Posted on 12/16/2017 11:00:35 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
With all the horse trading over the tax plan, the politicians and the president’s advisers are missing a key economic point.
Most politicians and economists talk profusely about the so-called “middle-class,” but the fact is, in America, where states are free to tax whatever they can get away with, your ZIP code may be far more determinant of your economic level than your salary.
That point is completely lost on pretty much everybody writing the tax code. You see, what’s middle class in Topeka isn’t middle class in Queens or Hoboken.
If the tax bill passes with the low SALT (state and local taxes) deduction of just $10,000, the economy may have a real slowdown.
Let’s look at a typical NYC-area family. The wife is a lawyer; her spouse, an associate TV producer. Together they make $190,000 — that’s good money, for sure, but they live in an expensive area for work.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
What do you mean add SALT and you win more?
And the tax credit for children does of course help those with children—including those making hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also helping them is the massive new child care deduction.
All of those special breaks for certain people are bad tax and growth policy, however, in that they (along with being unfair) necessarily lead to higher marginal rates that both hit everyone and work as a disincentive for growth.
I very much like your plan.
“They will also pay about $10,584 in state and $6,137 in NYC taxes, which comes to another $16,721. Adding in their property taxes brings their total tax bill to $36,206 — a common level for many hard-working New Yorkers.”
That’s not on the GOP. That’s on the Dems.
“Tax code should be one sentence. Every taxpayers pays 10% of their gross income as federal income taxes, no deductions and no tax credits!”
There should be ZERO taxes on property and income. If the government can take it, you don’t own it!
.so very true.....this whole thing is a(bs)turd.
Actually, you haven’t been subsidizing NY and CA. Both those state receive less money from the federal government than their taxpayers send to DC. Your state, Florida, receives more federal dollars than the money its taxpayers send to DC. The top 5 “taker” states are all red. Of the to 10 “giver” states, only 1, Kansas, is red. This has mostly to do with higher wages and population in blue states.
True. My taxes here in Nassau County are sky high, but the article states that the couple described live in a modest home in the boroughs. The people who bought my modest home in the boroughs are paying about 35% of what we pay here. We bought our new home for exactly what we sold our old one so they’re of comparable value.
My taxes get taxed. Why? Because I’ve paid my house off, don’t have large medical bills, and thus don’t have enough to itemize. UNFAIR! Others don’t pay taxes on taxes! Why must I?
I am a lifelong New Yorker, now living in Long Island.
New Jersey is NOT the boroughs. A homeowner living in the boroughs would have to own a house worth more than $2 million to pay $19,400 in property taxes. My former home in Queens just sold for $800,000 and was taxed at approximately $5,000.
My home in Nassau County is worth about $750,000 and I pay $16,000 in property taxes. The family mentioned in the article would also have their current deductions “grandfathered” so there is a lot that’s fishy about the story.
You can’t keep the money you send to IRS for taxes; but NY taxes it anyways.
The fix is easy. Just get your NYS pols to allow the federal income tax you pay to be deducted from your state taxable income.
I am surprised Queens is so low. Castle Rock, Colorado, a little bedroom community, has taxes higher than that.
I thought libs LIKED high taxes. Why are they trying to reimburse themselves for the taxes they like?
Property taxes in the city are relatively low, however there is a NYC income tax plus assorted fees and fines and many within the five boroughs feel the need to send their kids to private schools. It’s horrendously expensive to live in or around NYC, but the author wrecked his credibility with the comment that a modest home in the boroughs is taxed at $19,485 per year. Any home taxed at that level is way more than modest.
It may be true in Long Island, Westchester or New Jersey but not in “the boroughs” as the snotty Upper Westsiders refer to any part of the city not in Manhattan.
The federal tax system should not be subsidizing tax payers in the states with high state and local taxes. How much are taxpayers in states with lower state and local taxes subsidizing those in the higher tax states? About as much as those in the lower tax states will now save with the lower federal tax rates and higher standard deductions. Restore SALT and you’ll have to raise the tax rates for everyone back up a bit.
My home is worth around 300K. My property taxes are $2500.00 per year.
A 300K home in San Francisco could fit in my home theater. My pool is larger than a lawn in NYC.
We have people who sell their homes in ridiculous property value areas of the country and buy McMansions sight unseen here for 500K.
All this handwringing over 10K in SALT deductions is silly. Just one word...move!
Your line:
“That was about immigration and trade. Not Leftist redistribution crap like eliminating the deductibility of taxes.”
is B.S.
Due to the difference in state and local taxes between the states, often quite large, the deduction of state and local taxes in the federal tax system makes for a multi-billion dollar federal redistribution of the share of federal taxes from states with higher state and local taxes to states with lower state and local taxes.
We are not a unitary-government nation, with states as merely branches of the federal government. Historically and correctly what are the state and local responsibilities, and particularly how they self-finance is not the federal government’s responsibility, nor blame.
If you want to live where you pay 2 times X in state and local taxes, why should everyone in the nation have to pay higher federal tax rates in order for the federal budget to afford it? We shouldn’t.
“The principle is you don’t tax taxes.”
No such thing, because it is not taxes that are being taxed, and what you are taxed is not looking at your taxes; it’s looking at your income. If you choose, politically, to spend a high amount of your income in taxes to your local and state government, the federal government is not “taxing” those taxes in what it does not allow in federal deductions for them.
It is not the job of the federal government to “equalize” nationally the total tax burden of everyong, giving bigger deductions to those who spend more in local and state taxes. Doing so is an income redistribution via the tax system.
Your opinion and nothing more, bubba.
Find me a Republican party plank that ever mentioned this, and find me a point in Trump’s campaign that ever mentioned it.
All taxation schemes have competing flaws.
But the idea that you shouldn’t be taxed on money paid as taxes is as old as the Republic - why do you think those deductions were there in the first place? It wasn’t an accident.
PS: the people in those tax brackets who pay this crap are people like...me! And in those Evil Blue States, we’re the Trump voters. If the so-called Republican party wants to penalize us because they think they can get a few Union voters on their side in Wisconsin with a 2% tax reduction they won’t even notice, they’re as dim as I always thought McConnell was.
We did NOT vote for having our taxes raised.
Once again, why do you think those deductions were there in the first place?
Go back in history and you will find that these were well established concepts. And it was the Republican party arguing for them.
ROFWL So say you.
I suggest you quit complaining and vote with your feet as your vote means diddly squat in your blue state.
Smirk all ya want pal.
The economic damage won’t be limited to the rat states.
ALL states depend on these deductions to get people into property ownership. Wait till Texans/Floridians (no state income tax, but high property tax - they have to get the money somewhere) get screwed by this.
You can kiss come on’s like this goodbye:
https://www.houselogic.com/finances-taxes/taxes/home-tax-deductions/
This will torpedo the real estate biz all over the country. Maybe you’ll say that’s a good thing too, but once again...those are the Republicans who own the houses. Rats live in subsidized tenements and vote to get other people’s money. This is a sop to them, not us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.