{"id":200612,"date":"2026-03-02T15:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T15:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/200612\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T15:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T15:16:07","slug":"california-bill-would-exclude-military-retirement-pay-from-state-taxable-income-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/200612\/","title":{"rendered":"California bill would exclude military retirement pay from state taxable income \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new bipartisan effort is underway in the California Legislature<\/a> to ensure veterans and survivors won\u2019t have to pay state income tax on retirement pay and survivor benefits.<\/p>\n

The idea is to incentivize veterans to stay in California when seeking a second career, according to Sen. Bob Archuleta, the bill\u2019s author, whose district includes Brea and Placentia.<\/p>\n

Sacramento Snapshot<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0Sacramento Snapshot<\/a>\u00a0is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County\u2019s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on \u2014 from committee work to bill passages and more.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 1407<\/a> has the backing of Sen. Steven Choi, R-Irvine, as well as Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita, and Fiona Ma, the state treasurer.<\/p>\n

\u201cVeterans staying in California will pay sales, property and use taxes, benefiting local governments,\u201d Archuleta said.<\/p>\n

But exempting military retirement pay for retirees \u201cwill ensure California retains these highly skilled professionals and keeps the reinvestment of federal dollars and wages from second careers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Related: Although it divided lawmakers, a bill meant to protect veterans heads to the governor<\/a><\/p>\n

According to data from Archuleta\u2019s office, California lost more than 24,000 military retirees between 2010 and 2022. But during that same time period, the veteran retiree population grew by 17% in the U.S., while California saw a 14% reduction, one of only five states to see a decrease in that population.<\/p>\n

In February, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that<\/a> allows veterans who get military retirement pay and families receiving federal Survivor Benefit Plan funds to exclude up to $20,000 of their income annually from their state income taxes.<\/p>\n

The bill would remove that $20,000 cap on income eligible for exclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, our veterans have been faced with a difficult decision: Stay in this beautiful state while struggling to make ends meet with rising costs of living or move to a state that financially incentivizes them to join their labor force and feed federal dollars into their economy,\u201d Archuleta, a U.S. Army combat veteran, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard from far too many of my brothers and sisters who say California has become too expensive for them to live and say a tax exemption on their retirement pay would be the determining factor on whether they stay or leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill was just recently introduced and has not yet been referred to a committee.<\/p>\n

In other news<\/p>\n

\u2022 Autonomous vehicles may not have drivers, but they could still be ticketed, under a new proposal from Assemblymember Tri Ta, R-Westminster.<\/p>\n

Assembly Bill 2193<\/a> would enable law enforcement to ticket the company of an autonomous passenger transportation vehicle that violates the state\u2019s traffic laws, such as failing to stop at a red light or making an illegal U-turn. The bill, according to Ta\u2019s office, essentially treats the company that owns the vehicle as the driver for ticketing purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAB 2193 strikes a balance between providing a service to our residents while ensuring public safety,\u201d said Ta. \u201cThis bill would treat driverless cars as if there were a real person behind the wheel. If any other driver breaks our traffic laws, they get a ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 In other transportation legislation, Sen. Catherine Blakespear has introduced a new bill<\/a> meant to ensure transit agencies can provide reliable and coordinated rail services for concerts, sports and other large public events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to optimize rail service during events like the Olympics, the World Cup or big concerts or sporting events,\u201d Blakespear, a Democrat who represents communities in southern Orange County, said. \u201cA more customer-friendly approach will boost ridership and operator revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new bipartisan effort is underway in the California Legislature to ensure veterans and survivors won\u2019t have to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,1843,8,400,100,611,13,41780,136,513],"class_list":["post-200612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-legislature","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-politics","tag-sacramento-snapshot","tag-top-stories","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}