Talk:Taxation in California

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Numbers?

Numbers don't add up under Sales Tax Rates section. Looks like "0.25% – State – Local Revenue Fund for local health and social services" should be 0.50%, but I don't know enough to confidently make this edit myself. History show the discrepancy appeared with the 01 Sept 2016 edit. Rairden (talk) 18:44, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

In Sales Tax Rates, this is written: "Some claim the high tax rates partially compensate for the reduced property tax revenue resulting from Proposition 13 which California voters approved in June 1978. However, others point out that, in most counties (all but the rural counties), property tax revenues today are higher than the year before Proposition 13 passed, even after adjusting for inflation and population growth."

This is a biased interpretation of public finance. Some claim? Who? This editor also misinterprets the totality of public finance and taxation burdens across the state economy. The bulk of property tax revenues prior to Prop. 13 (1978) went to local public education (local education agencies and the county offices of education) and municipal services (cities, counties, local special districts). After Prop. 13, school districts and municipalities were no longer self-sufficient on property tax revenues. The state assumed the difference, using the plenary legislative taxation abilities that it retained. It is natural to conclude that the ensuing rise of BOTH income tax rates and sales tax rates that followed were because of lost LOCAL revenues from Prop. 13. Economic comparisons of states of comparable purchasing power parity and development to California show its overall tax burden to be similar. The difference is that other states do not have the dramatically lower property tax rates as California.

The fact that property tax revenues are now higher than the year before Prop. 13 ignores inflation, the time-adjusted real dollars in income, and real property values (which have at times greatly exceeded inflation, especially in urbanized areas) since 1978. That last bit, "even after adjusting for inflation and population growth", is false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.152.37.185 (talk) 03:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Tone?

This article sounds like it was written with an anti-tax perspective (I believe even the introduction sounds this way), rather than keeping a neutral viewpoint and describing the taxes themself. Jed 20012 (talk) 22:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed--the introduction is all I read and I was turned off by the tone regardless of my views on sales taxes because this propagandizing does not belong on Wikipedia. Laughably, source 2 and 4 are "How to defeat sales taxes"--hardly an encyclopedic reference. So what do we do about it? Does one of us just have to bite the bullet and edit the article? I'm new so loath to do something wrong. Bellastrange (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Considering the fact that the very first source is titled "How to Defeat Local Sales Taxes", that does not seem very surprising. What does surprise me is that after almost three years of this being commented on here there is still no template warning readers.

Another thing I find irritating is that the introduction explains sales tax and use tax as if California had invented them, and as if they were something very special and exlusive to California.

Obviously, there are general articles about both. Shouldn't the article just link to those for a general explanation, include a very short one here at most, and focus on the California situation and California specialties instead? --217.239.13.161 (talk) 07:29, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Here's another beautiful example:

"The driving force behind many local sales tax increases is skyrocketing public pension costs and public employee retiree healthcare."

There is a source given for that, yes. But stating this as a fact rather than as the explanation expressed in that source does not seem very encyclopedic. --217.239.13.161 (talk) 07:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Trailing zeros?

Is it really necessary to list 10% as 10.000%, 8.75% as 8.750%, and 7.5% as 7.500%?

If it's being done in the name of consistency, it comes at the expense of readability. I propose that, if a number requires three decimal places, by all means, use them. However, if you can state a percentage without adding trailing zeros, that's what should be done!

Consensus to modify (I will be glad to do so) or an explanation of the rationale for maintaining the status quo, please? 1980fast (talk) 04:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the state agency that administers the sales tax in California, expresses all sales tax rates to three decimal places in the downloadable official tax rate data files that it makes available to the public. The three decimals are needed and used because some sales tax rates are imposed in percentages that require expression to three decimal places (e.g., sales tax rates levied in eighths of a percentage). The sales tax rate tables in the article reproduce the tax rates exactly as released in the official data files from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. 184.254.252.91 (talk) 22:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)