Voices.Kathleen Connell Kathleen Connell was the California State Controller from 1995 until 2003. She is currently President of the Connell Group, an investment advisory firm located in Washington, D.C. Dr. Los Angeles-based investment advisor Investment Advisor 1. A person making investment recommendations in return for a flat fee or percentage of assets managed, known as a commission. 2. For mutual fund companies, it is the individual who has the day-to-day responsibility of investing and monitoring the cash and Former California Controller 'No question we need to change our overwhelming dependence on the income tax. We need a more even tax structure. "First, we need to do a swap. We take a portion of the income tax and route that to local governments. Then we need to take an equivalent portion of the sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. that now goes to local government and keep that portion in Sacramento. This swap lessens the dependence of state government on the income tax and it lessens the dependence Of local government on the sales tax. "Second, we need to broaden out the sales tax to business services: We are no longer a manufacturing state, we are a service state. We should be looking at taxing hairdressing hairdressing, arranging of the hair for decorative, ceremonial, or symbolic reasons. Primitive men plastered their hair with clay and tied trophies and badges into it to represent their feats and qualities. salons and accounting services." Stephen Levy Director Center for the Continuing Study Of the California Economy 'LONGER term I think it's worth looking at reassessing commercial property and considering reassessing residential property by changing the 2 percent annual increase to 4 or 5 percent. Not the rate, but the assessed property. The intent of Prop 13 was to lower property taxes. I would try to have the assessments a little closer to market. "I would favor perhaps, a property tax/sales tax swap Tax Swap A method of crystallizing capital losses by selling losing positions and purchasing companies within similar industries that have similar fundamentals. Notes: , to get cities and counties to have more incentives to make land use decisions that are sensible. Some kind of swap that gave communities more property tax revenue. Share more sales tax revenue so me businesses in the cities have to share it with everyone else. I would start with the commercial property reassessment with the revenue going to local government." Patty DeDominic Chief Executive PDQ (Parallel Data Query) A query optimized for massively parallel processors (MPPs). The software breaks down the query into pieces so that several parts of the database can be searched simultaneously. See SMP. Personnel Services "I'M not sure that we can fix the revenue stream, but we can have a base rate of income. In boom times, we will obviously have more income. I think we need to fix our expenditures to some base rate and not exceed them unless we have them coming out of reserves. That requires making some tough decisions, but believe there are a number of ways the state shuts itself off and is more bureaucratic bu·reau·crat n. 1. An official of a bureaucracy. 2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure. bu and spends more money than it needs to. "It is important to revisit all tax rules and regulations in the next five to 10 years, but I like Prop. 13 and I would not went to change it." |
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