California passes budget without tax on veterinary services

The state of California has dropped the idea of taxing veterinary services, at least in the near term.

A proposed tax on veterinary services was not part of a 17-month budget that the California Legislature passed Feb. 19, three months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger first called a special session to address the state’s financial emergency.

The governor had proposed, as one of many tax hikes, applying state sales taxes to veterinary services for the first time—but the California VMA organized a successful grassroots campaign opposing the measure.

“Requiring pet owners to pay a tax to care for their animals is bad public policy,” said Dr. William A. Grant II, president of the CVMA, in response to state leaders removing the provision from the final budget bill.

The CVMA argued that extending the sales tax to veterinary services would endanger the health of both companion animals and production animals, increasing the cost of care by about 10 percent—depending on local sales taxes. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office noted that a tax on veterinary services “would create inequities in the tax structure by taxing some services while leaving other similar services untaxed.”

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