By George Skelton
April 08, 2019
To plagiarize T.S. Eliot, April is the cruelest month. But not for the reasons the poet wrote. Rather, for all the taxes.
And there are bills in the Legislature to make taxes sting even worse.
… By April 10, Californians must pay their local property taxes. Five days later is the deadline for filing state and federal income tax returns. Also, the state and the feds want any initial pre-tax payment that’s required on current earnings.
So tax collectors get three swings at us this month.
… in California under Democrats, it’s tax, tax, tax — a drip and a drop, nickel and a dime — all the time. That’s not a political statement. It’s a fact.
… There are a whole bunch of taxing ideas in the Capitol: on new tires, firearms, water, prescription painkillers, lawyers, car batteries, corporations based on their CEO pay, estates worth more than $3.5 million, oil and gas extraction. The list goes on.
… The California Tax Foundation has counted more than $6.2 billion worth of tax increase proposals pending in the Legislature. It expects the figure to grow substantially as bills are amended with details.
Polls show that California voters already think they’re overtaxed. No surprise there.
… “What part of ‘tax fatigue’ don’t these lawmakers understand? It’s political malpractice,” asserts Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, referring to the proposed soda tax that he’s fighting against on behalf of the beverage industry.
… Meanwhile, there’s a legislative proposal to lower the marijuana tax. We want more potheads but fewer soft drink sippers. Crazy.
It smacks of too much nanny state for me.
The state should just leave us alone sometimes. Back off on tax, tax, tax. April hits hard enough.
Read more here: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-soda-tax-20190408-story.html
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