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With its state parks and summer schools on the chopping block, budget-busted California could see a $1.4 billion windfall if it legalizes and taxes the sale of marijuana, the state tax board found in an analysis that was published last week.

But a close look at that $1.4 billion figure raises a timely and important question:

What in blazes were they smoking?

To reach that amount, the board apparently relied on a source that relied on a source that misquoted a book that misquoted a study, all involving a hazy mix of out-of-date numbers, high margins of error and complete guesswork that could be a mere $700 million off the mark.

California’s Board of Equalization published its much ballyhooed analysis last week of a bill that would tax pot like alcohol and also levy an extra $50 fee on every ounce (which already costs about $400), a green godsend the bill’s sponsor says the state can’t afford to pass on.

“It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital services for the poor while this potential revenue is available,” State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said in a statement.

According to the tax commission’s report, Californians consume 16 million ounces of pot every year — 1 million pounds exactly — a suspiciously round number the report said was derived from a “literature review” of “law enforcement and academic studies.”

That number would go up even more, it said, if prices dropped by half as the drug became legal.

But FOXNews.com took a close look at the board’s analysis and found a $700 million kink in its accounting.

The board appears to have based its 16-million-ounce guess on a problematic “study” conducted by the founder of a pot-growing university in Oakland and by the director of California’s branch of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

But the fact is, no one — not even law enforcement agencies — really knows how much weed gets smoked in California, because self-reported users can and do lie on government surveys.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in California said they “don’t really track users,” the Drug Czar’s office said it doesn’t follow the amount of pot consumed, and the California Highway Patrol said they “do not have those types of statistics.”

More at Fox News

California’s perpetual budget crisis and voters’ rejection of five budget-related ballot measures last week have renewed the perennial debate over whether Californians are, to borrow a comparison from “The Three Bears,” taxed too much, too little or just about right.

Much of the positioning is ideological, and therefore immune to being affected by data and fact.

Any level of taxation is too high to those on the political right, and no level is sufficient to those on the left. But for those who are less ideologically rigid, relative tax burden is significant because it shows where we stand vis-a-vis other states and is an indication of whether we are getting sufficient bang for the public buck.

Historically, at least until the tax revolt that began with Proposition 13 in 1978, California was a relatively high-tax, high-service state.

Data from the Washington-based Tax Foundation rank California as having the nation’s third-highest state-local tax burden in 1978, at 11.7 percent of personal income. The national average at the time was 10.3 percent.

Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes, and the state tax cuts quickly enacted by the Legislature to demonstrate that it had gotten the anti-tax message, dropped California to 22nd in 1979, at 9.8 percent of income.

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It’s crunch time for California’s taxpayers and their accountants alike in the rush to get state and federal income taxes postmarked in by tonight’s 11:59:59 p.m. deadline.

Some of my CPA friends can’t wait to teach their teenagers how to drive.

My other friends who are tax preparers are just looking forward to getting some sleep.

Another California tax season over – at last.

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After a frustrating weekend of long, late nights without reaching a budget agreement, the California Senate will go into session this morning and not adjourn until the most controversial part of the budget deal is approved.

“We will put the tax bill on call and we will stay on this floor until we get it done,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. “Bring a toothbrush, bring whatever necessities you need to bring because I will not allow anyone to go home to resume their lives.”

Steinberg said he intends to force a vote on a bill that contains the $14.4 billion tax package that’s part of the budget deal that solves a $41 billion budget gap. The budget package also includes nearly $16 billion in spending cuts and $11 billion in borrowing.

California’s top finance official warned state lawmakers Monday that without a budget agreement to fend off the state’s cash crisis, he will begin halting the remaining 276 public works projects that have been allowed to continue despite the state’s dwindling cash supply.

The infrastructure projects, costing about $3.7 billion, include scores of developments in the Bay Area, such as carpool lanes on Highway 580 in the East Bay and Highway 101 in Sonoma County and seismic improvements at UC Berkeley’s Doe Library.

The end result will be tens of thousands of jobs lost as the construction projects come to a grinding halt, Department of Finance Director Mike Genest told a Senate committee hearing on the ramifications of a continuing budget delay.

The committee hearing was called even while legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were trying to salvage their budget agreement, which hit a wall late Saturday when the package fell two votes short of approval in the state Senate.

Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, abstained, but is expected to vote “yes” on the budget once another GOP senator agrees to support the plan.

Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders continued to cajole two moderate Republican senators on Monday to gain support from at least one of them, but it was unclear whether either Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), or Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks (Sacramento County), would switch his vote to “yes.”

In an apparent attempt by Schwarzenegger to turn up the heat on the Legislature, layoff warning notices will go out to 20,000 state workers today as the first step toward lopping 10,000 jobs from the state payroll.

The governor last week threatened to send out the notices on Friday, but decided against it when it appeared the Legislature would approve a compromise budget. But with the deal in limbo after failing to garner enough GOP votes in the Senate, the layoff notices will have to go out, said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.

The budget agreement contains nearly $16 billion in cuts, $11 billion in borrowing and more than $14 billion worth of temporary tax increases that all but a few Republican lawmakers have criticized as the deal killer.

But as the budget impasse hit day 103 on Monday, state finance officials said they would have to pull the plug on the public works projects that have been allowed to continue thus far.

In December, state finance officials said the state’s fiscal crisis was so dire that they needed to halt financing for 5,600 construction projects across the state. Then last month, they agreed to exempt 276 projects that were either too far along in construction or would cost the state too much to halt and restart later.

Now, those projects would have to be halted as well, Genest said.

Will Kempton, director of Caltrans, said about $1.8 billion worth of transportation projects would have to be suspended.

“Without a budget, implications can be catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic for our program,” he said at the Senate committee hearing. “We need a budget very, very quickly.”

Stopping and restarting construction could also cost the state additional $300 million to $400 million in the way of closing off and securing construction sites and even paying contract penalties to subcontractors, Genest and Kempton said.

Danny Curtin, director of the California Conference of Carpenters, said that with the recession, public works projects are the last remaining haven for construction workers.

“Right now, the construction industry has no other work that they can contemplate,” he said at the Senate committee hearing. “We would have a depression in this industry almost instantly. What’s keeping the industry afloat is public works projects.”

But at least one Republican lawmaker argued that the latest budget proposal would hurt businesses and cause even more job losses.

“New taxes will result in lost jobs,” said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta (Riverside County). “Are we really going to get increases in jobs at the end with this budget?”

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Tax litigation sure can be a confusing process. When involved, one doesn’t have much choice, but to contact a tax attorney immediately.