The SF Examiner is highlighting the .25 percent increase in San Mateo's sales tax rate that goes into effect on April Fool's Day. The revenue impact might be:
According to San Mateo finance director Hossein Golestan, the city will receive an estimated $3.3 million in increased revenue each year for the next eight years from the tax.
And the merchants seem to be OK with it
Ed Kaufman, owner of “M” is for Mystery, a bookstore on Third Street, said if the increase benefits schools, fire and police, it is a small price to pay for services.
“If the city needs the money, I applaud it,” he said. “Most people that come in here don’t even know what the sales tax is and would only notice if it went from 9.25 percent to 10.25 percent.”
But it does move San Mateo to the top of the list:
San Mateo: 9.5 percent
Daly City: 9.25 percent
Burlingame: 9.25 percent
Redwood City: 9.25 percent
Is the increase negligible or death-by-a-thousand-cuts?
I'm on board with the sales tax increase to pay for the budget deficit IF the public employee unions would be willing to take a pay cut and a change to their pension plans to bring them in line with private industry.
The reason the government needs to increase taxes and at the same time can not continue to provide services funded by their already high taxes is that they have out of line salaries and huge retirement benefits that they need to fund. Those salaries and retirement benefits must be paid first before they can actually provide any services.
Renegotiate.
Posted by: Ron Fulderon | March 18, 2010 at 02:57 PM
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a related article about the moves afoot in six states including California to get on-line retailers like Amazon to collect local sales taxes as well. Naturally, they are opposed because it makes them less competitive with the local brick and mortar retailers and because the patchwork of tax structures would be tough to track---the move noted on this post as a case in point. The e-tailers have been free of this requirement for more than a decade, but that may be coming to an end.
I also came across the fourth quarter gross receipts for each city in the county. There are three components: point-of-sale, county pool and state pool.
A couple towns are up year over year like San Bruno (+6.5%) and Foster City (+75.96%)! Most are down yr/yr like Belmont (-13.88%), San Mateo (-5.19%).
Burlingame is down -9.33%.
Posted by: Joe | March 19, 2010 at 09:22 AM
But we don't really have a revenue problem as much as we have a spending problem.
When the government has thousands upon thousands (actually it's millions and millions when you include all the people working for federal, state, and local governments) of civil servants retiring with near full salaries that they will be paying out for 30 years,
when the government decides to pay for the health care, education, prisons, roads, courts for every illegal that walks across our border,
when the government decides to build huge projects with little payback like the HSR,
when people are scamming the system right and left,
when we fight wars where the goal seems to be to delicate bomb areas with million dollar cruise missiles and then pay to rebuild the places, and pay the enemy to enforce a peace,
we have a SPENDING problem.
Taxes, whether they be personal income, business income, capital gains, property, property assessments, sales taxes, fees, parking tickets,.... will NEVER raise the funds needed to pay for the type of spending that comes from thinking that this is tax revenue problem.
I know I ring this bell all the time but I do it in the hope that if some of you liberals wake up (and smell the ouzo) and finally realize that extra taxes just aren't going to fix anything, NOTHING at all, then it's worth it.
You can spend spend twice as much on the schools, twice as much on rehabilitating prisoners, build a fancy newer train system that will get you down to a train station in LA in four or five hours and we'd still have people saying we aren't spending enough and taxing enough.
Posted by: Ron Fulderon | March 19, 2010 at 10:33 AM
Well I agree with you for the most part, but would take it one step further. To quote a French economist Jean Baptiste Colbert, "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing."
I think that translates well to Arthur Laffer's Curve which indicates we could raise more tax revenue with lower marginal tax rates. More for the goose and more for the plucker all at the same time.
Posted by: Joe | March 19, 2010 at 11:21 AM
And to think I'm being plucked to support the salaries and pensions for the Department of Home Furnishings.
Think I'm kidding?
http://www.bearhfti.ca.gov/
Posted by: Ron Fulderon | March 19, 2010 at 10:55 PM
The problem with the concept of the Laffer curve is that when the economy is expanding rapidly, we don't need additional stimulus. When GDP growth is such that the Fed raises interest rates to slow it(in order to control inflation), why would you cut taxes to stimulate it? What we need is a dynamic tax structure that changes with economic growth. This way taxes go up when the economy is growing fast and they go down when we slow down. Assuming spending is kept in check, this would create surpluses in good times to offset the deficit in slow times. This also acts as a break and accelerator.
What happened in the recent past was that we cut taxes when the economy was booming at the same time the Fed was raising rates to slow it. This transferred the burden from tax payers to borrowers.
Posted by: JROC | March 22, 2010 at 07:17 AM
The problem with your analysis is you appear to suggest that the economy just goes up and down on its own irrespective of influences like the marginal tax rate which itself affects entrepreneurs' and corporate managers' appetite for risk/investment.
We'll never get to a "dynamic tax structure" if we can't even get Sacramento and D.C. to acknowledge that their policies are anti-growth and the idea that the politicians will bank savings in the good times is, well, optimistic :-)
Posted by: joe | March 22, 2010 at 10:37 PM
Here's my favorite columnist Mark Steyn's latest, called Soft Furnished Despotism:
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3000/26/
Posted by: Ron Fulderon | March 23, 2010 at 07:29 AM
It looks like Tom Ammiano is working on the commercial property loophole in Prop. 13. This is from Caltax.org to it is written as being against the change
AB 2492 (Ammiano), attacks Proposition 13 and imposes a split roll property tax under new, complex change-in-ownership rules that create a very cumbersome administrative bureaucracy for taxpayers and assessors alike. This bill takes a "guilty until proven innocent" approach, requiring taxpayers to prove every three years that they did NOT undergo a change-in-ownership that would trigger reassessment. Moreover, this approach is based on the faulty assumption that there has been a major statewide shift in tax burden from businesses to homeowners.
We are OPPOSED to this bill for the following reasons:
• Proposed Legal Entity Change-in-Ownership Provisions Are Fallacious and Do Not Assess Tax Based on Change In Actual Ownership or Control. Under current law, when an individual obtains more than 50 percent of ownership or control in a corporation, a property reassessment is triggered. AB 2492’s legal entity change-in-ownership provisions are twofold: First, a legal entity is reassessed annually on property in proportion to the ownership interests that have been transferred, and this is called a “change in ownership.” Thus, if someone owns a 15 percent interest in a small company and transfers 12 percent, this is considered to be a triggering event for purposes of change-in-ownership with respect to the 12 percent interest transferred. Second, all of the foregoing transfers are accumulated over multiple assessment years, and when more than 50 percent of the interests in the legal entity are transferred, all property owned by the legal entity is reassessed under this bill. Accordingly, a part owner whose shares have transferred may be reassessed numerous times. In the example above, the property is reassessed first when the part-owner transfers the 12 percent interest and, second when all of the interests transferred by multiple owners total 50 percent.
---there's more at their website if you want to read it at www.caltax.org
Posted by: SJM | April 22, 2010 at 03:45 PM
The reason things are the way they are is because there was/is a "dire need" for good people to work for civil service when everyone else was "heading for the hills to strike gold."
The goverments who maintain vital services to communities need, have to have, COMMITTED employees.
COMMITTED employees are the ones who are called in the middle of the night.
AND RESPOND!
Private industry does not have committed employees because they "are here today gone tomorrow."
It may cost more for civil servants, but there is a reason.
INFRASTRUCTUR SUPPORT OF THE CITY FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL!
Really everyone, how have these retirement/wage issues of public employees effected you personally?
That would be a thread worth starting.
Lets hear it!
How have the retirement/wage packages effected your life in The City of Burlingame?
Being an angry person, jealous, or just hating anyone doing better than yourself would be a valid responce.
Posted by: Holyroller | April 22, 2010 at 05:40 PM
Let's see.. less city services, less park and rec programs, less Police, less firemen, less tree repairs, less sidewalk repairs, etc., etc., etc.... All so they can retire at 52 with 95 % of their salary and full benefits for LIFE. Those ages were once ok but now that people are living longer, the age for retirement should be increased to a more realistic age.. I don't know what private industy you've ever worked in but the one I work in has many committed employees that don't swing with the wind as you so wrongly suggest. Obviously, you were a city or government employee that benefits from this outrageous program.
Posted by: Elizabeth | April 23, 2010 at 09:48 AM
So what you are stating regarding the impact on your personal life is..
You use the "city services alot."
What are those services?
You and your neighbors experience a lot of fires and medical emergencies.
How many in the last 10 years?
The trees in your neighborhood are causing damage to what? The sidewalks for sure.
But?
How are the Trees causing damage to the rest of your neighborhood?
AS far as benefits go. If you are refering to medical benefits,EVERYONE IN THE USA GETS FREE MEDICAL BENEFITS FOR LIFE AFTER THE AGE OF 62.
The City of Burlingame benefits you may be refering to stop at 62 when MediCare/Cal take over.
So what is happening is a few people, listening/reading to a generalzation develop an opinion based on 60 seconds of investagation.
Either because they do not have the time, or they are basically upset with life.
I get it.
So that is one citizens responce.
What about the other 28,999 in Burlingame?
Thanks
Posted by: Holyroller | April 23, 2010 at 05:50 PM
Personally, I think you should be committed.
Posted by: Gone Tomorrow | April 24, 2010 at 08:56 AM
That is the problem with people who have no idea of right vs. wrong.
The inability to be a critical thinker is what defines ignorence.
If you choose to listen to Limbaugh,Beck, and O'Rielly to tell you what to believe,(without doing your own research) is how the German People were able to get behind Adolph Hitler.
Do not be lazy. Learn.
Move on.
Stop being LAZY!
Posted by: Holyroller | April 24, 2010 at 05:58 PM
Hollyroller, you represent the current liberal mind very well.
Posted by: Ron Fulderon | April 25, 2010 at 07:01 AM
Holyroller...."ignorence"??? really??? buy a dictionary, please, before you misfire again.
Posted by: transit | April 25, 2010 at 08:54 PM