CA going to start taxing text messages
 

.. because they are broke and losing money on low income freebies. If they get their way, the will also apply this tax retroactively for 5 years.

.. California is a nice place to visit, but who can afford to live there?

California is brainwashed more and more every day.

They want to use the tax to help the poor get more connected with mobile phones, but phones and computers are a luxury. It's not the public's problem if someone doesn't have electronic goods.

Oxygen to be next

If they could they'd take money directly out of peoples checking and savings accounts to redistribute it to people they believe should get it. Whenever Dems say they want to raise taxes on the rich don't believe them. They'll take money from the middle class all day every day. This tax will not hurt rich people and it will benefit poor people. The middle class gets the shaft. I don't see my state getting better anytime soon. One benefit from this if the do implement the tax will be that they might finally get voted out of power.

I lived there for 18 years and firmly believe the state will need to collapse before it will get any better. I wholeheartedly support taxing texts, single payer healthcare, carbon taxes, and anything else that brings on the collapse.

Somebody has to pay the illegals. Using data gathered from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, 12.9 percent of all state and local prisoners in California were illegal immigrants as of 2009. That number is significantly higher than illegal immigrants as percentage of the population. Furthermore, according to FAIR, illegal immigration costs the state of California some $23 billion per year

Article 1 Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution.

"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

Ronald Reagan disagreed.

Article 1, Section 10 says the states can't pass ex post facto laws, but SCOTUS has tended to apply that just to criminal cases. I'd guess this one would end up in court. It also depends on what the California constitution says.

Another big fly in the ointment is the inability of a state to tax interstate commerce. Back when long distance calls were itemized and billed individually, many states taxed intrastate toll calls, but could not tax interstate toll calls.

Since ISPs do not track or bill text messages individually, they have no record of which messages you send are intrastate.

It turns out that the proposed tax is based on the text messaging service you subscribe to, not on the messages you send.

Also, the FCC has classified texting as an information service, not a communications service. As such, texting cannot be taxed without FCC approval. The FCC has authority here because some unknown percentage of texts are sent interstate.

http://reason.com/blog/2018/12/13/ca...t-to-tax-texts

Maybe we'll all get lucky and this "little FCC sticky point" will get stuck in the craw of the governor and he'll hold a special secession election, and we'll get to shake the commie Kalifornia dust off our feet.

That was true 8 or 9 years ago, but Cali's latest surplus was approx. $9 billion. In addition, the state has almost $15 billion in a rainy day fund. For the upcoming fiscal year, the state's surplus is projected at $14.8 billion. I wouldn't count on the $14.8 billion number, as I suspect the economy will be weaker than the forecast embedded in their plan,* but they are not broke.


*stock market-related capital gains can be a big swing factor in Cali, too

With surpluses like that, why are they out to gouge people with taxes not needed?

They SHOULD be sending out share the wealth checks to everyone.

I would bet that the fires take a big chunk outta that....if it's even accurate...I'm not going to fact check it either way...

The bigger issue is....BIG BROTHER....if they CAN successfully tax texts...it's VERY scary INDEED....:puke::rant::pout: