The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Our ROI isn’t very good with all the taxes we pay
I paid my taxes months ago, only to learn I didn’t pay enough.
Within a few weeks, the IRS sent a letter telling me I owed thousands more dollars.
Quite the quick turnaround for an agency with such bad staff shortages that 2022 has been called its “hardest year ever.”
According to the news, returns will be late this year. But not what we owe — IRS knows where its bread is buttered.
I’ve always done my taxes on my own. They are the only DIY projects I do around the house.
But that might have to change after this year because I’m clearly not good at it. Plus, it’s better not to look. I get that I have to pay some taxes; “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” and all that.
But I believe I paid more than 25% of my income, which is a lot.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks they’re paying too much in taxes.
According to Berkeley IGS polling, a whopping 64% of California voters say their taxes are too high – up 10 percentage points from 2016 — compared to just 26% who say their taxation level is “about right.”
Ages 30-64 are the most annoyed — an age range that covers a lot of ground — with between 70% to 72% saying their taxes are too high.
Even more damning is the fact that only 21% say they are better off economically than they were last year. That’s the lowest it’s been since 2008 and the second-lowest since at least 1961.
And if they’re short on money, they’re equally short on optimism. Only 21% think they’ll be better off next year.
But you know who is definitely doing great this year? The state government. In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom forecast a $45 billion budget surplus, which analysts predict will grow by the upcoming revised budget in May.
And the surplus isn’t the result of Newsom trimming expenses. His $286 billion draft budget actually showed a 9% increase over last year.
If there’s a correlation between spending and results,
Newsom is hiding it.
Going back to Berkeley IGS polling, 54% of Californians in February said the state was headed in the wrong direction, which is a 9-point jump from May 2021.
“There’s no lack of money in California,” Sen. Brian Dahle, R-bieber, who is also running for governor, said to the Los Angeles Times about the surplus. “I’ve never seen so much money in politics, but I’ve also never seen so many people unhappy with what the government’s doing at the same time.”
I could just end this column right there.
But I won’t. California has the largest state budget and has one of the highest tax burdens.
So of course we have the best roads, the safest communities, the highest performing schools and we’re making great strides in eliminating homelessness.
Oh, wait. I misread my notes. We actually have none of those things.
According to Consumer Affairs, California’s roads are the fourth-worst in the nation.
We also have the highest gas prices in the country, at least partially due to an-ever increasing gas tax that is supposed to pay for better roads.
The higher gas taxes were also a means to save the planet and meet the state’s aggressive plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
However, California is nowhere near meeting those goals either. The think tank Next 10 found that in order to meet its goals, the state will need to more than double its current rate of reduction.
California leads the nation in homelessness and has for a while. Almost no matter where you are in this state, you can look around and see it’s not improving.
A year ago, Newsom announced his “historic”(!) $12-billion plan that would “end family homelessness in five years.”
How is that plan going? According to The Guardian: “deaths of people on the streets are rising; college students are living in their cars; more elderly residents are becoming unhoused; encampment communities are growing at beaches, parks, highway underpasses, lots and sidewalks.”
Years one and two of Newsom’s plan are really putting a lot of pressure on years three, four and five.
Well, what about crime? Surely that’s getting better, right?
Nope, says two-thirds of Californians, in yet another Berkeley IGS poll, who are likely responding to facts like homicides jumping 31% in 2020.
Education is another sad tale. California leads the nation in illiteracy. “Only 77% of adults are considered mid- to highly literate,” reported Edsource last month. Meanwhile, a majority of kids are not up to standards in English, math or science.
Yet instead of helping struggling students catch up, educators seem more focused on renaming schools, eliminating tests that expose the sad state of public school education and making math so simple that everyone will pass.
The list goes on: wildfires, water, housing. Is there an area of great concern that is actually improving?
California’s great progressive experiment does not seem to be going well, but unfortunately there seems to be no sign of it slowing down.
But if the experiment must continue and Californians are going to keep being forced to pay such high taxes, at what point will we start seeing positive results?