14718

What is easier for the middle to lower class to pay? An extra minor percentage on the sales tax or a raise in the property tax? As property costs rise so will property taxes. I think it is easier to budget for a small sales tax increase than a property tax jump. Just my opinion.

Some sales tax increases (special district stuff) does require a higher percentage vote.

14719

If you are raising the same amount of revenue from a tax, then a sales tax hits the middle and lower classes harder than a property tax. If it is the same number of dollars, a sales tax is going to take a higher share of those dollars from lower and middle class people compared to a property tax, for several reasons:

1)Lower & middle class people spend a higher percentage of their incomes on buying stuff as opposed to investing or saving, so a sales tax hits them harder.

2)Many lower class and some middle class people do not own property and thus donā€™t directly face a property tax. For those who are renters, they will indirectly pay property taxes in the form of higher rents but market conditions affect that.

3)Since middle and upper class people own a higher share of property, they pay a higher share of property taxes.

I think that perhaps you are thinking of different amounts of tax revenue being raised - you talk about a ā€œsmall sales tax increaseā€ versus a property tax ā€œjumpā€ - but that implies different amounts of money. If the tax revenue being raised is the same, then the proper comparison is a small sales tax increase vs a small property tax increase, or a big sales tax jump vs a big property tax jump.

Bottom line is, for equal amounts of revenue generation, sales taxes hit the middle and lower class harder than property taxes. The least worst form of taxation that we currently use is progressive income taxes. In theory we could also have progressive sales taxes (a crazy beast to administer) or progressive property taxes (this in theory could work but like all wealth taxes faces some hurdles as to valuation - also if we go that road, it needs to be a combo wealth/asset/property tax).

I consider taxes a necessary evil and my general view is to raise the revenue we need via the means least likely to cause harm to the largest number of people. Doing this via progressive taxation on wealth and/or income is the best method in my view.

14720

My understanding is that the issue under Prop 13 taxes only increase substantially when a property is sold (otherwise IIRC they only increase at 1% per year).

Commercial property does not change owners very often, residential property changes hands far more often. Prop 13 moved a much larger percentage of the tax burden from those owning commercial property (i.e., those with considerable amounts of money) to more average citizens who donā€™t own commercial real estate.

14721

Itā€™s amazing to me that Prop 13 passed and made it into the CA constitution 44 years ago (I remember it!) but that we still refer to the result as Proposition 13. Thatā€™s some branding power!

14722

It most certainly is. It was probably the largest single sea change from war taxation policies in the US, when marginal tax rates were so much higher, even if it was state level.

14723

Some belated schadenfreude: he got a federal get-out-of-jail-free card ā€¦ and now faces state charges anyway.

And all for a low-rent grift. He couldnā€™t just sit back and sit on his Seinfeld money, he had to defraud his own followers for a pretend wall.

14724
14725

We definitely have an under-incarceration problem when it comes to seditionists.

14726

I nominate Trump to help fill our prisons.

14727

A finger on the monkey paw curls.

14728
14729

This fucking guy.

14730

The Mormon church is trying their best to show they are as much a Christian religion as the others.

14731

The other religions were bitching about all the Mormons standing up to Trump. It was making the other churches look bad, but covering for a pedophile is very much on brand.

14732
14733

The best fucking people.

14734

The best at fucking people over.

14735

The best fucking people fucking their own fucking people.

14736

Yup, this ā€œvoter-fraudā€ numpty.

14737

Yeah, Kobach was a P&R regular awhile back. Heā€™s maintained a fairly low profile recently.