The Sacramento City Council has relented to the legal prowess of Jon Coupal and Tim Biddle of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and decided that rather than just implement on their own vote a new utility tax on mobile phones and new communication technologies, they will comply with the law and put the measure on the November ballot. Which is exactly what they did earier this week.
And that is where the "blue-smoke-and-mirrors" begins. Taxpayer Alert!!! The new proposed utililty tax in Sacramento isn’t a tax increase at all, according to the city! It actually lowers the utility tax on telephones from 7.5 percent to 7 percent. Yeah, on regular landline phones. But the new law will now add new technologies, such as text messaging and internet telephone services, to the taxable universe, resulting in $12 million more in tax revenue for the city. The city calls it the "Utility User Tax Reduction and Fairness Measure for Communications Services." LOL!
HJTA’s Biddle told the Sacramento Bee that while the city is "packaging it as a tax reduction" it’s not. "It’s an increase."
Taxpayer organizations need to be sure to stop this measure. This is a test case. If this utility tax increase passes, cities all over the state will follow suit with this "tax reduction" myth and nail new technologies that should not be taxed.
And because of the duplicity of the city, voters in Sacramento will need to be especially aware of misleading campaign ads and political consultant driven outfits like the "California Taxpayer Protection Committee" slate mailer that may be expected to cosy up to the city public employee unions that will be backing this measure. That slate mailer "went dark" on and did not include an endorsement of Proposition 98, the eminent domain reform measure in the last election, not on the principle of Proposition 98, which they allegedly "endorsed," but because they didn’t get campaign money! That is disgusting. Credible taxpayer organizations don’t do that sort of thing. I hope all taxpayers groups can work together on the natural to help kill this awful measure, including through their slate mailers, regardless of "money," and that the scuzy outfits can be seen for what they really are ahead of time and headed off.