Analyst: Proposition 30 will not affect gasoline prices

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Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to raise upper income and sales taxes, will not increase levies on gasoline, according to the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst.

That flies in the face of claims made by opponents of the governor’s measure, who are leveling the charge against the governor’s plan in a new television commercial and repeated the claim in a statement sent to reporters Wednesday.

“Proposition 30 does not appear to us to levy an additional sales and use tax on motor vehicle fuel,” said Jason Sisney, a spokesman for the analyst’s office. “Certainly, it is often the case that one side or the other disagrees with parts of our analysis in an initiative campaign.... But, that is our best take now.”

But, Sisney said, because of the complex ways in which California’s fuel taxes are levied, the measure would increase taxes on diesel fuel. He said that would amount to “a relatively small amount of additional revenue.”

But critics of the plan did not back down. “Prop. 30 will increase the price of gas in California, plain and simple,” said George Runner, a Republican member of the state Board of Equalization.

During a four-city campaign swing Tuesday, Brown lashed out at his opponents, calling their charges about his plan’s influence on fuel taxes “a flat-out lie.” And, he told a group of students in Bakersfield, “If they lie to you about that, you should be suspicious of anything else they tell you.”

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--Anthony York in Sacramento