Reasons Why I Hate California — Episode I

This post is the beginning of a series of articles about my love-hate relationship with California, and especially the San Francisco Bay Area. I have lived in the Bay Area for more than ten years now, and most of the major events in my life are happening here and that is why I have a lot of strong opinions about this crazy place. So here it goes.

Reason number one — TAXES

The most obvious taxes associated with California are the state sales and state income tax. The sales tax in California is anywhere from 7% to 9% depending on the county you make the purchase in, and the individual income tax is tiered from 1.0% to 9.3%. Unprocessed foods are untaxed, but restaurant services are. So on average, just the state taxes cost somewhere between 10% to 17% for a Californian. Compared to states where there are no income or no sales tax, Californian’s purchasing power is lowered just by state mandated taxes.

The next big tax in California dealt by many homeowners is the property tax. California’s property tax is actually not very high. Proposition 13 limits the amount of property taxes Californians pay to only 1% of the assessed value of the property. Lower taxes should be a good thing, but in my mind it actually creates a lot of inequality. For example, if I buy the condo I am living in today, I would have to pay approximately $8000 a year in taxes, but my landlord, who bought this place in the 1980s, only pays $1325 on his taxes. This tax law in California greatly benefits corporations and landlords because as long as their corporation does not change name, they can still enjoy the benefits of the lower assessment.

Finally, what I consider a hidden tax is the federal income tax. You may say, wait a minute, don’t all Americans have to pay according to the same federal tax rules? Well, yes, but Californians receive less in federal funding than the federal taxes they pay. According to The Tax Foundation, on average, California receives 79 cents in federal funding for every dollar of federal tax the state contributes to the federal coffers. California is considered a huge “tax-donor” state. So by living in California, we’re paying for the construction of other states when the money could be used to improve infrastructure in California. The worst thing is, a lot people aren’t aware of this fact, and I’m not sure how they would feel if they found out that 21% of their money went 500 miles away to a school in New Mexico, the state that receives two dollars in funding for every dollar contributed.

I am sure there is another whole array of California taxes that I don’t know about, but they’re all making the cost of living here a little more unbearable. Additionally, it doesn’t seem like our tax dollars are well spent. So I end this with a haiku:

The Franchise Tax Board

Took my dollar and left me

with seven pesos

(as of this writing a dollar is worth about 11 Mexican pesos)

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