Call for Split Roll Property Tax Ignores Consequences
Former State Board of Equalization chairman Conway Collis’s article arguing for higher taxes on commercial property in the San Jose Mercury News last week didn’t tell the full story. He did not cover the negative consequences of such a move.
Collis was trying to sell splitting the property tax roll between business and residential property as the panacea to dig California out of its deficit problem. He claimed increasing taxes on business property would raise $6 to $ 8 billion in new revenue for government.
In reality, raising business property taxes will prolong our fiscal mess because it will act as a disincentive to job creation and business growth, which is the only way to pull California out of the deficit hole. If billions were raised in taxes they would not be available for job creation. In fact, former Legislative Analyst Bill Hamm noted in a study last year that for every one percent increase in business property taxes, 43,000 jobs would be lost.
Why WeHo Businesses Should Howl
Do you dream of having your own little business? Being your own boss? Well, here’s a message for you: Don’t do any of that dreaming in West Hollywood.
Why? Because the West Hollywood City Council may crush your little business. And be proud of itself for doing so.
That’s the message from that city’s decision to ban puppy and kitten sales there. The town council is all puffed up and proud of itself for taking a principled stand against some distant puppy mills. But apparently it’s deaf to the whimpers of its own pet stores, which are being euthanized by the city.
As you can see in an article in the current issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, pet shops in West Hollywood are hurting now that the city’s ban on puppy and kitten sales has gone into effect. One shop apparently is open only sporadically.
CARB Set To Boost CA Gas Prices
Cross-posted at Cal-Watchdog.
Buoyed by the repudiation of Prop. 23, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is moving forward with cap-and-trade regulations designed to reduce the carbon level in fuel, but which will also drive up gas prices, further damaging California’s weak economy.
Beginning in January the $183 billion fuel industry in California will need to begin adhering to CARB’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which has a goal of reducing the carbon level in transportation fuel by 10 percent by 2020. Fuel producers can do so by blending in bio-fuels such as ethanol or by purchasing emission credits, perhaps from electric or natural gas utilities, to offset their high-carbon fuel supply.
Several studies on the impact of a nation-wide LCFS, as proposed in the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House (but stalled in the Senate), predict that just about everyone will suffer as a result.