In response to California’s high-priced tax code, Assemblyman Vince Fong has proposed the California Competitiveness and Innovation Act. A. B. 1922 would give a tax cut to both the middle class and small business. Fong’s hope is that the proposal would help make California competitive with other states.
“We should lower the state’s tax burden without gimmicks,” Fong said in a statement as quoted by the Bakersfield Californian. “We have to make California more competitive with other states and help ordinary Californians afford to live and work in this state.”
The main aspects of the proposal include lowering the state personal income tax rate for middle-class individuals and families, reducing the franchise tax for small businesses, and doubling the $7,000 homeowners property tax exemption.
“NFIB fully supports this much-needed tax cut proposal because small businesses are being strangled by the unreasonably high cost of doing business in California,” said Shawn Lewis, policy director for the NFIB/California as quoted in California Political Review. “California is the only state in the nation that imposes a punitive franchise tax on businesses, which puts our small businesses at a competitive disadvantage and contributes to the closing down of these businesses and exodus of good-paying jobs to other states.”
The package of bills will be officially introduced to California legislature in the following weeks.
