[tempsy]

I meant overall tax rate for someone based in California...

You are making some case that because California doesn't treat long term capital gains differently that it doesn't make much difference if you were taxed from realizing LTCG or ordinary income in California and your overall tax burden (federal + state) would be about the same.

I'm just pointing out if you're retired, you would naturally have a much lower tax burden if you realized LTCG vs $100k in ordinary income because the federal tax rate for LTCG would be so low for someone with no other income.