SD Taxpayers has recommendations and policy papers on all five #California tax measures on the November ballot. NO on Props 3 and 40 YES on Props 41, 42 and 43 ___________________________________________________ O P P O S E Proposition 3 (the California Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act) would permanently remove the 2030 expiration date from the top-bracket income tax surcharge voters approved as temporary in 2012 and extended in 2016. Permanence forecloses a tax-rate reduction already scheduled under current law, it deepens the state's reliance on a small and unusually volatile group of filers who supply roughly half of all personal income tax revenue, and it removes the state's ability to revisit that rate structure without returning to the voters. ___________________________________________________ O P P O S E Prop 40 (One-Time Wealth Tax for State-Funded Healthcare, Education, and Food Assistance Programs Initiative) would impose a one-time 5 percent tax on the net worth of Californians worth more than $1 billion and direct most of the revenue to state health care programs. Three structural problems drive the position: a one-time, asset-price-dependent revenue source is pledged against ongoing Medi-Cal obligations, the tax base is concentrated in roughly 200 highly mobile taxpayers, and unresolved valuation and legal questions could delay or reduce what the measure actually collects. ___________________________________________________ S U P P O R T Proposition 41 (Improving Transparency, Effectiveness, and Efficiency in California Government Act) would require the State Auditor to review any program a proposed state special tax would fund before voters decide on it, with recurring audits afterward, and would bar new state taxes from being exempted from the state's spending limit. SD Taxpayers supports the measure as an extension to state government of the same audit and oversight standards it applies to local tax and bond measures. ___________________________________________________ S U P P O R T Proposition 42 (Retirement & Personal Savings Protection Act) would constitutionally prohibit new state taxes on retirement accounts, savings, and other personal property, along with certain retroactive state taxes. SD Taxpayers supports the measure for the planning certainty it gives households, consistent with its long-standing skepticism of wealth and net-worth taxation on administrability and capital-flight grounds. ___________________________________________________ S U P P O R T Proposition 43 (Local Taxes Limitation) would require two-thirds voter approval for local special taxes proposed by citizen initiative — the same threshold that already applies when a city, county, or district places one on the ballot. The support rests on equal treatment rather than on any prediction about tax levels, and the gap it closes is not hypothetical: roughly two dozen local special taxes have been enacted statewide by simple majority since a 2017 court decision opened it. sdtaxpayers.org/policyreport… sdtaxpayers.org/tracker inewsource.org/2026/10/23/ta…

North County cities did relatively well in the SD Taxpayers 2026 Municipal Report Card. The city of #SanDiego did not. "San Diego, the county’s largest city, also earned an F. "The report shows the city failed in Fiscal Health and earned a C+ combined in Accountability & Transparency. "San Diego was one of two cities to fail the reserve benchmark and continues to face a projected structural budget deficit, two of the factors weighing heavily on its score." ncpipeline.substack.com/p/sd… Unfortunately, San Diego's situation cannot be expected to improve, at least in the near term. The city's Independent Budget Analyst will report to council today that "reduced budgetary margins and flexibility from addressing the persistent structural budget deficit" has led to the need to draw down general fund reserves. sandiego.gov/city-clerk/offi…

California state Proposition 1 may promise affordable housing, but there is little chance it will deliver. sandiegouniontribune.com/202… Proposition 1 would add roughly $580 million per year in General Fund debt service for about 30 years — some $17.4 billion in principal and interest on the $10 billion general obligation portion — at a time when the state faces a persistent multibillion-dollar structural deficit, and general obligation debt is a first-priority claim on the General Fund that must be paid regardless of how the funded programs perform. sdtaxpayers.org/policy-repor… Vote NO Proposition 1.

If Prop 40 (the Billionaire Tax) is "approved by voters in November, it’s unclear how much money the ballot initiative would raise, how quickly the funding would become available, and how lawmakers would spend it." timesofsandiego.com/politics… SD Taxpayers has read the fine print and is not impressed with what it found. The tax would create unresolved valuation and legal questions could delay or reduce what the measure actually collects. Vote NO on Prop 40. sdtaxpayers.org/policy-repor…