The 2026-27 Budget: California Competes Extension

Mar 18, 2026 - High Recapture Rate Can be Seen as a Feature … On one hand, high recapture rates can be seen as not a significant issue, and even a sign that the program is working as intended: Companies are incentivized by a tax break if they manage to achieve agreed-upon job and investment targets, but if they fail to do so, the state incurs no expense since the credit is never claimed or is paid back to the state.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5162

How High? Adjusting California’s Cannabis Taxes

Dec 17, 2019 - Miller, Keaton and Boyoung Seo (2019). “Tax Revenues When Substances Substitute: Marijuana, Alcohol, and Tobacco. ” Mimeo, University of Oregon. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4125

Overview of Diversity Efforts in the Film Tax Credit Program

May 1, 2025 - Whether this additional incentive will be enough to improve diversity remains to be seen and necessitates ongoing evaluation by the Legislature. We offer some considerations for these future evaluations below.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5036

The 2026-27 Budget: State Mandate—Disclosure Requirements and Deferral of Property Taxation

Feb 19, 2026 - The Commission determined that Los Angeles County incurred reimbursable costs processing deferment requests and adding the required disclosure to property tax bills. The Commission determined that the county incurred a total amount of about $30,000 in back-year costs (incurred between 2022 and 2024), and about $8,000 in ongoing costs thereafter.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5130

The 2025-26 Budget: California’s Film Tax Credit

Feb 28, 2025 - Two notable events account for the volatility seen in Figure  3, namely COVID ‑19 and the 2023 SAG ‑AFTRA and Writer ’s Guild of America strikes, which coincide with the sharp decreases observed in 2020 and 2023 respectively.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5000

The 2025-26 Budget: CDTFA’s Tobacco Programs

Feb 14, 2025 - We have seen workload trends presented in terms of total inspections, seizures, citations, and appeals. The administration has noted that these measures can be difficult to interpret. For example, when CDTFA seizes a retailer ’s noncompliant products, this counts as one seizure, regardless of the total amount of product seized.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4966

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Oct 16, 2025 - Control Sections 90.00 and 90.01 During the special session called by the Governor, the Legislature added Control Sections 90.00 and 90.01 to the 2024-25 Budget Act providing up to $2.5  billion one-time from the General Fund for response and recovery costs related to the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5081

The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development

Mar 18, 2025 - If the Legislature approves this proposal, we recommend adding explicit requi rements to assess a grant applicant ’s inability to use tax credits. California Regional Initiative for Social Enterprises Grant Program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5018

The 2023-24 Budget: Multiyear Budget Outlook

May 23, 2023 - As seen in the figure, while the revenues required to balance the budget (in green) are optimistic, but plausible, in the budget window, they are improbable in the out ‑years. For example, to eliminate the operating deficit in 2024 ‑25, revenues would need to be roughly $30  billion higher than our forecast (in dark purple).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4772

Volatility of California’s Personal Income Tax Structure

Sep 28, 2017 - In our previous report , we calculated the AD of personal income to be 2.3. To determine the causes of PIT volatility, we first estimate the AD of the overall PIT and compare it to the AD of personal income.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3703