A Democratic state Assemblyman is calling for raising the income tax rate on California’s top earners. Similar ideas have been proposed and failed but according to supporters, this plan will raise billions.
Assemblyman Warren Furutani has proposed raising the personal income tax rate to ten percent for people who make more than 250,000 or couples making more than $500,000 a year. The rate would go to 11 percent for those making more. Right now it’s just more than 9 percent. Furutani said those rates would end after five years. He said the money raised could help close the nearly $27 billion dollar budget deficit.
“What we project is that potentially over that five year period we could raise an additional seven almost eight billion dollars for California,” Furutani said.
Similar ideas have been raised in recent years but have not been successful. They’ve been opposed by GOP lawmakers who have said this year’s proposal is a non-starter.
