California Seeks to Tax Rocket Launches, Which Are Already Taxed

[Trepidati0n]

I understand that businesses aren't running away from CA in any meaningful way. I also know that GDP is GDP and last figures I saw had them at 6th. Not Texas. Not NY, Not Iowa and not France (unless something has changed). If businesses were fleeing, then their GDP would decline, as would their overall ranking, yet their population isn't falling and GDP is growing.

So you have no credible sources...just info from sites that already post views you agree with?

 

[nilepez]

So you have no credible sources...just info from sites that already post views you agree with?

FYI, I didn't go to sites I agree with. I went to sites that came up in google and discussed the top GDPs in the world. Do you have anything or are you just here to troll?

 

[DarkStar_WNY]

Back when I was in college I had a professor point out that numbers are all in how they're presented, regardless of the facts. Her example:

The US and Russia decided to have a horse race between their two best horses to see who was faster and the US horse won.

The US paper headline: US horse wins against Russians.

Russian headline: In an international horse competition, Russian horse comes in second and US horse comes in 2nd to last.

That's awesome, thanks for sharing!

 

[Jamison Collins]

Back when I was in college I had a professor point out that numbers are all in how they're presented, regardless of the facts. Her example:

The US and Russia decided to have a horse race between their two best horses to see who was faster and the US horse won.

The US paper headline: US horse wins against Russians.

Russian headline: In an international horse competition, Russian horse comes in second and US horse comes in 2nd to last.

Sure. No offense but I'm probably more familiar than you with how numbers can be twisted.

That's why I'm trying to look in more detail into the link you posted. I personally want to know if California doesn't qualify as a donor state since that meme is so prevalent and I don't want to keep claiming something which isn't true. BTW, here is the book that the author is pulling his information from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiJ7bza1OHTAhUQ22MKHYaCDFMQFggnMAA&url=https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/13databk.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGPg5cjQiAZEPmvSZq6IZ70UDlE5Q&sig2=-uzrKQcQYbXVZ8zLK4hmIg . I really can't spend much more time on this right now because I am very busy with work this week (I have a job were I have to be on-call at times and this is my week) so I don't know when I'll get a chance to fully go through this. I will follow up on this as best I can even though I assume this thread will be dead soon. And if I'm wrong I'll admit it for sure.

BTW, here's a breakdown for New York from the New York Comptroller for 2013 https://osc.state.ny.us/reports/budget/2015/fed_budget_fy2013.pdf. The total federal tax paid for New York is lower than the amount from Table 5 but more than Table 5 - Table 8. I'll give a state comptroller more credibility than any of these other sources which leads me to believe that there is some legitimacy to the idea of subtracting refunds from gross collections just we don't know exactly how the comptroller did it though it's clear they didn't just subtract the full amount from table 8. If you compare the total federal tax collected from the comptroller result (2.629B) against the total receipts form the IRC (2.855B table 5) and the total refunds (364B table 8) we can see that only about 62% of the total refunds were subtracted.

Bottom line

1) I'm not an accountant much less a tax accountant.
2) Whether California receives less in federal spending than I pays in taxes, which seems to require a deeper understanding of exactly how that is calculated than I possess, it should remain unarguiable that California receives less in federal spending than its share of the federal budget (this is possible due to deficit spending). We can debate wether that still qualfies it as a donor state another time.

Now I really need to crunch my own numbers for my actual job

 

[Staples]

Living here in CA costs a fortune and everyone pays high tax and no one seems to give a rats ass. If they did, the population would be decreasing.

This is a non issue.

 

[Geef]

Why are we still talking about California, I thought they split from the US so we didn't have to deal with them anymore?

Yeah Lex Luthor did split California off but then that bastard Superman decided to reverse time and stop it from happening.

 

[aaronspink]

Stolen by Jerry Brown to give handouts to his government employees, teachers unions and illegal immigrants. The latest is he stole the cigarette tax increase from Medical patients. ...and people here are stupid enough to keep voting to tax themselves and the state into ruin!

This is more BS. Medical has increased funding. Doctor's and hospitals are pissed they didn't waste that funding on increasing the riches that doctors and hospitals already make.

 

[aaronspink]

Federal Taxes != State Taxes

That said, California can screw itself. I swear people must sit around every week and say "Hey, what else can we tax that most people won't notice?" Not to mention, many of these expenses are funded by the government - so they would be exempt of any such taxes.

Or you know, bad journalists don't bother reading source material and people quoting bad journalists don't bother reading source material. This isn't California screwing itself, it is California putting in reasonable regulations based on those that already apply to basically every other transportation sector concerning how revenue, income, and sales are allocated for tax purposes.

 

[Jamison Collins]

Or you know, bad journalists don't bother reading source material and people quoting bad journalists don't bother reading source material. This isn't California screwing itself, it is California putting in reasonable regulations based on those that already apply to basically every other transportation sector concerning how revenue, income, and sales are allocated for tax purposes.

I think it's hilarious that Cyraxx is mad about taxes that people won't notice being imposed. Would he prefer taxes which are severe enough that people encounter them every day?

Also, can someone please explain why non-Californians even care about this article? If you don't like it, build your own spaceport. Unlike seaports you can just build them anywhere.

 

[aaronspink]

I think it's hilarious that Cyraxx is mad about taxes that people won't notice being imposed. Would he prefer taxes which are severe enough that people encounter them every day?

Also, can someone please explain why non-Californians even care about this article? If you don't like it, build your own spaceport. Unlike seaports you can just build them anywhere.

It is highly likely that other states with space ports will adopt California's regulations in this area. Not the least because the actual launch companies asked for the regulations that California is proposing. I would be shocked if Texas/Florida don't adopt similar regulations for launches since the same issues that affect tax reporting apply to both those states launches.

 

[Jamison Collins]

It is highly likely that other states with space ports will adopt California's regulations in this area. Not the least because the actual launch companies asked for the regulations that California is proposing. I would be shocked if Texas/Florida don't adopt similar regulations for launches since the same issues that affect tax reporting apply to both those states launches.

I don't have any idea what you're talking about. The linked article only deals with a new tax, not new regulations (unless you mean the tax?) and not something the companies asked for (so definitely not the tax).

In any case, since you all are such strong supporters of the free market you should be thrilled by this. If what California has done makes it less competitive (as no shortage of people in this thread have claimed) then there is absolutely no reason for anyone to follow suit and every reason for them not to. And *no doubt* everyone else will benefit since issues of taxation are so binary that less tax = job creation and more tax = job murder. Can't wait to hear about all the new spaceports opening in Kansas...

 

[tybert7]

a few of my friends in CA always wonder why people vote to tax themselves more. They have things on a ballot that adds more taxes and they vote yes to it.

People in CA are not anti government zealots like conservatives, or at least a critical mass of them are not. As a consequence, they are more open to having the government take care of things and not leave everything up to the market, though we still have plenty of market activity.

In fact, liberal states tend to do much better than conservative states, and if we get right down to it, it's really about the cities and metro areas, and there it's the LIBERAL areas that are absolutely dominating and decimating the rural (conservative) areas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/17/why-does-donald-trump-demonize-cities/


Plenty of conservatives live and work in cities and metro areas too of course, but I find it endlessly interesting that in practice, their core philosophy is REJECTED by people every day and every region. How?

Liberal cities, with their increased populations and densities tend to be MUCH higher TAX zones, they have increased regulations and restrictions on the freedoms of men and companies, and yet, they are STILL bigger magnets of companies and prosperity than rural conservative dominated areas, even though taxes are lower there, and regulations are less burdensome there. This is the great LIE conservatives tell to themselves and others, that the sum total of variables one need be concerned with is tax rates and regulations. But why does liberal city after liberal city attracts the smartest people and has the largest clusters of wealth and knowledge creation? Because there are FAR more important variables than that. Greater density of people = greater prosperity and more attractive markets for companies because the customer base is larger.

The economy of larger cities and metro areas are inherently more resilient to economic shocks compared to rural areas, if the latter has a single company ship off overseas or shut down, that can send a small town into a depression, a big city? It's a much smaller blip, those liberal meccas are dynamic and superior locales for economic prosperity.

For these reasons and many others, I get a little tired of snide conservatives looking down on liberals as if WE are the takers and slobs lying about while they act like Atlas lifting up the nation on their shoulders. It's the other way around.

 

[tybert7]

So you have no credible sources...just info from sites that already post views you agree with?

Here is an interesting chart that highlights total state debt for the states, but more importantly, adds something almost ALWAYS left out of conservative mouths when they are bashing California about their MASSIVE DEBT !!!!!!!!

http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/state_debt_rank

GDP, we have, by FAR, the largest gdp of any state. We have higher debt, but we also earn more as a state and produce more, with industries that scale across the entire world, not just the nation. California is an effing jewel, and for the record to one of the guys above, I never used to be this rah rah California like some strange California supremacist, I just started championing our virtues after hearing conservatives use our state as a pinata because they were mad they did not control power here.

 

[nomu]

I don't have any idea what you're talking about. The linked article only deals with a new tax, not new regulations (unless you mean the tax?) and not something the companies asked for (so definitely not the tax).

In any case, since you all are such strong supporters of the free market you should be thrilled by this. If what California has done makes it less competitive (as no shortage of people in this thread have claimed) then there is absolutely no reason for anyone to follow suit and every reason for them not to. And *no doubt* everyone else will benefit since issues of taxation are so binary that less tax = job creation and more tax = job murder. Can't wait to hear about all the new spaceports opening in Kansas...

There is no new tax. The article was written by an idiot, or more charitably someone who doesn't care.

Basically CA is now taxing space launches like long-haul trucking. Such companies pay CA tax only on the part of their business that takes place in the state, so just like a trucking company isn't taxed in CA on the full value of a shipment from LA to Boston, a space launch is only taxed on the 62 vertical miles CA considers to be within state boundaries.

That's why other states would adopt similar regulations, if they decide to tax such companies at all. SpaceX and Virgin did actually ask for these changes.

 

[Trepidati0n]

Here is an interesting chart that highlights total state debt for the states, but more importantly, adds something almost ALWAYS left out of conservative mouths when they are bashing California about their MASSIVE DEBT !!!!!!!!

http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/state_debt_rank

GDP, we have, by FAR, the largest gdp of any state. We have higher debt, but we also earn more as a state and produce more, with industries that scale across the entire world, not just the nation. California is an effing jewel, and for the record to one of the guys above, I never used to be this rah rah California like some strange California supremacist, I just started championing our virtues after hearing conservatives use our state as a pinata because they were mad they did not control power here.

Interesting. Care to not cherry pick by showing "trend lines" instead? A boat is always floating until it has sunk.

 

[Jamison Collins]

Interesting. Care to not cherry pick by showing "trend lines" instead? A boat is always floating until it has sunk.

That's not what cherry picking is. Why don't you find the trendline data and post it if you would find it so interesting.

 

[[Spectre]]

I understand that businesses aren't running away from CA in any meaningful way. I also know that GDP is GDP and last figures I saw had them at 6th. Not Texas. Not NY, Not Iowa and not France (unless something has changed). If businesses were fleeing, then their GDP would decline, as would their overall ranking, yet their population isn't falling and GDP is growing.

My point exactly, you don't understand that the data point is useless without context that you can not provide as you are just pulling a divorced data point.

 

[Jamison Collins]

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

In 4 easy steps of not paying attention TO why, and being self absorbed in the "but California" argument of, you are "great" while ignoring the fact that you are actually a part of the largest economy in the world and your status as 6th largest is entirely dependent on that fact! People who make fun of Texas or Alaska for being arrogant have, apparently, never looked at California!

According to this http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php California would still be ranked 5th (CA economy was 2.5T in 2015).

Now can you please make your point? In this thread all you have done is claim we don't understand what we're talking about while posting a link to wallethub which, as far as I can tell, continues to prove that California gets less from the feds than its share.

So make your point already. Your refusal to accept that we are happy out here and we don't mind paying taxes SINCE WE GET PAID MORE is just nauseating, honestly.

source: am paid more than you and own more square footage of bay area real estate than you own in Tex... wait a minute. You live in California?

 

[aaronspink]

I don't have any idea what you're talking about. The linked article only deals with a new tax, not new regulations (unless you mean the tax?) and not something the companies asked for (so definitely not the tax).

In any case, since you all are such strong supporters of the free market you should be thrilled by this. If what California has done makes it less competitive (as no shortage of people in this thread have claimed) then there is absolutely no reason for anyone to follow suit and every reason for them not to. And *no doubt* everyone else will benefit since issues of taxation are so binary that less tax = job creation and more tax = job murder. Can't wait to hear about all the new spaceports opening in Kansas...

There is no new tax. The Ars article is 100% bullshit. Look at the actual document from the FTB, this is a regulation dealing with income allocation similar to other regulations dealing with interstate trucking and aviation on how do you allocate the revenues and profits that are split among multiple jurisdictions for tax purposes.