No More Camping in California

by sammielee24 24 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  skeeter1

  Does more pot being smoked hurt the greenhouse gas levels? LOL.

  Seriously, California is in a big mess. High rollers are moving to Nevada. Why? State income taxes. I've prepared many a California Franchise Tax return (for corporate income taxes). I don't see why any company would want to have significant operations in that state. Their tax code is one of the worst in the country. Not only is the rate high, but the calculation is frought with nets to tax more of a company's earnings. California tries to tax all related entities to a conglomerate (whether or not located in California), use a nasty thing called "throwback sales", and prefer to tax "worldwide income" unless a water's edge election is made. I even read a case where California was taxing a satallite that sometimes crossed OVER the state. Sound complicated......

  Also, the sales taxes, property taxes, and personal income taxes are also WAY TOO HIGH. The cost of living there is outrageous. Not just the houses...but have you ever tried to park in San Francisco for business? The parking fees are so outrageous, and the cost of living, that secretaries have to make $70,000 a year just to live there!

  My solutions.... (yes, I'm going to give my solutions)......

  Legalize pot, and drill oil, and use nuclear power, and use more hyrdro power (they have the whole Pacific ocean at their shoreline). Turn the hidden "gold" in California into gold. Stop being a nanny state. You can't take care of everyone. Best to teach people how to fish, instead of feeding them a fish. Tourist parks should stay open, tourism is a must.
• 

  JeffT

  The politicians here keep doing this to us as well. The scream that if they can't raise taxes they will have to close the state parks, cut the police, park the ambulances, and shut down the hospitals. Everyone will die. Of course the politicians will still have big offices, new mahogany desks, ten admin assistants etc.

  FYI, foreclosure doesn't stop the property taxes, just means it gets paid by the bank instead.
• 

  daniel-p

  FYI, foreclosure doesn't stop the property taxes, just means it gets paid by the bank instead.

  In California, homes are reassessed upon sale, or if the homeowner requests a reassessment based on a drop in home value. I often review City and County budgets as part of my job, and starting in 2009 there were enormous drops in property tax revenue due to both of those things occurring. It all goes back to Prop 13--which screwed over State and local finances long-term, and on many different levels.

  THis is how it works in CA: If a home increases in value, property taxes are not reassessed--the tax amount itself can go up, but only by 2% per year (that's not 2% of the home's value, but 2% of the property tax amount, which would have been only 1% when it was last assessed). So a $400,000 dollar home would have been assessed at $4,000 property tax upon sale, which is known as the "base year", an amount which would only go up 2% each year, so year 2 the owner might pay $4,080, year 3 $4,162, year 4 $4,245, and so on. However, during the same period, the value of the home might go up by tens of thousands of dollars, or even more. This is what was happening up until 2008.Property values were skyrocketing, and although the state and local governments were getting their share as defined by Prop 13, they weren't getting what they would have been getting if the property tax were reassessed upon an increase in home value.

  It's 2009. In many places in CA (primarily the Central Valley) that same home might be worth half that: $200,000--and this is no exageration. In many cities it's even more drastic, like from $460k to $180k. Since Prop 13 requires the reassessment of a home if it declines in value (but not if it increases in value) the homeowner now pays $2,000. That's an immediate decrease of ($2,245) from the taxrolls. Thus, while property tax increases can only happen slowly, and over a long period of time, drastic property tax decreases can occur within a single year, severly affecting statewide and local finances. This is the primary reason why the CA State and local government is in the situation it is in. There are other problems, of course, but that's the jist of it.
• 

  JeffT

  FYI Don't let your politicians see how we do it in Washington. The basic process is: Value X Rate = Budget. If home values go down they raise the rate to compensate. They also tax based on "highest best use," if you have a pasture that can be turned into commercial property, its taxed like commercial property, or at least they'll try to tax it. Winning an appeal isn't easy. The taxes may go down based on the current market, but not until next year.
• 

  designs

  I just signed my annual Ca. State Parks Pass.

  Have Tent will Travel.......