SF supervisors back state bill allowing local income tax

San Francisco supervisors Tuesday put their support behind state legislation that would allow The City to place a local income measure on the ballot in 2018.

The board voted 8-3 in support of a resolution by Supervisor Aaron Peskin urging state legislators to pass a bill by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, that would allow the removal of a prohibition on local income taxes.

Board President London Breed and Supervisors Jeff Sheehy and Mark Farrell voted against the resolution.

Peskin said before the vote that Ting planned to narrow the legislation, which initially covered any California city, so that it only applies to San Francisco. He has described an income tax as a progressive source of revenue for the city.

Any income tax measure would still need to be approved by two-thirds of voters. The soonest The City could place such a measure on the ballot is 2018.

Ting said Tuesday in a statement on Facebook about the legislation:

“With federal tax and budget cuts looming, SF and CA will have to be more fiscally independent.”

Ting noted that a local income tax would be a federal income tax deduction.

The resolution states that a 1 percent increase in the highest state income tax bracket would have generated $270 million from personal income taxes within San Francisco in tax year 2013.