Gird your wallets friends. The desperate politicians are at it again, this time with more “creative financing” for the state of California. And once again this “creative financing” is a direct hit at your take home pay.
Spotlight California;
Effective today, the amount of state income taxes withheld from California workers’ paychecks will increase 10 percent.
That might sound like a tax increase, but state officials insist that’s not the case.
The lawmakers say this isn’t a tax increase? Really? OK, how about calling it a compulsory interest-free loan from taxpayers to the state?
The idea is to withhold more from your paycheck now, so that come tax time next year, the refund the state owes you will be less. Uh-huh. The extra withholding tax will reduce Californians’ take-home pay by about $1.7 billion for the year. Now California is already struggling. Every sector is down, housing, retail, manufacturing. Income tax rates went up last year by 0.25%, bringing the top rate to 10.55%, but receipts are already coming in $1 billion below projections, according to the state controller. So someone please explain to me how this is going to help the people of California and at the same time shore up its growing hole of debt.
The spin continues;
Brenda Voet, spokeswoman for the state Franchise Tax Board. “We’re trying to warn people to go to their personnel and human resources departments for 2010 to make sure they have the proper amount of tax withheld and make any adjustments they need to make. We don’t want people to be surprised by anything.”
This is the same state that has been issuing IOU’s to pay their state contractors, so trust me Brenda, we are no longer surprised by anything that happens in the “Golden State”. To the rest of the you, pay attention. If you don’t, your own state officials might get “creative” with your paycheck too.
The County Supervisors are considering increasing photo speed camera revenues. This is a mistake, considering Napolitano has already placed more speed cameras around the state than any other state in the country, turning us into a big brother state with these cameras that are nothing more than hidden taxes, yet Arizona has the second worst budget crisis in the country after California. Speed cameras do not work as revenue generators, because the private companies take too much of the profit. 40% of speed camera tickets are appealed, which puts a huge financial and resource strain on our justice courts, since many of them end up being thrown out. Considering the Supervisors’ poor record of overspending on items like the $340 million court tower Taj Mahal, they should not be voting to increase the fines on speed camera tickets by another $20. It is not surprising that instead of cutting taxes and spending, the Supervisors are about to increase another hidden tax that does not work.
