Posted on 04/12/2019 10:58:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
If you live in Massachusetts and have managed to be successful enough to bring in seven figures this year, here’s an important tip for you. Get out. Grab your stuff and the kids, toss everything in the car and keep driving until you cross a state line.
Legislators in the Bay State are preparing to roll out a millionaires tax (carrying the oh-so-socialist name of “the Fair Share Amendment”) that would pile on another 4% in taxes for any income over one million dollars. Even though the structure of it looks constitutionally dubious, supporters think they can get it pushed through this time. (Boston Globe)
A measure to revive a statewide tax on high earners received a glowing reception on Beacon Hill Thursday, suggesting an easy path ahead despite staunch opposition from business groups.
“We are in desperate need for revenue for our districts,” said Senator Michael D. Brady of Brockton, one of the proposal’s more than 100 sponsors and a member of the Joint Committee on Revenue, which convened a hearing on the proposal Thursday. “We’ve got to move as swiftly and as responsibly as we can on this.”
The hearing kicked off Round Two for progressive activists and legislators pushing to create a new income tax on the state’s highest earners.
You won’t need to flee the state immediately because this is a complicated scheme that will take time to implement. Under Massachusetts rules, they will first need to amend the state constitution. That requires two majority votes in the legislature in consecutive, two-year legislative sessions. If it meets that bar, it then goes to a public referendum at the next election. The soonest the tax could kick in would be 2023.
The people pushing for this new tax are claiming that it could bring in an extra two billion dollars in revenue for the state. That’s a rather interesting figure to pluck out of the air because we’ve seen a similar claim before and it’s showing up in the current debate. The president of one business owners’ group summed it up nicely when he said, “Look, we’re trying to prevent Massachusetts from becoming Connecticut.”
What he’s talking about is the fact that Connecticut jacked up their income tax rates twice in the past decade, using the excuse of crying poverty just like Massachusetts is doing today. The result? They lost 12,254 tax filers in 2016 alone, the sixth highest such loss in the nation that year. And those choosing to leave skewed heavily toward higher earners. Rather than gaining two billion in state tax revenue, they were estimated to have lost $2.6 billion as people fled for states with lower tax burdens.
Massachusetts is in budget trouble because they spend beyond their means. And yet nobody is talking about cutting spending and tightening the state government’s belt. They’re going to try to tax their way out of the hole by imposing what amounts to a penalty for success. Those with higher incomes are already paying quite a bit since the state collects more than 5% on all income (their combined sales and income tax hits 12.6%, the second highest in the nation) and a whopping 12% on some capital gains. At some point, you just can’t milk the cow any harder or it’s going to leave the barn.
But leave your voting habits in Masshole..................
[[here’s an important tip for you. ]]
And they will charge you an exit fee
I love how legislatures always think this is the answer. Is this intended to target W2 wages? I’d do one of two things:
1)Move out of state and telecommute
2) Move and quit my job or
3) Tell my employer to please cap my wages at $999,500
There are ways around everything. Why don’t they simply address the real issue and cut spending?
Two kids sell lemonade: one for 50 cents per cup, and one for $1 million per cup. Which one makes more money?
I hope I live long enough to see the complete collapse of the Blue States. We just purchased a home in the Carson Valley of Northern Nevada as an investment. We were having dinner at the local country club and were engaged by another customer who overheard that we were from California. He spoke up and said: “just don’t bring California Politics here.” My wife told him that she was a two-term past president of the local Republican women where we lived, and I told him that I was a former three-term elected member of our Republican County Central Committee. And furthermore that I loved guns and own a number of them. His response was: “Bless you both, welcome to the Carson Valley!” The only thing Northern Nevada has to be worried about is Las Vegas and Clark County, which now, by itself, comprises more than half the state’s total population.
Another Marxist wealth grab. Let the people of MA get what they vote for....
Progressives could be on the wind swept steppes of Antarctica in the depths of winter and it still wouldn’t be cold enough for them to keep their hands in thier own pockets.
Since the states can’t print money, they will eventually (IL and NY are gaining speed toward it) hit the wall of insolvency.
It will be the best thing for them. May it happen soon.
If most of those who will be affected by the new tax, leave the state....can this state or any state do without those employers or jobs? Socialism falls down the rabbit hole after those who paid the bills have left or are no longer able to support state-run welfare.
Trump should help them along by busing in thousands of the illegal aliens they so love.
This might just do it for me.
Thinking of places to move. Texas is too hot, NH too cold.
FL seems like a possibility, but they almost went to the dark side in the last election (Gillum was uncomfortably close to being governor, and Scott had to struggle to become Senator). Any comments from Floridians? Or, from others who have considered a tax motivated move?
I live in Mass but not quite hitting the 7 digits yet....but be sure , if by some miracle it happens Im am off to Texas in the blink of an eye. I only stay here for family and even that is tentative....other than that this place can suck my peen.
West Florida is nice this time of year..................
Taxing the EEEEEEEVIL rich in the name of “fairness” is always a winner with low-info voters unfortunately.
Legislators in Massachusetts saw the capital flight in New York, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland and said, “We want some of that.”
Liberalism: Runnin’ out of other people’s money everywhere...
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I learned my painful lesson watching the events of 2008. If you go to the United States Congress with a sufficiently butt-puckering Chicken Little tale of impending gloom and doom, you WILL get a bailout. “
Yes, but the Congress is also running out of “other people’s money” too. The “producers” in our society today have about had it with paying for someone else’s “free $hit,” so I think we are fast approaching the point where we’re going to cut off the money flow, most likely by finally electing enough people like ourselves to turn the tide. Either that or America goes broke ( or ends up being a Chinese vassal state).
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