California State Taxes Are Among The Highest In The United States

California has always had a bit of a reputation for high taxes, but that reputation wasn’t always as well-deserved or as accurate as many people would make it out to be.

Today, however, saying that California has high taxes may be the understatement of the century, including dui lawyers in San Diego CA.

If you’re thinking about moving to California or are looking to conduct business in California, you’ll want to make sure that you understand exactly what you’re getting into. You’re going to pay your fair share of state taxes in California for sure, and then some!

California Sales Tax is the highest in the US

According to information published by the state of California, the Sales Tax of this great state is the highest in the nation (as of 2018) – and that’s after it was actually decreased when Proposition 30 expired.

The “flat tax” for California Sales Tax is 7.25%, down from 7.5% with the expiration of that same Proposition 30 we mentioned above. However, as if that wasn’t high enough already, local sales tax can also kick in – sometimes bringing total sales tax all the way up to 10% in some California cities like San Francisco, as San Francisco DUI Lawyers expect.

On average, consumers should expect spend about 8.54% on sales tax throughout California (as of 2018).

California State Excise Tax

On top of the sales tax then you’ll have to pay when you purchase things in California, a whole host of different excise taxes are also charged on all kinds of products and services you might look to purchase.

For example, if you ever decide to purchase fruit from a vending machine in the state of California you’ll pay an extra 33% of that total purchase price in excise tax. Packs of cigarettes will cost you $2.87 in excise tax after new legislation added an extra two dollars in April 2017. Gasoline gets hit with a tax of $0.5349 per gallon under legislation that went into effect in November 2017, representing the second highest gasoline excise tax in the United States.

As of right now, the average driver in California is going to pay just north of $3.05 per gallon of gas, compared to the national average that sits at just $2.26. There is potential legislation going on throughout the state of California that would repeal the new gasoline tax increases, but residents of California won’t have an opportunity to vote on that until November 2018.

California Property Taxes aren’t all that bad

State property taxes in California aren’t all that bad.

Effectively, property owners will pay just .76% in 2018 compared to the 1.1% that property owners pay on average across the US.

Of course, properties in California are always going to be assessed at 100% of their full cash or market value. A handful of tax breaks are included in the state of California to bring your total property tax costs down a little bit, but former programs that reimbursed taxpayers for a portion of their property taxes have been discontinued as of 2017.

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