This is California at its progressive best. I'm sure Peter Thiel and his pals are crimson with anxiety over the possibility that the legislature might pass a tax increase on the CEOs in our state.
If California companies want to keep paying their CEO’s a hundred times better than their workers, they could face higher tax rates. A bill to impose higher tax rates on companies with excessively high CEO-to-worker pay ratios passed its first legislative hurdle on Thursday, advancing out of a state Senate committee on a 5-2 vote.
If SB1372 were to become law, which its authors told the Associated Press is unlikely, the state’s current flat-rate corporate income tax would be replaced by a sliding scale. Most companies would pay an income tax rate ranging from 7 percent to 13 percent depending on the ratio between their top executive’s earnings and what their median employee earned in the same year. Financial companies would face a scale from 9 percent to 15 percent.
I put long odds on this ever making it into law. After the Great Corruption Purge in the California Senate, Democrats no longer have a supermajority, which is what it takes to pass a tax increase in this state, thanks to Proposition 13.
