The $20.5 Billion Rich-People’s Tax-Cut Windfall
By Peter Schrag
According the best numbers available, the Obama-GOP tax deal that Congress approved earlier this month will save the wealthiest 148,000 Californians – those in the top one percent in income, who make an average of $1,775,000 a year – an average of $95,000 each.
The numbers come from new data compiled by the liberal Washington-based Citizens for Tax Justice and the 2008 tax statistics of the California Franchise Tax Board, the most recent available. Combined, they show that California’s richest taxpayers will be saving about $14 billion annually.
The next wealthiest 4 percent, with an average income of $310,000, will save another $6.5 billion. All told, about 740,000 California taxpayers fall into those two rarefied regions.
Together, that amounts to some 75 percent of California’s projected budget deficit for this year and next. As Sacramento scrabbles to get out of its budget deficits, those are numbers worth considering.
Supreme Court Terminated Governor's Last-Ditch Petition to Sell State Properties
Patrick Porgans
Planetary Solutionaries
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his campaign supporters received a major setback Dec. 28, when the California Supreme Court’s Acting Chief Justice Patricia Benke ruled against his petition and plan to complete the sale of 11 state office properties before leaving office.