California employers make regular income tax withholding payments for their employees. These amounts are reported every weekday, providing a real-time indication of the direction and magnitude of aggregate change in the employers’ payroll. Most withholding payments are for employees’ wages and salaries, but withholding is also due on bonuses and stock options received by employees.
Monthly Witholding Compared to Recent Governor's Budget Projections. February monthly withholding was $400 million (5.6 percent) lower than the level projected in the recently released Governor's Budget. Since the start of the year, as shown in the figure below, withholding was $1.7 billion (11 percent) lower than budget projections.
Year-to-Date Withholding. The second graph compares the running total of withholding payments since the start of the 2022-23 fiscal year relative to the same period last year. To-date, personal income tax withholding is $3.7 billion lower (5.9 percent) than last year.