{"id":1420,"date":"2010-05-10T09:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T08:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/?p=1420"},"modified":"2026-06-17T10:27:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T09:27:37","slug":"index-p-239-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/index-p-239-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Options for Raising Local Revenues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Vote Requirements:&nbsp; Local taxes designated for any specific purposes require 2\/3 vote.&nbsp; Local taxes for general government purposes require a majority vote.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Parcel Taxes\/ \u201cSpecial Taxes\u201d:<\/strong>&nbsp;Parcel taxes can be enacted in a variety of ways.&nbsp; While they usually are a flat amount per parcel, there are actually not many restrictions on how they can be enacted, but they will always require a 2\/3 vote.&nbsp; They cannot be enacted on property value, but can be on square footage of land and\/or buildings, on the street frontage (business improvement districts), and can vary among types of property, business versus residential, apartments vs. single-family homes.&nbsp; School districts have successfully used parcel taxes, generally on homeowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hotel and Admission Taxes<\/strong><strong>:<\/strong>&nbsp;The state does not pre-empt the field with regard to entrance fees\/admissions.&nbsp; Localities usually have substantial hotel taxes, although only some jurisdictions have admissions taxes.&nbsp; These can include sporting events, movies, golf courses, amusement parks, and parking lots-all of which are not subject to sales tax and can be taxed by localities on a per admission basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Utility Taxes:<\/strong>&nbsp;Many cities and counties have taxes on gas, electric and telecommunications services.&nbsp; Some of the telecommunications taxes have been recently re-enacted because of federal rulings (e.g. Los Angeles), and can include cell phone services.&nbsp; Cable companies pay franchise fees to the localities for the privilege of running their cables and cable services are also taxed in a number of cities and one county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Local Sales Tax Increases:<\/strong>&nbsp;Counties and cities may increase sales taxes, up to 2% above the state rate, for county services.&nbsp; Many counties already have an increase for transportation, and in some cases cities have enacted their own increases.&nbsp; These taxes can also be shared among cities and counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Business License Taxes:<\/strong>&nbsp;These are often structured on a per employee basis, or as gross receipts on professionals.&nbsp; Most cities have them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Fees:<\/strong>&nbsp;These generally require nexus with the service.&nbsp; By legislation, birth certificate surcharges are permitted for child abuse, marriage fees for domestic violence. Cities have many kinds of fees for services and for property development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Nuisance Abatement and Mitigation Fees<\/strong>.&nbsp; Cities and counties have authority to charge fees for various health and safety and public protection programs.&nbsp; Oakland placed a fee on liquor stores, upheld by the courts, in order to provide additional policing of the nuisance caused in neighborhoods.&nbsp; San Francisco is considering a mitigation fee on alcohol to pay for the harm to public health caused by alcohol usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Potential new authority for local taxes:<\/strong>&nbsp;AB 2113 (Evans) would authorize use of a county-wide vehicle license fee and a county-wide income tax, approved by local voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vote Requirements:&nbsp; Local taxes designated for any specific purposes require 2\/3 vote.&nbsp; Local taxes for general government purposes require a majority vote. Parcel Taxes\/ \u201cSpecial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,28,29,30,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat12","category-cat7","category-cat8","category-cat13","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caltaxreform.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}