By Alison Vekshin

Siblings Molly Munger and Charles Munger Jr., whose father is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), have poured $54.4 million into California ballot measures, stoking a battle with Governor Jerry Brown and powerful labor unions.

Molly Munger, whose plan to raise taxes to help schools is competing with the governor's budget-balancing tax proposal, has spent $31 million, according to MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization. Her brother has given almost $23 million to oppose Brown's proposal and pass one barring unions and corporations from using payroll-deducted funds for politics.

Read entire article at Bloomberg.com >>

Income taxes were responsible for most of the boost, coming in at 8.4% above projections.

The details were released in a report from Gov. Jerry Brown's Department of Finance, and they show that revenue is outpacing revised estimates made in May and codified in the budget signed last month.

But that doesn't mean the last several months weren't financially difficult for California. When revenue is compared with expectations set when the 2011-12 budget was approved, taxes fell short by 4.8%, or $4.2 billion.

A dismal April, the most important month for income-tax collections, was responsible for a large chunk of that gap. That helped increase this year's budget deficit from $9.2 billion to an estimated $15.7 billion.

Brown says the budget he signed last month will cover that shortfall, but only if voters approve more than $8 billion in tax increases in November. 

By Christi Parsons

WASHINGTON -- President Obama today plans to begin pushing for an extension of tax cuts for the middle class, a message he and his surrogates are scheduled to push in events across the country.
 
Income tax cuts initially passed under President George W. Bush are set to expire at the end of the year. Obama favors extending the cuts for one more year for those earning less than $250,000 annually. Republicans favor extending all the cuts.

Read entire article at LATimes.com >>

Less than a month before California voters decide on tobacco-tax and term-limits initiatives, Gov. Jerry Brown remains unlikely to take a public position on either one.

The Democratic governor, who submitted signatures this morning for his November ballot measure to raise taxes, declined to discuss the ballot measures on the June 5 ballot.

"Focus, focus," he said, telling reporters he is "sticking to the measure that we're filing signatures for today."

Read entire article at SacBee.com >>

Those having the hardest time getting by are also those that are the hardest hit.

In a recent report, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities compared how large a share of all federal tax revenues came from corporate taxes in the most recent decade to the share they paid in the 1950's. Corporate efforts to avoid taxes have proved to be successful at the expense of the rest of the nation. In the most recent decade, the corporate tax rate average was 11 percent; in the 1950's it was 30 percent. And to top it off, almost two-thirds of corporations paid no taxes at all (between 1998 and 2005), according to the federal General Accounting Office.