California To Begin Holding More Of Your Paycheck

[anitacastillo 0]

Could a book keeper explain this one to me? So they are taking a cash advance basically. I know our book keeper uses quickbooks, will an update to the software make the change? I know I can freely change my filing type with her at any point. Whats to stop me from blunting this by say changing my filing type from dual income to single income which drops my state tax level by about that 10%? Seems like you can play with your withholding to compensate.

It looks like CA has communicated with all payroll processors (including QB/Intuit) to adjust the withholding tables for the rest of the year.

Yes, you can change your W-4 (the form to indicate your withholding status) to increase your # of dependents - so less will be withheld.

My native state may have its problems - including the Bay Bridge's 5+ day closure - but as I was swimming laps outside on November 1 under a beautiful sun, I was counting my blessings to live here!

[Peikko 1,575]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

Tax increases are not the answer. The state and my local tax districts keep raising the salestax rate, currently 9% or 9.25%, depending on the district. The only problem? The quarterly payments I send usually run about the same, even declining over the last two years, because of reduced demand. The more money syphoned from the economy, the less money there is circulating. It doesn't take a plumber to understand that, but perhaps it should be one explaining economic theory, instead of the yahoos we have running the system now.

One is not necessarily the function of the other. In a recession there is less demand regardless. If you had had the tax lower the returns could have been lower still and the deficits could have been even greater. That is at least as credible an explanation as the one you offered Bill

[rika60607 215]

Fixxored!

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Republicans Liberals have run the country state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

[Jasman0717 9]

Legalize pot and tax the ####### out of it. What does it cost to grow an acre of pot, a buck? Geeze, let the tabacco companies grow it and make a nice profit and add a tax. Heck, California would be out of debt in about 2 weeks

[SMR 368]

Fixxored!

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Republicans Liberals have run the country state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

I don't know why you think that Republicans and liberals are mutually exclusive. There are a lot of liberal Republicans, and it's true that they are in large part at fault for the economic mess we were in at the end of last year.

[SMR 368]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

That's a lie. Prop 13 has been around for 30 years. You can look at California's rankings in things like schools before Prop 13 and since it went into law. The fact is, California is like a country in of itself and so our budgets aren't going to be anywhere near a state like South Dakota. When we are having to close state parks, release thousands of inmates, cut fire and police budgets, then you know that the problem isn't with expenditure. But the Right Wing Extremists who have taken hold of the Republican Party in just about every state will continue pitching that snake oil. They've done the same thing in Arizona, which is heavily Republican. Tell my parents who've lived there most of their lives, that Arizona's budget problem is because of liberal spending...you'll get laughed out of town.

Like I said in my post, this is the answer of the government. Cut essential services and people will consent to higher taxes. They don't touch the pet-entitlement programs because most people wouldn't care. You can compare to other states. Having more people and denser population should mean that it's easier and more efficient to provide fire protection, parks, police, and schools. But yet California has higher taxes and the services are suffering. The only explanation is that the money has been squandered on entitlement programs that most people don't see.

But you want to qualify what is essential and what isn't as if doing so is clear cut and dry. Secondly, if money is spent on something, the idea is that we get something in return. Just like the whole debate around health care reform - if you're already spending money out or your pocket, and there a fiscal advantage to pooling those expenditures, then it is a worthy expenditure. I know that goes against the Republican mantra that government can never do anything as efficient as the private sector, but that's nothing but a rhetorical falsehood. If we could just get everyone to agree that for some things, state and local governments are better adept at managing the expenditure than the private sector. While you might call welfare programs and Medi-Cal as entitlements, I see them as essential services.

Of course you have to qualify what is essential and what is not. My point is simply that during a recession, it's a lot easier to explain to constituents that tax increases pay for roads, police, and schools, than to explain that tax increases pay for welfare and medicaid. But the money is coming from the same pot.

That is, the politicians try to convince you that the only options are cut school funding or raise taxes. They don't mention that you could also cut some entitlement programs.

[mawilson 2,133]

This has got to be illegal. They are basically borrowing money from your paycheck without your consent?

Seems like you can play with your withholding to compensate.

Good point. Claim 20 exemptions instead of 2 to compensate.

[Peikko 1,575]

A lot of people see medicaid and welfare as essential services. I see enough bag people as things stands, I really don't want the state to be overrun with them thank you all the same

[SMR 368]

A lot of people see medicaid and welfare as essential services. I see enough bag people as things stands, I really don't want the state to be overrun with them thank you all the same

I think you're stretching the truth when you say "a lot of people." If that was the case, politicians would have not problem pushing through a tax increase to fund welfare and medi-caid. But every tax increase is supposedly to pay for schools, roads, police, and fire departments. How many times have you heard, "We need to increase taxes or we'll have to cut school funding."? Has anyone ever heard, "We need to raise taxes or we'll have to cut welfare."? Most people would say okay, de-fund welfare.

[Peikko 1,575]

A lot of people see medicaid and welfare as essential services. I see enough bag people as things stands, I really don't want the state to be overrun with them thank you all the same

I think you're stretching the truth when you say "a lot of people." If that was the case, politicians would have not problem pushing through a tax increase to fund welfare and medi-caid. But every tax increase is supposedly to pay for schools, roads, police, and fire departments. How many times have you heard, "We need to increase taxes or we'll have to cut school funding."? Has anyone ever heard, "We need to raise taxes or we'll have to cut welfare."? Most people would say okay, de-fund welfare.

Most people? I doubt it. Of course the uneducated might because they don't have a clue what the implications of such decisions are

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

Tax increases are not the answer. The state and my local tax districts keep raising the salestax rate, currently 9% or 9.25%, depending on the district. The only problem? The quarterly payments I send usually run about the same, even declining over the last two years, because of reduced demand. The more money syphoned from the economy, the less money there is circulating. It doesn't take a plumber to understand that, but perhaps it should be one explaining economic theory, instead of the yahoos we have running the system now.

One is not necessarily the function of the other. In a recession there is less demand regardless. If you had had the tax lower the returns could have been lower still and the deficits could have been even greater. That is at least as credible an explanation as the one you offered Bill

They think just like you do in Sacramento.

[Peikko 1,575]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

Tax increases are not the answer. The state and my local tax districts keep raising the salestax rate, currently 9% or 9.25%, depending on the district. The only problem? The quarterly payments I send usually run about the same, even declining over the last two years, because of reduced demand. The more money syphoned from the economy, the less money there is circulating. It doesn't take a plumber to understand that, but perhaps it should be one explaining economic theory, instead of the yahoos we have running the system now.

One is not necessarily the function of the other. In a recession there is less demand regardless. If you had had the tax lower the returns could have been lower still and the deficits could have been even greater. That is at least as credible an explanation as the one you offered Bill

They think just like you do in Sacramento.

I am sure some of them do, and some of them think like you do. What is utterly irritating is that while the partisan ####### bogs everything down, the waste continues because there is no possibility of pragmatic consensus. The reality is is that there are minimum standards of care that most people would like to see in California and minimum standards for the services that are required. If all that could be taken care of as a 'must do' with any other services taken care of on a subject to funding basis the problems would be less acrimonious.

Edited November 2, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[Ban Hammer 14,297]

Legalize pot and tax the ####### out of it. What does it cost to grow an acre of pot, a buck? Geeze, let the tabacco companies grow it and make a nice profit and add a tax. Heck, California would be out of debt in about 2 weeks

yeah but with all that smoke, how would anyone know if the hills are burning or not?

[dalegg 143]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

That's a lie. Prop 13 has been around for 30 years. You can look at California's rankings in things like schools before Prop 13 and since it went into law. The fact is, California is like a country in of itself and so our budgets aren't going to be anywhere near a state like South Dakota. When we are having to close state parks, release thousands of inmates, cut fire and police budgets, then you know that the problem isn't with expenditure. But the Right Wing Extremists who have taken hold of the Republican Party in just about every state will continue pitching that snake oil. They've done the same thing in Arizona, which is heavily Republican. Tell my parents who've lived there most of their lives, that Arizona's budget problem is because of liberal spending...you'll get laughed out of town.

Demolishing the Prop. 13-is-the-devil myth once and for all

According to the newsrooms and editorial boards of the L.A. Times and the Sacramento Bee -- heck, even according to the Bee's cartoonist -- Proposition 13 is the devil. The 1978 voter initiative limiting increases in property taxes has so reduced revenue that it has hollowed out vitally needed public services and played a key role in the state's descent into utter dysfunction, blah blah blah blah.

The Times and the Bee folks aren't just saying this as yet another rhetorical salvo in their never-ending push for higher taxes, right? Surely they have hard proof on their side, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Utterly wrong. Mind-bendingly wrong. So wrong as to be downright mendacious.

Remember, Prop. 13 is not a hard cap of property taxes. Levies are adjusted to current market value when property changes hands. And that happens all the time.

According to the latest info from the Board of Equalization -- look at it here -- total property taxes collected in 2006-07 were $43.16 billion.

The oldest property tax stats I could find were for 1980-81, from caltax.org. That year, property tax revenue was $6.36 billion.

So since shortly after Prop. 13's adoption, property tax revenue increased by 579 percent. That is not a typo. It went up 579 percent.

During the same span, population went from 24 million to 38 milion -- an increase of 58 percent..

As for inflation, as of January 1981, the rough midpoint of the 1980-81 fiscal year, the Consumer Price Index -- which gauges inflation -- was 88. As of January 2007, it was 202.4. That is a 133 percent increase.

REVISED SAT. MORNING: So property tax revenue has increased far more than the combined rate of inflation and population growth. Kris Vosburgh of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers and commenter Robert Greer both said my initial calculations on this were too high. Their say property tax revenue has gone up 84 percent faster than combined inflation and population growth. Which, of course, is still far more than the combined rate of inflation and population growth. END REVISE.

Oh, yeah, Prop. 13 is the devil. Prop. 13 is our biggest problem -- not the state's inability to live within its means. Why? Because we say it. Who cares what the numbers show? Numbers are for nerds.

All right, let's bring in some "context" -- the favorite claim of those who dismiss plain facts is that the numbers are not being discussed in "context." According to LAO's wonderful searchable budget database, in 1980-1981, the total of all general and special fund revenue for the state of California was $22.1 billion. For 2006-07, it was $120.7 billion. Here is an Excel spreadsheet documenting this. That is an increase of 555 percent.

You follow? PROPERTY TAX REVENUE WENT UP FASTER THAN OTHER SOURCES OF REVENUE!

If this doesn't bury the Prop.13-is-the-devil lie, nothing will.

But it won't. The L.A. Times and Sac Bee are committed to this narrative, come hell or high water. The former is what taxpayers face if they get their way.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Tax increases in California are not the answer. Liberals have run the state in to the ground with all their entitlement programs and payoffs to special interests.

That's a lie. Prop 13 has been around for 30 years. You can look at California's rankings in things like schools before Prop 13 and since it went into law. The fact is, California is like a country in of itself and so our budgets aren't going to be anywhere near a state like South Dakota. When we are having to close state parks, release thousands of inmates, cut fire and police budgets, then you know that the problem isn't with expenditure. But the Right Wing Extremists who have taken hold of the Republican Party in just about every state will continue pitching that snake oil. They've done the same thing in Arizona, which is heavily Republican. Tell my parents who've lived there most of their lives, that Arizona's budget problem is because of liberal spending...you'll get laughed out of town.

Demolishing the Prop. 13-is-the-devil myth once and for all

Actually, it's the 2/3 majority required to raise taxes provision within Prop 13 that I believe is the biggest obstacle. I'm not as keen on the property taxes, however, if you look at where our state ranked in terms of public schools, we've gone from being in the top 5 in the nation to being near the bottom ....a steady decline since Prop 13. It's not that clear cut though because consequently, another Proposition was passed to help ensure funding for schools, unfortunately without addressing how to actually raise the needed funds.

We need to get rid of the 2/3 majority requirement for raising taxes - first. We also need to move away from these voter initiatives - let the legislature do their job, which has been severely minimized by so many Propositions. And we need to come up with some radically new approaches to dealing with our budget....like establishing a state owned bank, like North Dakota, which would allow the state to create its own credit. If you look at how much of the budget is spent on interest alone, it is staggering.

Edited November 3, 2009 by Col. 'Bat' Guano