If you add up all the voter approved new taxes in November 2016, state and local, you have to include not only $5.0 billion in new local taxes and payments on local bonds per year, you also have to add the voter approved statewide measures. That would include Prop. 51, adding yet another $9.0 billion in school bonds (estimated payments $585 million per year), and Prop 55, the extension of the “temporary” increase to state income taxes on personal incomes over $250,000 per year (estimated collections, between $4.0 billion and $9.0 per year), and Prop. 56, the $2.00 tax increase per pack of cigarettes (estimated collections just over $1.0 billion per year).
Before turning to 2018, it’s important to also note that in 2016 the Democrats recovered their two-thirds majority in the state legislature, meaning they could pass new taxes without voter approval. And in 2017, that’s exactly what they did, adding twelve cents per gallon to the already high state taxes on gasoline and increasing vehicle registration fees. Voila, another $5.4 billion per year in taxes on Californians.
. . . Which brings us to November 2018. The table below shows 125 new local bonds are proposed. If they are all approved by voters, that will add another $1.2 billion in annual payments. In addition, 259 new local taxes are proposed, which if approved will total another $1.6 billion in annual payments. This time, along with the perennial hikes to sales taxes and parcel taxes, the other popular new mode of taxation is marijuana, with 73 of California’s cities and counties proposing to cash in on sales of recreational cannabis.
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