Every year, state financial analysts offer up a dutiful tally of the billions of dollars that California forgoes in revenue due to the tax breaks it offers cable companies, timber companies, the oil and gas industry, homeowners, renters, parents of young children and lottery winners, to name a few who reap such rewards.
All told, these so-called tax expenditures total nearly $70 billion, with many of the benefits going to higher income households and to businesses, according to the Sacramento-based California Budget and Policy Project. Unlike the budget, none of the tax breaks are subject to annual review. That, says Alissa Anderson, senior policy analyst at the Budget Center, is a problem.
