From fines to wines, businesses fighting proposed state taxes
SACRAMENTO —Animal lovers are decrying "the Fido fine." Vintners are warning wine lovers that the price of a bottle could rise. And golf course owners are taking to the Web to drive home to duffers that new taxes on greens fees could hit them.
A number of California industries are conducting aggressive lobbying and public relations campaigns to dissuade the California Legislature from adopting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to raise or impose new taxes on their businesses.
The campaigns, which started after Schwarzenegger launched his ideas in November 2008, are at full steam — even colliding in their efforts to avoid whatever plan lawmakers devise to fill a $42 billion budget gap.
When the California Alliance for Golf tried to illustrate the importance of its sport to the state's economy by saying its revenues were "more than biotech," the California Biotechnology Foundation demanded a retraction, saying its industry earned far more.
"We gave them a mulligan," said Patty Cooper, the foundation's executive director.
Bob Bouchier, executive director of the golf alliance, later called the dispute a misunderstanding that shouldn't distract from the unfairness of picking on golfers. His group, based in Pebble Beach, has created a Web site, www.forecalifornia.com, where golfers can calculate what such a tax would cost them.
The California Veterinary
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Medical Association has been equally passionate in assailing Schwarzenegger's proposal to impose a sales tax on vet services. "It's not right for our beloved pets to suffer because of the state's financial problems," according to a fact sheet on the association's Web site.
A tax that would liken vet services to "appliance and furniture repair," the site says, is "an insult."
The Humane Society of the United States — fresh from its victorious Proposition 2 campaign last November that gave egg-laying chickens more room to roam — has pounced on the "Fido fine."
Jennifer Fearing, the society's chief economist, said the group has sent e-mail alerts to 130,000 members — a strategy similar to the one it used to rile animal activists during the initiative campaign.
The society's Web page urges people to make "a brief, polite phone call" to the governor's office "and urge him to remove the Fido fine from the budget proposal."
Fearing said 275 animal activists have said they will converge on the Capitol on Thursday to lobby legislators.
Such efforts are aimed at Schwarzenegger's proposal to broaden California's sales and use tax to appliance and furniture repair, vehicle repair, veterinarian services, amusement parks, sporting events and golf.
Introduced in November as part of an emergency budget plan, they were reincorporated in his official spending proposal released Dec. 31, 2008. Schwarzenegger estimates the proposals would bring the state $1.2 billion in the fiscal year that begins in July 2009.
Each of the industries already collects sales taxes. For example, golf pro shops take sales taxes on balls, clubs and other equipment, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance.
"We can bring revenue online faster through these types of industries, where sales tax is currently collected, than going to an industry where it is not currently collected, and we would have to start from scratch," Palmer said.
Some others who may face new levies — including sports teams such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and entertainment behemoths such the Walt Disney Co. — are keeping a lower public profile but have dispatched their lobbyists.
, said sources.
"We've been working openly and very aggressively in the Capitol," said John Robinson, the CEO of the California Attractions and Parks Association, which represents theme parks. "We commissioned studies that find there will be a 10 percent drop in park attendance statewide, and that will lead to about 10,000 jobs being lost."
In addition to the broadened sales tax, Schwarzenegger's proposed budget calls for a hike in the wine tax that would pour $585 million into the state's coffers in the next fiscal year. The governor's office says this tax, and similar levies on beer and distilled spirits, would amount to about 5 cents more per drink. Vintners say it would be far more sobering, increasing the cost of a standard bottle of wine by as much as 50 cents.
The Wine Institute released an economic analysis predicting that the levy would cost at least 6,756 jobs in California because of an expected dent in wine sales. The institute said those buying inexpensive bottles would be most turned off by the higher tax.
A fact sheet disseminated by the institute declares: "These are the wines being sought out today by many California consumers who are struggling with the economic downturn."