Taxing ideas need study

When a state commission submitted its recommendation last week to radically overhaul California's tax system, it faced immediate fire from all sides.

[TomFromPV]

No guys. The budget is groaning under the weight of out-of-control spending. The problem is that Democrats are running the state into the ground with all their give-aways. Until THAT problem is fixed, there is no way out of the problem. You can't tax people and jobs who leave California.

[slug]

Good lord, this is the recipe that was responsible for the collapse of the health care reform idea during the Clinton years. In that case, it was a fortunate outcome. Here, all you will end up with is the status quo.

Any plan offered is going to get objection from almost every quarter. The unions won't be happy until high income earners pay more in taxes than they take home and corporate tax rates are so high as to make the profit concept meaningless. The Chamber of Commerce can't find enough reasons that some should be taxed less than others or not at all just on the concept that tax incentives create jobs. It's all partisan politics. Everybody will spin their idea and the thing will collapse.

A single rate for income earners and corporate income, both without deductions (except in business where acquired inputs were already taxed). Simple, fair and everyone participates in proportion to their output. Replacing sales taxes and property taxes with income taxes only to fund the budget gets rid of the inherently gross inequalities and disparities in those tax programs.

[TomFromPV]

Yes -- but unless we actually control spending, the single tax rate will end up at 100%! Sure, it will start low to entice the half-thinkers, but it will just go up and up.

Here's a better idea. Implement slug's plan but only if there is a cap on the tax rate. Say 10%. No matter how crappy the roads get, or how many teachers get laid off, or how many hospitals close - that rate cannot be raised.

Now THAT seems fair to me. everybody else lives within a budget, so should politicians.