White Paper: Improving California’s Tax Climate
When Jerry Brown began his first governorship in 1975, California’s general fund budget was under $10 billion and the sales tax was the largest source of state revenue. Today, the general fund budget is about 10 times as large and the sales tax is running a distant second to the state income tax, which now accounts for about 66 percent of the state’s general revenue. Sales taxes have dropped to around 30 percent, from its peak of 50 percent two decades ago.