In a perfect world, Blue State Rats would try this, and it would go to the SCOTUS for a ruling. And SCOTUS would say, based on the Obamacare Ruling, it's still a TAX - LOL !!!
Here is the text of the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Amendment 16 - (Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913) - The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
It should not take a "constitutional scholar" to see that the new federal tax law is NOT unconstitutional.
And to think, it was "progressives" who pushed for that stupid amendment in the first place...
This would be a gift for those who don't smoke pot. They would see their state taxes go down without having to pay any type of offset.
A charitable donation to the state is voluntary. This proposal is nothing more than a legal fiction.
When bammy raised taxes, the left did nothing! they loved the idea! May they all go to hell.
Why don’t they just repeal their state income tax? Easy solution. But then of course, the takers would have to be responsible and get jobs....
——”New Jersey Governor-elect Phil Murphy, a Democrat, says his state will explore any and all options to make sure residents of New Jersey aren’t heavily impacted by the new legislation, ———”
Ummm, maybe NOT having the highest property taxes and most corruption in the country is where you should start? Morons...this lunacy is reaching new levels by the hour!
Last line of post has YUGE #RustyIrony! LOL!
“But lawmakers are clearly motivated to mitigate the damage to their constituents.”
Translation: Lawmakers are clearly motivated to mitigate the damage to their own sorry political arses!
If they really “cared for their constituents” they would have never raised taxes to such high levels!
Liberalism = theft!
I’d absolutely LOVE watching blue states change their income taxes to “charitable” donations.
If these donations are MANDATORY, the IRS (and Supreme Court - thank you John Roberts) would consider them a tax and, thus, limited by the $10,000 SALT ceiling.
If they are NOT MANDATORY (and thus possibly deductible as charity donations), we’ll be laughing our asses off watching how few deep state tax payers contribute as much as a penny.
Even better, and entirely possible, is that SCOTUS could rule that a "Charitable Contribution" is VOLUNTARY and the deep blue slime states have kissed their income and property taxes goodbye.
If the “charitable contribution” is in any way mandatory, the SCOTUS will have no problem calling it a tax. If it is voluntary, the states will see very little revenue from it. If any.
The better option appears to be the employer contribution of the payroll tax. It still has drawbacks; the employer contribution is a cost-shifting measure that increases the cost of employment and still reduces the income to the employee. It will exert a downward pressure on incomes in states that already have very high costs of living.
From the article:
“...This idea would hinge on companies not responding by slashing wages to offset their tax hike, ...”
Also hinges on companies not moving out of state.
Yeah, businesses would docilely go along with tax hikes that would offset the gains of tax reform. Sure fire way to drive more businesses out of the high tax blue states.
President Trump is slowly taking apart the left and they are not even aware of it.
California pretends state law over rules Federal Law when it comes to border control. The day is coming that will show just how powerless the state is when it goes head to head with the Federal Government.
“without taxpayers having parts of their income taxed twice”
Now that’s a blatant lie!
Here’s how income IS taxed twice: the federal tax is a percentage of your gross. the state tax is a percentage of that SAME F*CKING GROSS! You don’t get that gross! It was reduced by taxes. The state tells you that it’s taking, for example, 7% of your gross. But you didn’t see that gross. The f*cking federal government took its cut! The “7%” is more than 7%! Your gross is being taxed twice.
F*CK the left.
The other idea, pioneered by a$$hole Dean Baker is even worse! The fool proposes to tax the employer on wages paid to employees. 1. That would be a deduction for the employer. 2. the employer would be paying the tax and would just reduce wages by an equivalent amount, or not, and go out of business. If the employee gets a lower wage, he is STILL paying the f*cking money!. I swear, the biggest idots are economists!
So the solution is to help the taxpayers buy burdening the businesses in their states more. This makes the products produced in those states more expensive and less competitive internationally and nationally. If history is reliable, this should motivate more businesses to relocate to be more competitive. This in turn will shrink the tax base and reduce jobs in the state. This should require the blue states to raise taxes again....
And the cycle repeats itself as the tyrannical blue governments simply cannot control their own spending and/or relenquish authority over its subjects.
If those taxes were “charitable donations to the state”, why would people have to pay them?
I have yet to read an article that makes sense of the impact of the new tax law on the tax collections by the individual states.
For example, all those blue state politicians are worried about their residents facing higher taxes. What higher taxes?
Most blue state residents are seeing a cut in their federal taxes (unless they’re earning over a half million a year or more, and even many of those will still see a significant cut in their federal taxes if they’re not claiming a ton of deductions.
Example: If you live in NYCity and make $2,000,000 and rent, not own, so no mortgage interest and no property tax: Savings of $2,386 per this tax calculator, which is an excellent resource because it’s so simple to use: http://taxplancalculator.com/calc
So, who are these state legislators so concerned about? Those making a million or more a year and own their homes. But what percentage of their constituents do they represent? I’d guess less than 1%.
But here’s the real rub. Take that same example above of the NYCity taxpayer earning $2.0 million. Look at that tax calculator. It also shows Federal Taxable Income both before and after the new tax law. Their taxable income goes from $1.84 million to $1.97 million, up $130,000!
If NYCity and State base their usurious tax rates on federal taxable income, they will collect together an additional $13,000 to $14,000 from that same couple. In other words, it’s New York City and State that will be causing that couple’s taxes to increase UNLESS THEY CUT their tax rates next year.
Once people figure that out, it’s going to really get interesting.
P.S. This line of logic depends upon states applying their tax rates to a person’s Federal Taxable Income, which might not be the case in all, or even most, states. But Federal Taxable Income is going to go up for most people who itemize a lot of deductions.
Any thoughts from others on this?
HINT: STOP funding overpaid and over-pensioned teachers, janitors administrators, police, and municipal and public works employees.
Or else the people will demand an end to $240,000/yr janitors and $436,000/yr police (both real examples last year from NY and CA), and Democrats will be out of a job.
Hey Andrew Cuomo?? What you can do is lower our taxes! That’ll work for me. The criminal thieving taxes, that I get nothing worthwhile in return for, has to go.
Here is another radical Idea. Kick Liberals and all there “Freebies” out of power. Then lower property taxes.