Fair Taxation
The Green Party advocates a fair tax system based upon principles of social equity and ecological sustainability, that avoids special-interest breaks, and asks taxpayers to contribute to the cost of public services based on their ability to pay.
Under such a system, a greater percentage of the extreme wealth concentrated at the top of the economy would be taxed and shared with the rest of society to pay for public services; while the purchasing power of the overwhelming majority of the rest of California would grow at the same time, promoting increased economic development within an ecological context, and further increasing public revenues while reducing externalized private costs.
Unfortunately, too often this is the opposite of what occurs in California, as the tax code unduly favors corporate special interests and the wealthiest individuals.
The result is that over the last decade and more, California has faced massive budget deficits and sustained billions of dollars in drastic cuts to our most valuable resources that have made the California Dream possible to so many: our public schools and universities, state parks and beaches, the health care system, and basic safety-net programs which protect the most vulnerable Californians — our children, the elderly and the disabled. Furthermore, California’s overall tax system is regressive and puts the burden of paying for public services upon those least able to pay, while favoring corporate special interests and the rich, such that individual working people are paying more of the tax burden, and corporations and the wealthiest individuals are paying less.
This overall regressivity comes from the relatively large share of income that lower-income households pay in the form of sales and excise taxes. While higher-income households pay a larger share of their incomes in personal income taxes, they can deduct these amounts from their federal income taxes, significantly reducing the total amount of taxes that they pay. As a result, even with higher income tax rates, Californians in the 80%-95% highest income bracket pay 7.4 percent of their incomes on state and local taxes, while the bottom 20% pay 10.2 percent - almost 40% greater (http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2014/140410_Who_Pays_Taxes.pdf.) The regressivity of California’s tax system also reflects the fact that low- and middle-income households spend all, or nearly all, of their incomes on necessities, including on many goods that are subject to tax. Sales and excise taxes are generally not deductible for federal tax purposes, and this exacerbates the disparities between low- and middle-income households and high-income households.
Rather than austerity-based approaches that further penalize the vulnerable and depress economic vitality, the Green Party supports more progressive taxation on income while closing tax loopholes and eliminating corporate welfare; and ecological taxes on economic practices that ensure that the real costs of goods and services are born by those who purchase and use them, and are not displaced upon society as a whole; And then is how we tax property.
Without a doubt, Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, is a major part of the problem and deserves special attention and reform. While Proposition 13 provided much-needed property tax security and relief for many California homeowners, it also instituted a vastly unequal system of tax loopholes for many commercial property owners, including some of the richest corporations in the world. California loses an estimated $8 to $10 billion every year in commercial property tax revenues – monies that could help hire more teachers for classrooms, more police and fire protection, expand our libraries and more (tp://www.cacalls.org/why-taxes-matter/the-problem-prop-13.)
The Green Party would close this commercial property Proposition 13 loophole through enactment of a 'split roll that would ensure that commercial properties are assessed regularly', and then go further to institute a property tax system that captures the socially-created wealth of land for society, while simultaneously rewarding individual investment and initiative of property owners.
Proposition 13 also instituted a requirement that most tax increases need a two-thirds vote from the legislature or voters. This has made it extremely difficult to generate new revenues for the state treasury, le
