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Strategies & Market Trends : A.I.M Users Group Bulletin Board -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OldAIMGuy who wrote (5446)	8/27/1998 8:09:00 PM
From: steve in socal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

tomasso, i'm afraid we left coast AIMERS will give you very little sympathy about fuel taxes. is their a worse state than the golden one? i think not! of course with all of us having three or more vehicles, i suppose that's what we deserve. s.k.

To: OldAIMGuy who wrote (5446)	8/30/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: Bruce A. Bowman	Respond to of 18928

Hi Tom- We have several refineries locally and pay a lot more for gasoline than locations 100 miles inland. So transportation of the fuel isn't the issue for most of central California. Our highway construction is funded with gas tax plus locally we have additional taxes related to air pollution. In Santa Clara County (south of where I live) the voters approved an additional 1/4% sales tax to permit building commute lanes which the state was unwilling to complete on any sort of urgent basis. We spend a lot of money on sales tax (7-3/4% - 8-1/2% depending on the county), gas tax (not sure what it is right now, but gasoline is charged both gas tax and sales tax), property tax (2% of purchase price + ~1%/yr max growth rate), income tax (2% - 12%) and state disability insurance (1-1/2% of wages capped at ~$750) plus a ton of hidden taxes. In addition, many of the service agencies of city, county and state government have been hit with budget reductions and forced to charge additional fees to cover their operating expenses. A birth certificate, for instance, was $1 in San Joaquin County a few years ago; 3 months ago I paid $20 for them to make a Xerox copy and impression stamp it (Kinko's charges $0.07 for a Xerox copy and is profitable, so I guess I paid $19.93 for the impression stamp! :-). Filing fees at the recorders offices have gone way up. And as bad as all this is, it's my understanding that some states are worse than California. Bruce