LA Times:
Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento - Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.
Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.
Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.
Now think back to January of this year when news first hit that California was sending out IOU's instead of payments owed.
California will not pay state tax refunds for individuals and business that overpaid 2008 taxes, in order to conserve dwindling cash for priority payments including school spending and debt repayment required by state law, the state's controller office said on Friday.
In July, some resident's were still waiting.....
The printing presses at 2 p.m. began to roll out the first of nearly 29,000 IOUs totaling more than $53 million, most of them destined for residents around the state still awaiting income-tax returns.
Back to the paragraph I put in bold from the original story:
Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.
These people work to put food on their families tables and now the state is stealing another 10 percent of their earnings from them, for no other reason than .. it can.
This is what happens when people spend more than they bring in, offer services that they cannot afford to pay for and create programs with no income to pay for them.
California is a wonderful example of what is happening to our country as our politicians continue to do the same thing on a federal level.
.