TLDR: I believe that the purpose of the new electricity rate scheme is to force everyone in California to file an income tax return.
In California, people who make less than $12,550 if filing single or $25,100 if filing jointly are not required to file a tax return (unless you have a business license. In California, anyone with a business license of any type is required to file a tax return).
Since 2017, I have been watching all of the Franchise Tax Board’s quarterly Board meetings. Over the years, FTB has frequently discussed how they can incentivize people to file returns when they are not required to do so. At first, I found it strange that the tax agency was so focused on people that they know don’t owe any money in taxes. But eventually I realized that the State of California uses tax returns as part of a data collection system to track and exploit people, and the State wants everyone enrolled in their system.
This became crystal clear at the March 2022 meeting, in which Susan Maples, Director of the Economic and Statistical Research Bureau, gave an uber creepy presentation about how for the last decade, her department has been stalking low-income people who are not required to file. To get information on them, she partnered with “many community-based advocates as well as our peer state agencies.” She stated that she’d worked closely with the California Department of Social Services and the Department of Health Care Services, and focused on people enrolled in the CalFresh and MediCal programs.
Continue reading “The New Electricity Rate Scheme: Another Facet of Government Tracking”