We did talk about total corporation tax receipts last week. On that, more below.
But the statement I took exception to was this one:
"Our total receipts are not that high, in fact I discovered recently that we are at 93-95 levels in total tax receipts now."
Message 19454361
That's false. By a lot.
As for the corporation tax, the State of California line items that in its LAO reports:
lao.ca.gov
The 5.708 Billion number is correct for 1994-95. The number the LAO reports for 2001-02 is slightly higher than the one you report, but in the same ballpark. But that's the only comparison you can draw where the revenue from the corporation tax is below 1994-95 levels. In every other year since 1994-95 it has been above that level (I believe the last number in this sequence is an estimate):
1994-95: $5,708,000,000
1995-96: $5,862,241,000
1996-97: $5,786,986,000
1997-98: $5,836,627,000
1998-99: $5,724,002,000
1999-00: $6,638,762,000
2000-01: $6,899,302,000
2001-02: $5,333,025,000
2002-03: $6,700,000,000
2003-04: $7,035,000,000
So if you pick out that one, aberrational data point from 2001-02 you can argue that revenues from the corporation tax declined. Pick any other data point and it's a tougher argument. Maybe you think that's a valid way to interpret statistics. I don't. Especially if you take a longer term view, which I did when we discussed the issue last week:
Message 19449311
Excerpt:
Corporation Tax (Fiscal year ending ... , in thousands)
1951: 98,245
1952: 120,127
1953: 119,127
1954: 125,026
1955: 133,661
1956: 157,088
1957: 167,431
1958: 173,599
1959: 174,003
1960: 240,735
1961: 272,718
1962: 290,870
1963: 311,251
1964: 405,431
1965: 416,247
1966: 435,597
1967: 453,292
1968: 576,874
1969: 592,303
1970: 587,013
1971: 532,091
1972: 662,522
1973: 866,117
1974: 1,057,191
1975: 1,253,673
1976: 1,286,515
1977: 1,641,500
1978: 2,082,208
1979: 2,381,223
1980: 2,510,039
1981: 2,730,624
1982: 2,648,735
1983: 2,536,011
1984: 3,231,281
1985: 3,664,593
1986: 3,843,024
1987: 4,800,843
1988: 4,776,388
1989: 5,138,009
1990: 4,964,842
1991: 4,545,384
1992: 4,537,964
1993: 4,777,319
1994: 4,787,474
1995: 5,716,603
1996: 5,862,327
1997: 5,788,774
1998: 5,837,426
1999: 5,724,035
2000: 6,638,762
2001: 6,899,302
2002: 5,333,036
2003: 6,700,011
2004: 7,035,011
California's revenue from the Corporation Tax has increased in 43 of the past 54 years. The average increase in the years it has gone up dwarfs the average decrease. It has increased by decade dramatically:
1951: $98,245,000
1960: $240,735,000
1970: $587,013,000
1980: $2,510,039,000
1990: $4,964,842,000
2000: $6,638,762,000
Incidentally, inflation is only a small part of the story of these increases. Using the CPI Inflation Calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl), $100 in 1951 is the equivalent of $712.31 in 2003, an increase of 712.31 percent.
If you increase the California revenue from the Corporation Tax by the rate of inflation from 1951 to 2003, the revenue level from the corporation tax would be $699,808,960 in 2003. In fact, it was $6,700,011,000, or nearly ten times as high in real terms as it was in 1951.
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