Public Finance

Friends of Wells Fargo Typo Victim Larry Delassus Suing For Wrongful Death

Attorney Anthony Trujillo sits at his desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean, clicking through hundreds of files on his computer. Each relates to his late friend and client, Larry Delassus, who died of heart failure in a Torrance courtroom in December as he sat in a wheelchair watching Trujillo argue a ... More >>

Proposition A Los Angeles Sales Tax: Absentee Ballot Results Show Villaraigosa's Latest Tax Hike Losing By Ten Points

See: L.A. Sales Tax Hike: Will $211 Million Increase Fix City's Problems? The early absentee ballots are in, and while it's still early on, it's begining to look like your taxes are not going up. With around six percent of votes counted, Proposition A is losing by ten points, 45 to 55 percent. Th ... More >>

Just When Gas Prices Start To Level Off, California Announces Tax Hike At Pump

Just when you thought it was safe to purchase gas again, the state is adding $3.5 cents to every gallon you buy. Yep, right when the AAA of Southern California is screaming, "Gas Price Spike Screeches To A Halt," your own government is sticking it to you. Here's the deal:

L.A. Sales Tax Hike: Will $211 Million Increase Fix City's Problems?

Do people trust the City Council?

Proposition A Los Angeles Sales Tax: Is This Another City Hall Scam?

Read L.A. Weekly's news story "L.A. Sales Tax Hike: Will $211 Million Increase Fix City's Problems?" Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council president Herb Wesson say they need to raise the city's sales tax by one-half percent to close a looming $216 million budget deficit, but can ... More >>

L.A. Sidewalk Repair War: Dennis Zine's Own Block got Fixed, Now City Controller Candidates Cary Brazeman, Ron Galperin, Cry Foul

L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine may wish sidewalks had gotten fixed anywhere other than his own street a few years ago -- after all, there are 5,000 miles of broken sidewalks in Los Angeles from which to choose. Instead, Zine yesterday handed his rival City Controller candidates Cary Brazeman and R ... More >>

Trillion Dollar Currency Already Subject Of Simpsons Episode (Sorry, Paul Krugman)

We all know that The Simpsons is genius. But who knew that the show that gestated on the comic-strip pages of L.A. alternative media could one day help save America? If New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's suggestion that the Obama administration actually mint a $1 trillion platinum coin comes ... More >>

Antonio Villaraigosa Joins Committee to Fix the Debt, Completing Plutocratic Conversion

Update below: Online petition calls for mayor to resign from Fix the Debt. Villaraigosa responds.Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has joined the Committee to Fix the Debt, thus completing his transformation from firebrand Chicano organizer to servant of the plutocracy.Fix the Debt wants lawmakers to addre ... More >>

L.A. Council Votes To Put Half-Cent Sales Tax On March Ballot; But Citywide Candidates Are All Opposed

The L.A. City Council voted 10-4 today to put a half-cent sales tax increase on the March ballot. But all of the candidates for citywide office opposed it.Councilman Eric Garcetti and Councilwoman Jan Perry, who are running for mayor, voted no. So did Councilman Dennis Zine, who is running for contr ... More >>

Beverly Hills City Council Refuses to Join Rainbow Coalition to Defeat Measure J

Last night, four members of the Beverly Hills City Council blew a golden public relations opportunity -- and refused to approve a strong anti-Measure J resolution. The initiative seeks to extend a recent half-cent L.A. County sales tax hike for another 30 years to 2069. Instead, the Beverly Hills C ... More >>

John Noguez, L.A. County Assessor, Arrested On Corruption Charges

John Noguez, the Los Angeles County Assessor, was arrested this morning on corruption charges, along with his deputy Mark McNeil and controversial tax agent Ramin Salari. Noguez was taken into custody at his home in Huntington Park. He and his co-defendants face 31 counts related to a wide ranging ... More >>

Santa Monica Spends Earthquake Plum on Ritzy Projects

Appraiser Scott Schenter Accused Of Wrongfully Cutting Property Roll By $108 Million; Many Breaks Went To Tax Agent Ramin Salari's Clients

​Monday, 2, p.m. Updated below with Schenter's termination notice, which details some of the allegations against the former appraiser.Former appraiser Scott Schenter wrongfully lowered property values on 156 parcels, according to a spreadsheet prepared by the L.A. County Assessor's Office.Schenter ... More >>

Joe Buscaino or Warren Furutani for L.A. City Council District 15? Vote Now in Historic Race Between Underdog Cop, Career Pol

Can a humble police officer from San Pedro become a historic wrench in the well-oiled Los Angeles political machine? That's up to you, residents of City Council District 15. You can go with candidate Joe Buscaino, the former LAPD officer who's netted endorsements from local police unions and the Lo ... More >>

Sales Tax in California Goes Down 1 Percentage Point This Weekend

Indeed.​Yes, we've seen the t-shirts: 2010 sucked. It's true. And so far, 2011 isn't exactly sparking the turnaround of the new century. Not yet. But there's hope. Thanks to the often sedentary ways of the California legislature, a 2009, one-percentage point sales tax increase will expire t ... More >>

Los Angeles: Broke and Broken

City Council clueless about vast, hidden costs in Villaraigosa's $6.9 billion budget

Grow Marijuana in California? Look Out For the Tax Man: Proposal to License, Regulate and Tax Weed Cultivation in the Works

Soon to be a taxable crop in California?​Taxing marijuana has been a big deal in California in recent weeks. The city of L.A. wants to impose an extra 5 percent tax on pot shops, and you'll get to vote on that idea March 8. And the California Board of Equalization (BOE) ruled Thursday that ma ... More >>

Feds Shut Down Tax Preparer Guillermo Garcia

​Tax season is upon us, which means it's time to find a tax preparer who can get creative with deductions. And according to the federal government, Guillermo Garcia is one of the most creative guys around. Sadly though, he'll be sitting this year out."He doesn't work here no more because he's reti ... More >>

Jerry Brown Takes 7,500 Cars Away from State Government Pencil-Pushers as "Not Essential"

By Jill Stewart Jerry Brown insisted on using a cheap Plymouth as a young California governor.​You gotta love California Governor Jerry Brown's war on the fat that rose like yeast bread under Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis. Brown's taking away 7,500 free cars that government workers nev ... More >>

California Election Results: Democrats Sweep Jobs You've Never Heard Of

"Bill" Lockyer, our once and future state treasurer​By Hillel Aron Hey, wasn't this was supposed to be a Republican tsunami/tidal wave/other oceanographic metaphor? Not in California, where Democrats are in the process of sweeping practically every important statewide race- and even most of ... More >>

California 'Governor' Jerry Brown Will Call Special 2011 Election To Raise Taxes, Says Gloom Meister Gray Davis

Via OC Register​Via the mayorsam blog via the Fresno Bee, that super-upbeat, super-flashy guy, gloomy Gray Davis, is saying that California Governor Jerry Brown, um, probable governor, will immediately set a Special Election to ask Californians to raise taxes. God, which is worse? Another spe ... More >>

Daily News Reports "Midnight Run" to Spend Food Stamps; Bloomberg Shakes His Finger at Poor Soda-Drinkers

Karen Apricot New Orleans/FlickrFood stamps accepted.​ We've told you before. Food stamps are hotter than the flames that hissed around that truck of yams on I-5 Thursday morning (where was a marshmallow avalanche and a dusting of brown sugar when you needed them, right?). If you require fu ... More >>

Man Who Promoted Lavish Lifestyle Through Tax Avoidance Nabbed For ... Tax Avoidance

​A Southern California tax advisor who used TV infomercials to sell his books and videos about how to avoid paying taxes has plead guilty to what amounts to ... avoiding paying taxes. (Again, don't try this at home, kids). Dana Ray Reynolds of Huntington Beach pleaded guilty this week to fili ... More >>

Happy April 15!: Soul Cover of The Beatles' 'Taxman'

The idiotic, possibly racist Tea Partiers are not the first (or last) people to complain about big government and big taxation. Back in 1966 notoriously mystical hippie George Harrison was so pissed off at the British government taking 90% of the Beatles' money (no, really, they did, before the Beat ... More >>

WTF: IRS Agent Indicted For Allegedly Filing False Tax Returns

​An U.S. Internal Revenue Service agent was indicted by a federal grand jury this week on charges that he allegedly filed false tax returns and helped others do so as well. He was already under indictment on suspicion of threatening federal agents who served a search warrant on his home in San ... More >>

Breaking: Mayor Villaraigosa Wants To Shut Down L.A. City Services Two Days A Week

​Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday ordered the city administrative officer to draw up a plan that would shut down all city services besides police, fire and revenue-generating operations (the convention center, for example) for two days a week as a result of L.A.'s perilous bud ... More >>

Jerry Brown Issues Warning About Shady Tax-Relief Schemes

​State Attorney General Jerry Brown on Tuesday warned Californians to avoid tax-relief firms that ask for up-front fees to wipe out back taxes owed to the IRS. He said many of the outfits -- which charge up to $3,000 for their services -- are "phony" and "provide no actual relief." "Every tax ... More >>

"DONE" Is Kaput

Will a badly mismanaged city department take L.A.'s neighborhood council experiment down with it?

Tax Preperer Sentenced For Helping Clients Score Unreal Deductions

​A Gardena man who told clients he was a former Internal Revenue Service worker and found them too-good-to-be-true deductions was sentenced to six years in federal prison Monday in part for costing the government $2.7 in tax revenue that he illegally shaved from customers' returns through thos ... More >>

L.A. Loses Out on Federal Money for Water and Power Improvements

DWP's downtown headquarters​Only two cities in L.A. County will receive a portion of the White House's $3.4 billion stimulus funding for energy efficiency programs. Los Angeles is not one of them. Burbank and Glendale will each get $20 million in federal funding to help them develop "smart grid" p ... More >>

L.A.'s Homeleand Security Spending Spree

In 2004 the L.A. Weekly examined the free-spending ways of the Department of Homeland Security, calling DHS largesse to academia and local law enforcement agencies "a 21st-century New Deal for the military-industrial complex." Now, on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a report is ... More >>

Supes Take Off Gloves, Take on Sacramento

After disentangling itself from the morass of feel-good decrees and distractions like the Wagner Wars, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to sue Sacramento if state legislators or the governor try to seize local redevelopment and highway taxes to shore up California's budget. As the budget c ... More >>

Why Arnold's May 19 Bailout Is Failing

Pissed off voters primed to torpedo Schwarzenegger's ballot measures

County Sales Tax Might Reach 9.75%

The L.A Daily News is reminding us (as if we need reminding!) that a new sales tax bump being considered by Sacramento, when combined with the one passed by Angelenos in November as Measure R, will push the county sales tax up to 9.75 percent. This, the DN says, will make our sales tax the nation's ... More >>

I.O.U.S.A.: Market Scare

Don't put too much stock in this panic-inducing documentary

War Over MTA's "Eternity" Tax

The "temporary" sales tax would last 30 years. It's already set Eastside against Westside

Is Antonio Lying About Taxes?

The mayor says he allowed a record deficit, not knowing the economy had soured

Solving Smog

Our suggestions for ways out of this mess

The Incredible, Shrinking Governor

As polls show him slipping, Arnold gets more desperate

Unwelcome Advances

It may be clinical when it comes to the governor and the state budget

Loco Control

It’s hard not to feel like a sucker on these budget measures

Popping the Cork on Spending Cap

Arnold gets the glory, the Dems get the deal

Long Odds for Larry

Flynt touts voter initiative for slot machines in 2004

'I Call for a Fair Tax'

Excerpts from an editorial-board interview with Peter Camejo

Jingle All the Way

Cruz is clueless, and Gray rains on Arnold’s parade

Calculating Moves

Latino Caucus can’t come up with alternative budget

Anyone Seen an Economic Policy?

The GOP has a new team and the same old bad ideas. The Democrats are still pondering.

Tuned In, Turned On and Locked Out

KPFA struggle recalls ’60s, but this time lefties are fighting each other

Crash and Burn

Tobacconists report rise in heists to match price hikes

AIDS housing agency can't spend fast enough