[Source: CalMatters] As the coronavirus pandemic was clobbering California — and the rest of the known world — this month, local government officials in Sacramento County enthusiastically decided to ask voters to approve a hefty sales tax increase for transportation improvements. Were members of the Sacramento Transportation Authority board smoking some of California’s newly legalized Read More…
Tag: taxes
COVID-19 federal paid leaves explained
[Source: CalChamber] The federal government passed a coronavirus emergency relief package on March 18 that provides protected paid leave to workers impacted by COVID-19. In this episode of The Workplace podcast, CalChamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg is joined by employment law expert Benjamin Ebbink and CalChamber Executive Vice President Jennifer Barrera to discuss what Read More…
Why Texans don‘t want any more Californians
[Source: The Atlantic] Across a frightened nation divided by politics and culture, a fragile harmony is ascendant, as Americans in small towns and large cities alike cry out in trembling unison: Hey, where did all these Californians come from? Talk of a “California Exodus” is sweeping the country—and so are anxieties about its effects on Read More…
The false premises and promises of the push for split roll
[Source: Orange County Register/Carolyn Cavecche] I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. But I am keeping my fingers crossed that California voters, already living in the highest taxed state in the nation, will see through the political antics of the desperate. In 2018, some of California’s largest labor organizations and civil rights groups filed Read More…
Small businesses and communities rely on Prop. 13
[Source: Orange County Register/John Kabateck] A study by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found only 22 percent of U.S. small-business owners own the property on which they operate. The majority lease or rent their property. Furthermore, many small-business owners have what is called a triple net lease, which means in addition to the Read More…
Proposition 13 overhaul is pension bailout in disguise
[Source: Orange County Register] Buoyed by a friendly official title and summary from the attorney general, backers of a new ballot initiative to overhaul Proposition 13 are moving full steam ahead with their plan to eliminate tax protections for certain businesses in order to provide what they say will be “full and fair funding” to Read More…
Prop. 13 overhaul gets friendly summary from California attorney general
[Source: San Francisco Chronicle] A new effort to revise California’s landmark Proposition 13 would boost taxes on large corporations and businesses, but opponents are complaining that’s almost an afterthought in the state attorney general’s new title and summary of the proposed initiative. The official statement, which was released Thursday by Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Read More…
More states hitting electric vehicle owners with high fees
[Source: Consumer Reports] A number of states are charging electric-vehicle owners fees that experts and consumer advocates say are higher than what the drivers of equivalent gas-powered vehicles are paying in gas taxes, potentially discouraging an important environmentally friendly technology. Almost all states have gasoline taxes to help pay for transportation projects, and electric-vehicle owners Read More…
The crippling cost of doing business in California
[Source: Orange County Register Editorial Board] CNBC’s annual state-by-state “business climate” study is out. No surprise, we’re dead last — No. 50 — among the states for “cost of doing business.” Here’s an area where you don’t want to say, “As California goes, so goes the nation.” Almost all of California’s business-climate problems are self-inflicted, Read More…