{"id":259528,"date":"2026-04-09T15:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/259528\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T15:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:45:13","slug":"californians-get-little-back-for-paying-high-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/259528\/","title":{"rendered":"Californians get little back for paying high taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dan Walters<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Traffic\"
\n\t\t\t\tTraffic on Highway 50 in Sacramento on June 30, 2022. Some of what Californians pay at the pump funds road upkeep. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters<\/p>\n

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Watt Avenue is one of several Sacramento County streets named for famous inventors, in this case James Watt, father of the steam engine.<\/p>\n

Watt Avenue is also one of the county\u2019s busiest and most important arterials, with nearly 100,000 vehicles a day<\/a> crossing its bridge over the American River.<\/p>\n

The north-south route runs for nearly 30 miles, including a small extension with a different name. It has one of Sacramento\u2019s few river crossings and is the only direct connection between two major east-west freeways, Interstate 80 and Highway 50.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Watt not only serves local traffic but carries many heavy trucks, including a steady stream of county-owned semis carrying garbage from a transfer station to a landfill.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Watt\u2019s heavy load of traffic has a tendency to beat up its asphalt surface. The county occasionally resurfaces some stretches, but Watt remains one of the region\u2019s rougher rides.<\/p>\n

Sacramento County’s street and road conditions are not the worst in the state, but they are markedly below those of all counties combined, a 2023 study commissioned by local governments<\/a> found \u2014 as Watt\u2019s bumpy surface attests.<\/p>\n

We Californians pay the nation\u2019s highest taxes<\/a>, including various fees, on fuel for our vehicles, about 90 cents a gallon, and a hefty chunk of that is parceled out to local governments for roadway maintenance.<\/p>\n

April is the month when state and local governments expect us to pay for the privilege of being Californians. April 10 is the deadline for paying semi-annual property taxes without penalty, and April 15 is the deadline for filing federal and state income tax returns.<\/p>\n

It is, therefore, an appropriate time for weighing whether the taxes we Californians pay \u2014 not only those on property and income, but throughout the year on sales and fuel \u2014 buy satisfactory levels of service.<\/p>\n

The Washington-based Tax Foundation, in a new report<\/a>, pegs Californians\u2019 state and local tax burden at 13.5% of personal income, or $10,167 a person \u2014 fifth highest in the nation. That\u2019s roughly $400 billion in taxes that those we elect to office have to spend each year.<\/p>\n

Whether we consider our return on that investment to be adequate is probably as individual as our fingerprints. But WalletHub, a website that researches personal finance issues, recently attempted to calculate it objectively<\/a>. California gets the nation\u2019s second lowest score, eclipsed only by New Mexico. New Hampshire scored the best, followed by Florida.<\/p>\n

WalletHub\u2019s research team calculated tax revenue per adult for each state and compared it to five categories of government services: education, health, public safety, economy and infrastructure combined with pollution.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s services were rated as mediocre, 37th overall, with low scores for public safety, economy, infrastructure and pollution. However, the state\u2019s high level of taxation, mirroring the Tax Foundation\u2019s data, sank its return on investment to near the bottom.<\/p>\n

No matter how politicians frame it, we Californians are paying some of the nation\u2019s highest taxes. And they could go even higher this year, as dozens of local governments ask their voters to raise sales taxes<\/a>, promising better services in return, and as tax increase measures await voters\u2019 decisions in November.<\/p>\n

Despite the tax load, the state is dealing with multibillion-dollar budget deficits<\/a>, due to overspending its revenues, and legislators are being pressed to cover the shortfalls with new corporate taxes.<\/p>\n

Return on investment is almost never discussed. But it should be kept in mind as we contemplate pending tax measures and elections for governor and other statewide, local, legislative and congressional offices this year.<\/p>\n

High taxes should bring us smooth roads, effective police and fire services, high levels of education, reliable water supplies and other efficient returns on our investment, which residents of New Hampshire and Florida apparently enjoy.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dan Walters, CalMatters Traffic on Highway 50 in Sacramento on June 30, 2022. Some of what Californians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2675,964,13873,121,357,123,122,1694],"class_list":["post-259528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-accountability","tag-commentary","tag-income-tax","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-county","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259528","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=259528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}