The Trump administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California, an effort that could begin as soon as Friday, according to multiple sources.
Agencies are being told to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from California. Sources said the administration is specifically considering a full termination of federal grant funding for the University of California and California State University systems.
Singling out one state for massive cuts would be an unusual move, but Donald Trump has long made Democratic-led California a target.
Remember, the state doesn’t pay taxes, individual citizens do by filling out their annual federal income taxes.
So, if “California” were to stop giving money to the federal government, the governor would basically need to convince individual citizens not to file their 1040.
And all of those people would have to clinch their assholes and hope Trump didn’t sick the IRS on them.
For private businesses sure, but Newsom can simply set up an escrow account and direct all state government entities to send their federal withholding to the new account instead.
California imposes a new law that companies operating in Cali cannot automatically collect federal income tax from Californian citizens.
Cali raises the state tax rate to match the current federal rate (could probably go lower actually, since Cali is subsidizing most of the red states).
Boom, no more taxes paid to the Fed.
Or… Cali’s creates a law where their own tax department collects the federal tax and pays it for their citizens.
If we had less of a coward in sacramento, id say they could back us.
If Californians (Or everyone) just filed for extensions en masse, that alone would fuck shit up and would be totally legal.
Most people don’t owe the IRS money. They’re owed a rebate. How would filing for an extension benefit someone who is expecting a $2000 check back from the IRS for excess paid?
If you’re planning to do any sort of tax strike, step one is zeroing your withholdings.
Based on my research, this is what I’m seeing as well, an important first step.
If it really starts affecting the economy, expect the ability to set your withholdings to vanish.
A little, but not that much. The federal government already has most of the money because of tax withholding from employers. When you file taxes as an employee you’re just balancing what’s leftover and playing “did I over or under pay even though you already know that.” It would require the state preventing employers from withholding or sending money to the IRS on behalf of their employees, and I doubt companies would just unilaterally stop doing that.
In fact it might help the federal government cause people tend to be owed more refunds than unpaid tax.
Yeah that was my thinking as well, the idea that people stop filing their taxes doesn’t do much when the system to get the money from your paycheck to the government mostly doesn’t involve you
They can stop taking federal taxes out of state employee pay
But then each of those people get walloped with a big ass 1040 payment from the feds at the end of the year. And they feds can chose to make an “example” of random people who don’t pay up.
Presumably California would declare that they wouldn’t comply with IRS investigations but those people would be vulnerable if they travel or have assets outside California
Also employers would need to all simultaneously stop withholding taxes from employee paychecks for federal taxes, since you can’t just update your W-2 to a $0 withholding without claiming dependents, multiple other jobs, etc. You don’t “choose” your withholding, you just check the boxes that calculates the minimum withholding.