The income+sales taxes are so high in CA partially because prop 13 reduces the amount of funding able to be gathered from property taxes. The reliance on income

The income+sales taxes are so high in CA partially because prop 13 reduces the amount of funding able to be gathered from property taxes. The reliance on income taxes, as the other reply mentions, means that CA gets streaks of extra tax from capital gains sometimes (leading to occasional budget surpluses). IMO Prop 13 is at the root of a lot of dysfunction in CA, but personally I hate it because these extra income+sales taxes put a lot of tax burden on new residents and young professionals.