than 980,000 signatures to earn the tax extension a spot on what looks to be a very long Nov. 8 statewide ballot .

Unlike 2012’s Proposition 30, which temporarily raised the state’s portion of the sales tax and high-earner income taxes, the new initiative is focused only on income taxes. A single person earning more than $263,000 and joint filers earning more than about $526,000 would continue to pay the rates established by Proposition 30.

View Article