Both Another Gun Blog and No Looking Backwards have covered California’s “Hasta La Vista Tax” which taxes people over a certain income for leaving the state. Rich flight has created a serious revenue problem for California.
There’s a good case to be made that this law is unconstitutional, because it interferes with the common law right to free movement and travel. There is a pretty strong body of law which would speak against such a law’s constitutionality. Anyone subject to this tax probably has a good case to take into the federal courts. California has no respect for the second amendment, it’s hardly surprising they don’t respect unenumerated rights as well. Anything’s fair when it comes to soaking the rich, I guess.
I’d imagine it could also be struck down via the Commerce Clause.
Not that I would probably qualify for this tax, but I am immensely thankful to be finally rid of that ‘state’.
The sad/funny thing is that this will convince people already considering it to bug out now to avoid it, and once all of the people who are above the cut off leave the state who are going to, who else is Kalifornistan going to tax? Oh, right, they will just lower the cut-off, and eventually it will become more of a prison state than it already is…
Read the whole proposed text.
http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i786_initiative_08-0012_amdt_1.pdf
Whoever wrote it is a complete fruit loop.
He wants to use the money to buy up stock in big corporations and drain Hetch Hechy.
The ballot propositions to modify the CA constitution have been abused for years. So glad I left there years ago!
Well I guess that would depend on if you mean the CA or US contitution. I don’t know about the CA one but I imagine that it would be legal under the US one. Actually there is an exit tax under US law for giving up US citizenship. You are taxed at current rates for ten years after leaving. There is also a US capital exit tax on money transferred overseas, however it is currently set at 0%. It can be ramped up by executive order at any time.
IIRC John Corzine proposed this as part of his idiotic pretend-to-try-to-balance-the-budget-and-outrage-people-in-the-process-so-we-won’t-have-to package last year…
I left California 7 years ago, never looked back. Right now, my dad, my sister-in-law’s family, and a bunch of guys I went to college with are leaving California for-good; between the high state income tax, sales tax, vehicular and recreation fees, and stupid environmental and firearms policy, they have discovered they can live a freer, happier life in a bigger house in Utah or Arizona on half the salary they were getting in Cali.
California, back in 2000, passed a tax increase on people making over 1 million a year, causing the top marginal state income tax rate to reach 10.3%. Within 3 years, the number of people receiving more than a million a year had declined from 44,000 to 25,000, in turn causing a deficit of 9 billion dollars. This year, now that property values have plummeted, California is facing a 16 billion dollar deficit. It’s not a problem they’re going to be able to tax their way out of.
between the high state income tax, sales tax, vehicular and recreation fees, and stupid environmental and firearms policy, they have discovered they can live a freer, happier life in a bigger house in Utah or Arizona on half the salary they were getting in Cali.
Now, if they’ll only vote against the kind of legislation and legislators in Arizona that turned California into what it is today, I’ll be pleased, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here. Instead, they’re bringing California’s failed politics and policies with them – and we don’t need THAT.
As one person put it, the Communists had the Berlin Wall – now the California Politburo goes for its own…
So, they’re finally trying to implement the “leaving town tax” of Simpsons’ fame.