When the mob does it, it’s called extortion. When the government does it, it’s called personal income tax. That’s just how I see things from where I stand.
Quite possibly the only thing worse than forcibly taking money from the pockets of those who earned it honestly would be government officials frittering away the same.
Never to be confused as a conservative or libertarian leaning publication, the Los Angeles Times comes right out and notes that the hated “One Percent’ers” are the same ones who feed nearly half of the insatiable Sacramento appetite for other people’s money.
As reported by John Myers of the LA Times of the hated rich;
The group includes almost 100,000 taxpayers with incomes above $1 million — residents who represent only about one-half of 1% of all tax returns filed in the state but collectively pay about 40% of all California personal income taxes.
Depending upon the metric of whoever tries to sell the story of how California is supposedly “The fourth (fifth, or is it sixth?) largest economy on the planet, I just can’t help but wonder what the Golden State would look like without Silicone Valley and Hollywood to keep the ball rolling?
Anyhow, along those same lines, the ever expanding Eat The Rich Gestapo in Los Angeles have collectively decided to butcher their cash cow. Well, at least 40 percent of it.
In a separate article from the LA Times, reporter Jack Flemming doesn’t even try to hide his disdain for those about to be penalized for being successful;
Death and taxes are life’s two certainties — but not if the rich can help it.
Just weeks after Los Angeles voters backed a new measure that puts a one-time transfer tax on property sales above $5 million to generate money for affordable housing and homelessness prevention, the city’s affluent homeowners are exploring potential ways of avoiding the tax.
Known as Measure ULA — for United to House LA — the ordinance marketed as a “mansion tax” will impose a 4% tax on property sales above $5 million, rising to 5.5% on sales above $10 million. So a $5-million sale would include a $200,000 tax, and a $10-million sale would include a $550,000 tax, which is typically paid by the seller.
“A one-time” tax? There’s no such thing.
In all fairness, LA DOES need to figure out a way to pay for all those legal bills for all those illegals.
Priorities, you know.