WSJ article- state tax

[BDashe 0]

interesting case study-like article here with some factoids-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html

Couple excerpts:

"...we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses..."

"...We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates..."

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[quade 3]

See entries in encyclopedia for "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

As a whole, people tend to do whatever is within their own best interests even at the sake of the community as a whole. Essentially, people ARE willing to fuck over their fellow man for a small "sure thing" benefit over a larger "possible" benefit.

Much is the pity.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[DougH 270]

Quote

See entries in encyclopedia for "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

As a whole, people tend to do whatever is within their own best interests even at the sake of the community as a whole. Essentially, people ARE willing to fuck over their fellow man for a small "sure thing" benefit over a larger "possible" benefit.

Much is the pity.

See entries in encyclopedia for "tyranny of the majority".

Politicians and many individuals can't see the forest through the trees. They have political ambitions that they put before the overall good of their state. Individuals project petty jelously towards individuals that are sucessful, when it is their own lack of skill, effort, or risk adversion that is to blame for their own condition.

The real pity is that big government and the welfare state built around capable yet lazy citizens are crushing their own states economies.

Much better to tax those that work hard and take risks than to demand personal responsibility and consequences. Bite the hand that feeds you!

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[Butters 0]

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See entries in encyclopedia for "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

As a whole, people tend to do whatever is within their own best interests even at the sake of the community as a whole. Essentially, people ARE willing to fuck over their fellow man for a small "sure thing" benefit over a larger "possible" benefit.

Much is the pity.

Are you suggesting that the only way individuals succeed is by hindering or hurting their fellow man and community?

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[jcd11235 0]

I couldn't help but notice that the article failed to offer any numbers w/r/t net change in revenue after tax rate increases and the "emigration" from the state by those whose tax burden would have increased had they stayed.

Those numbers seem like important data, given the implications made in the article.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[quade 3]

Disagree.

Even in states where income tax may be specifically lower, revenues still have to be raised to pay government expenditures. They simply do it in different ways. In Nevada, for instance, there's no income tax, but the state gets a piece of the gambling revenues. That says ZERO about "lazy citizens"; the state just has a different means of generating income.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 3]

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Quote

See entries in encyclopedia for "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

As a whole, people tend to do whatever is within their own best interests even at the sake of the community as a whole. Essentially, people ARE willing to fuck over their fellow man for a small "sure thing" benefit over a larger "possible" benefit.

Much is the pity.

Are you suggesting that the only way individuals succeed is by hindering or hurting their fellow man and community?

Certainly not the ONLY way, but in general, to make money, you DO have to take it from somebody else. That might be in exchange for goods or services that do benefit communities, but at some point, if you think about it, Robert J. Ringer never needed to write the book "Looking Out for Number One" because that's pretty much what we're all doing anyway.

Look inside any organization and you'll see people stepping over each other to be more successful at the expense of others and maybe even at the expense of the organization they're working for.

If you're telling me that you've NEVER been stabbed in the back by a co-worker or the company itself, then I think you've lead a very fortunate career.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[BDashe 0]

I'm very familiar with the prisoner's dilemma, and i really dont think that applies accurately here. If anything you have it backwards as the ones being taken advantage of decide to scale the wall and leave the torment behind.

Point is, various states are bleeding their rich to suck as much money from them as possible- so the rich people eventually exercise their right to choose where they live and leave. They are content to pay taxes and contribute a fair share to the community/society, but there is a boiling point- sometimes you just have to say enough is enough and make sure to protect your own family and everything ya worked for- while contributing to a new community that appreciates your presence/contributions more.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[DougH 270]

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Disagree.

Even in states where income tax may be specifically lower, revenues still have to be raised to pay government expenditures. They simply do it in different ways. In Nevada, for instance, there's no income tax, but the state gets a piece of the gambling revenues. That says ZERO about "lazy citizens"; the state just has a different means of generating income.

Your free to disagree, much as I disagree with your generalization that some one leaving a state because they find the income tax system is unfair, is somehow an abuse of the commons.

Abuse of the commons... my neighbor is going to overgraze, so I might as well do it myself.

Big goverment is overgrazing their economies. The citizens providing the significant source of tax revenue are no more to blame for states declines than the grass is to blame when too many cattle are left to graze because the next guy is going to do it any way.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[piper17 1]

This strikes close to home (no pun intended) as I am in the process of moving out of Connecticut and relocating to Florida. Taxes are one of the primary reasons for the move...state income tax, property taxes, etc.

As far as my fellow citizens in the community are concerned.... they can drown in the financial swamp that is of their own making. I see no reason to support the wasteful spending of the left-wing politicians in CT. While the governor is a "Republican", she is a RINO. The Dems control the legislature and the Republicans can't get their act together to offer an alternative.

I'm voting with my feet.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[Butters 0]

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Certainly not the ONLY way, but in general, to make money, you DO have to take it from somebody else. That might be in exchange for goods or services that do benefit communities, but at some point, if you think about it, Robert J. Ringer never needed to write the book "Looking Out for Number One" because that's pretty much what we're all doing anyway.

You just don't get it do you ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[BDashe 0]

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I'm voting with my feet.

Hysterical! ha ha ha! And exactly on topic and very relevant.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[quade 3]

Quote

Quote

Certainly not the ONLY way, but in general, to make money, you DO have to take it from somebody else. That might be in exchange for goods or services that do benefit communities, but at some point, if you think about it, Robert J. Ringer never needed to write the book "Looking Out for Number One" because that's pretty much what we're all doing anyway.

You just don't get it do you ...

Oh . . . please . . . explain it to me.

Please . . . I can hardly wait for the wisdom to wash over me and to be baptized by the righteousness of unrepentant free market capitalism while simultaneously paying for public services without any form of taxation.

Please . . . educate me.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[DougH 270]

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Please . . . educate me.

What is an optimal level of "public services"?

What is the minimal acceptable level of "public services"?

What is an excessive level of "public services"?

I am an accountant. I like budgets, I am not oposed to paying for services, or against states generating revenues.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[Butters 0]

Quote

Quote

Quote

Certainly not the ONLY way, but in general, to make money, you DO have to take it from somebody else. That might be in exchange for goods or services that do benefit communities, but at some point, if you think about it, Robert J. Ringer never needed to write the book "Looking Out for Number One" because that's pretty much what we're all doing anyway.

You just don't get it do you ...

Oh . . . please . . . explain it to me.

Please . . . I can hardly wait for the wisdom to wash over me and to be baptized by the righteousness of unrepentant free market capitalism while simultaneously paying for public services without any form of taxation.

Please . . . educate me.

Blah, blah, blah ... education will only work if you're willing to remove you delusions regarding reality and adjust your negative and pessimistic attitude.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[TrophyHusband 0]

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See entries in encyclopedia for "Tragedy of the Commons" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

As a whole, people tend to do whatever is within their own best interests even at the sake of the community as a whole. Essentially, people ARE willing to fuck over their fellow man for a small "sure thing" benefit over a larger "possible" benefit.

Much is the pity.

while the rich business owner may be hurting the community he is leaving, he is helping the community he is moving to. if a person doesn't like the state he's in, he can move to a state that suits him better. this is a great thing. it creates competition among states for businesses.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[Channman 2]

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This strikes close to home (no pun intended) as I am in the process of moving out of Connecticut and relocating to Florida. Taxes are one of the primary reasons for the move...state income tax, property taxes, etc.

As far as my fellow citizens in the community are concerned.... they can drown in the financial swamp that is of their own making. I see no reason to support the wasteful spending of the left-wing politicians in CT. While the governor is a "Republican", she is a RINO. The Dems control the legislature and the Republicans can't get their act together to offer an alternative.

I'm voting with my feet.

Just remember, that all those libs moving down to Florida trying to escape high taxes will once again vote for Libs in Florida requiring you to once again vote with your feet.

[quade 3]

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Please . . . educate me.

What is an optimal level of "public services"?

What is the minimal acceptable level of "public services"?

What is an excessive level of "public services"?

I am an accountant. I like budgets, I am not oposed to paying for services, or against states generating revenues.

Finally! Somebody willing to actually look at the issue rather than simply say "taxes bad" like Frankenstein's monster when he's looking at fire.

Understand that public services do not scale in a linear fashion. A volunteer fire department may work for a small community, but is pointless for a metropolitan area. A sheriff with citizen deputies may work in a rural area, but again, are useless in a city.

Further, code enforcement may only require a single inspector in, for instance, Sheffield, Iowa, but might not even be possible no matter how many people are employed in a city like Los Angeles.

So, I really do believe different areas of the country really DO have different justifications for various levels of revenue generation. How they generate those revenues can also vary wildly.

What's the minimum? I'm guessing enough to cover the bottom 3 quintiles of cases. Below that and I think the community would simply implode.

What's optimal? My guess is significantly higher.

What's excessive? Over 110%

Ok, so my guess is you're really asking what public services are required and which are optional?

Well, let's say you were making an island state from scratch, which of these would you cut?

Police
Courts
Fire
Hospital
Military
Education
Water
Transportation
Waste Management
Energy
Telecommunications (phones/fiber/internet)
Public Information (libraries/public records)

Maybe you'd trust some to be privatized, but I'm guessing that even if you did, you'd find it mostly beneficial to maintain control over them at which point, they're still government services, just contracted ones and being "paid" for rather than "taxed" for. If the company that owned the service went out of business, the government would 100% absolutely have to step in and take it over until another contractor could be found.

Not really certain that anything is "optional" there.

So now we get to "the big ones." The ones that die hard fiscal conservatives are usually complaining about, unemployment and welfare.

Actually, you can't do without them either. There is simply no way to 100% guarantee that 100% of the population will be 100% fit to work 100% of the time. So, you have to have this in one form or another. To not do that is to throw people out on the street and let them starve for a number of factors not always within their own control; a natural disaster for instance. So some form will ALWAYS have to be in place. What is the optimal level of that? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure if you actually look at it that it's a drop in the bucket compared to everything else.

Can it be "excessive"? Sure, anything can.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Butters 0]

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Finally! Somebody willing to actually look at the issue rather than simply say "taxes bad" like Frankenstein's monster when he's looking at fire.

Do you ever think that you could have been that someone rather than simply saying "mankind bad" like Frankenstein's monster when he's looking at fire?

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[quade 3]

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Finally! Somebody willing to actually look at the issue rather than simply say "taxes bad" like Frankenstein's monster when he's looking at fire.

Do you ever think that you could have been that someone rather than simply saying "mankind bad" like Frankenstein's monster when he's looking at fire?

Oooooohhhh and once again, you've added so much to the discussion.

Thanks for the illumination. You really "got me" on that one.

Whatev...

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kelpdiver 2]

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interesting case study-like article here with some factoids-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html

Couple excerpts:

"...we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses..."

Once again, I have to point out the obvious - this came from the opinion page. This is not remotely a "case study-like article" - wtf does that mean anyway?

California's population continues to grow, so I wonder if their data is really the shrinking of Ohio and the others are lumped in to try to make their point.

CA generally has mass influxes during the boom times - people want to live here. A lot of people want to live here. We have inflated salaries and real estate and costs of living, and grossly higher taxes per person as a result. Most of the Obama tax benefits this year (as well as last year) aren't applicable to working professionals here.

In the late 90s, people rushed here for the dot com. And in the early 00's, people left for work elsewhere during the dot bust. We saw the same in the 80s and early 90s in SoCal during the Reagan military buildup and the subsequent 'peace dividend.' And towards the end of this 98-07 period, people were coming in again. But overall, the state continues to grow. Taxes are not the primary determinant, save perhaps for retirees who would be wise to try to use a state without income tax to cash out their IRA.

Why does CA have the biggest fiscal hole to fix? Well, duh, it has the largest budget to start with. And its budget model rides the boom, and then crashes on the bust. That has nothing to do with tax rate, all to do with short term political thinking. I hoped Arnold could succeed in changing that practice, but I suspect try #2 will fail tomorrow.

[quade 3]

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I hoped Arnold could succeed in changing that practice, but I suspect try #2 will fail tomorrow.

Arnold and tomorrow's election over budgets is what we might call "Irony."

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Butters 0]

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Oooooohhhh and once again, you've added so much to the discussion.

And you've added what?

PS: The thread is about how to raise taxes, not what they're spent on.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[kelpdiver 2]

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I hoped Arnold could succeed in changing that practice, but I suspect try #2 will fail tomorrow.

Arnold and tomorrow's election over budgets is what we might call "Irony."

People call a lot of things ironic, but I think the true irony is you putting in this one liner in the same breath you used to attack someone else for useless posting.

Elaborate - the rest of the people here may have very limited understanding of Sacramento.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Once again, I have to point out the obvious - this came from the opinion page. This is not remotely a "case study-like article" - wtf does that mean anyway?

I missed an even bigger obvious - one of the two authors of this 'case study like editorial' is Arthur Laffer.

Yes, the man behind the Laffer Curve, which was the basis for the massive debt built up during the Reagan administration.