Are campaign contributions a route to a lower tax bill?

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Sitting on the Board of Equalization is not the most glamorous job in California politics, but it can be one of the most powerful. The five members on the board interpret and enforce much of the state’s tax policy. They have made rulings that enraged legislative leadership by allowing, for example, companies to cash in tens of millions of dollars worth of tax credits that legislators argued should never have been permitted under the tax credit law they passed. Big corporations and small businesses alike who believe the state is pressuring them to pay more taxes than they owe can appeal to the board, which has the authority to lower their tax bill on the spot.

Now comes a report that suggests it is in the interest of those taxpayers to make campaign contributions to board members. The Daily Tax Report compared campaign finance reports with ‘the outcomes of 70 complex, high-stakes cases argued before the board’ since 2002. The bigger the donation, the higher the success rate, the report finds. The group of taxpayers who contributed the most, which was north of $50,000, won their cases 88% of the time. Those who donated less than $16,000 had just about even odds of success. Those who gave less than $250 won their cases 30% of the time.

Click here to read the report on the Board of Equalization.

-- Evan Halper in Sacramento