Californians actually pay lower overall taxes compared to other states due to low property taxes.

Also, my power in San Francisco has probably been out for no more than 6 hours over the last 10 years. I don't know how many 9s that is, but it's more than 1.

This seems to indicate otherwise

https://www.prudential.com/financial-education/tax-burden-by...

Mileage varies a lot in California. A high-income single person who just bought a place is paying a lot more than an older couple who have lived in the same home for 4 decades.

To critique your link based on its footnotes:

> 1 Calculated based on “State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2020” from the Tax Foundation and “Median Household Income by State: 2018 and 2019” according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

What is the distribution of households in each state by marital and dependent status?

> 2 Calculated based on “Property Taxes by State” from WalletHub and “Median Home Values Across the U.S.” from Experian.

Various propositions in California affect actual property taxes. In the chart in your link the property tax tax burden is shown the same for California and Texas based on Median income, but the actual property tax rate in Texas is almost double that in California (at least last I checked, a couple of years ago). Housing in California has just been more expensive compared to income, which is a con in affordabilty, but a pro in net worth for property owners (especially those who have owned for a long time, and thus pay lower taxes on their primary residence).

I've got nothing to say about the sales tax burden, except to wonder how much of the "per capita personal consumption expenditures" are taxable transactions, and how much aren't. I've got no clue here though.

This article disputes your claim:

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...

> And yet Californians pay enormous taxes.

Part of this is because California is the most populous state with a high average personal income.

When talking about actual tax burden averages the best way to calculate is by dividing the total state and local taxes by the total income in the state.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/state-and-local-t...

In 2020 the total tax rate in California was 10.01% of total personal income. This put it at 37th place among the US states, and 0.52% above the US average.

For the other most populous states, Texas was at 8.56%, Florida at 7.21%, and New York at 13.92%.

The cheapest state was Alaska at 7.13% (with Florida the second cheapest), and the most expensive state was New York (with Hawaii the second most expensive at 13.16%).

Some of this data is confounded by state revenues not being solely from taxes (or especially from personal taxes). Regardless though, California isn't that much above average, and is one of 30 states with a graduate state income tax that hits higher earners harder than lower earners, whereas 11 states have a flat tax structure.

Your tax burden in California is also less if you are poorer. For example, you’ll pay more income tax in Alabama than California if you just make $40k/year, since AL taxes are more regressive in general.

That’s what causes the problems.