Archive for taxes
High Taxes and High Poverty: A Match Made in Syracuse
Posted by: | CommentsGuest post by Bill Zwerger
The State Community Action Agency just released their latest numbers for Upstate New York. The numbers don’t lie. Yet they most certainly help to make the case for a strong correlation between exorbitantly high tax rates and unacceptably high rates of poverty. Just a coincidence? I think not.
“State poverty numbers are out and it’s not looking good. Almost 14 percent of New Yorkers, including 20 percent of children, are living in poverty. That’s the 17th highest poverty rate in the nation and the highest in the Northeast.
When you look at the larger cities in our area, those numbers are even higher.
Nearly 30 percent of people in Syracuse live in poverty and for Utica , nearly 50 percent of children do. Watertown fares a bit better, with 23 percent of individuals and 28 percent of children.”
Now let’s take a look at New York State tax rates, specifically those for Upstate NY.
From the Governor himself:
The Preliminary Report highlights a number of key facts:
- New York State ’s local taxes are the highest in America – 79% above the national average.
- In terms of tax rate, nine of the top ten highest taxed counties in the nation are in Upstate New York . They are Wayne , Niagara, Monroe , Erie , Chautauqua, Onondaga, Cayuga, Chemung and Schenectady Counties .
Now I’m no highfalutin statistician, but there seems to be a rather obvious correlation between the two, don’t you think?
Popularity: 1% [?]
New Yorkers – I Hope You Aren’t Waiting on that Income Tax Refund
Posted by: | CommentsThanks to decades of liberal policy, the state of New York is broke, so they’re holding the tax refund checks of hundreds of thousands of citizens. I guess Governor Paterson can’t dream up new things to tax fast enough.
WCBSTV: For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the check won’t be in the mail — at least not on time. New York State has stopped paying tax refunds and won’t start again until next month.
The tax refund delay is part of a bigger cash crunch.
Message to New Yorkers: don’t start spending your tax refund money because it’s going to be delayed.
Half a billion dollars’ worth of refund checks were put on hold last Friday, and state beancounters won’t start sending you your money until at least April 1.
“I apologize that we had to do this. I hope it serves notice on the public of how serious our financial situation is,” Gov. David Paterson said.
Until they take on the public employee unions not much is going to change here in New York. And if ObamaCare passes things will just get worse.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Job Killing ObamaCare’s New Taxes
Posted by: | Comments
Americans for Tax Reform released two studies about ObamaCare that are quite alarming.
The first is a list of about 16 new taxes, and the path for government to use to tax employer paid health insurance. The list includes taxes that will be passed on to consumers, as well as an increase in the Medicare tax.
Maggie’s notebook has more on the tax increases, including how illegal immigrants won’t see their taxes go up, but a family with three or more people can expect to fork over more than $1400.00 per year if they fail to buy a government approved health insurance policy.
The second study predicts between 119,000 and 698,000 jobs will be eliminated thanks to this disastrous bill. The only occupations that appear to be safe are politician and lobbyist.
But it hasn’t passed yet, although they’d like you to believe it’s inevitable.
Find out what you can do to stop this! Code Red!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Massachusetts Cautionary Health Care Tale
Posted by: | CommentsGuest Post by Bill Zwerger
Bay State residents are finding that mandated health care isn’t cheap.
Boston Globe: State regulators said yesterday that they will probably change the complex formula they use to determine how many Massachusetts residents face a tax penalty for not having health insurance, because spiraling costs are making coverage unaffordable for too many people.
The state’s landmark 2006 health law requires nearly everyone to have health insurance or to pay a stiff tax penalty.
“We need to look at how the percentage of income we are asking people to contribute to insurance has changed over time,’’ said Nancy Turnbull, an associate dean at Harvard’s School of Public Health and a member of the authority’s board. “Health care costs and premiums keep going up, and we will rapidly approach a cost that is beyond what everyone is willing to pass on.’’
Check your wallets…stat.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Get Ready for the Pizza Tax!
Posted by: | CommentsHow long do you think it will be until politicians start pushing a pizza tax? Why, they could kill two birds with one tax – raise revenues to continue their spending orgy while exerting more control over people’s lives.
Reuters: Duffey’s team analyzed the diets and health of 5,115 young adults aged age 18 to 30 from 1985 to 2006.
They compared data on food prices during the same time. Over a 20-year period, a 10 percent increase in cost was linked with a 7 percent decrease in the amount of calories consumed from soda and a 12 percent decrease in calories consumed from pizza.
The team estimates that an 18 percent tax on these foods could cut daily intake by 56 calories per person, resulting in a weight loss of 5 pounds (2 kg) per person per year.
“Our findings suggest that national, state or local policies to alter the price of less healthful foods and beverages may be one possible mechanism for steering U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet,” Duffey and colleagues wrote.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Woman Confronts Philly Mayor Over Soda Tax
Posted by: | CommentsThis woman’s husband works for Coca-Cola and she’s not happy with Mayor Nutter’s soda tax. I don’t think she was satisfied with his answers. Neither was I – typical liberal response – higher taxes are the answer to all of our troubles.
H/T Scott
Via MyFoxPhilly.com
Popularity: 2% [?]
Cool – The Brits are Launching a Tea Party
Posted by: | CommentsLed by none other than Daniel Hannan. I love it!
The inaugural British Tea Party will take place on Saturday in my home town of Brighton, and I’ll be speaking. Do try to come: here are the details.
Labour has raised more than a trillion pounds in additional taxation since 1997. Yet, unbelievably, Gordon Brown has still managed to run up a deficit of 12.6 per cent of GDP (Greece’s is 12.7 per cent). A far lower level of taxation brought Americans out in spontaneous protest last year.
He’s even serving tea!
I think Obama’s trying to outdo Gordon Brown and Greece on the deficit and taxes.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Guess What?! Obama Wants to Raise Taxes on Those Making Less than $250K
Posted by: | CommentsLet’s stop calling them broken promises. If you promise something with good intentions but fail to deliver on your promise, that’s a broken promise. If you promise something with every intention of breaking your promise, then you’re a liar. Obama’s a liar. He lied to the American people when he said no American family making less than $250,000 a year would see their taxes raised. He broke that “promise” almost immediately after taking office when he raised the tax on cigarettes. He had no intention of keeping that “promise”. At the same time he made the “promise” he also told us he would “give us” health insurance. He knew full well he’d have to raise taxes to deliver.
President Obama presented a new health care plan on Monday that calls for raising the Medicare payroll tax on some households earning less than $250,000, an apparent breach of his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than that amount. The president’s plan also calls for increasing taxes on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.
In a Sept. 12, 2008 campaign speech in Dover, N.H, Obama said: “And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
But the new health care plan released in summary form yesterday by the White House specifically calls for increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.”
Unless President Obama is prepared to say that the only type of “family” that qualifies as a “family” under his tax pledge is one that is formed around a ”married couple filing jointly,” then his new health care proposal violates his 2008 tax pledge on its face. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, makes clear that the “head of household” tax filing status is for “unmarried” taxpayers. A definition of the term “head of household” on the IRS Web site says: “Generally, you may claim head of household filing status on your tax return only if you are unmarried and pay more than 50% of the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and your dependent(s) or other qualifying individuals.”
His mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, has repeated the lie. Do you still believe it?
Read the full story at CNS News.
H/T ACVJ
Popularity: 1% [?]
OK Fine, I’m a Radical!
Posted by: | CommentsThe left wing media wants you to believe that anyone who believes in the Constitution and states’ rights is a radical. They want you to believe Tea Partiers are radical. As if distrust of the federal government is suddenly an extremist position. Fine then, so be it, I’m a radical extremist! I do agree with Barack Obama on one thing – we do need fundamental change here in the US. But not the kind of change he’s talking about. We need to fundamentally change back to the founding principles of our republic.
I was listening to Mark Levin for a few minutes on my way to the store this evening, and he was talking about those “radicals for liberty” – the Founding Fathers. He said he’s becoming more radical and mentioned how today’s government is far worse to us than King George was to the colonists. It’s so true!
Do you own a home? If so, what do you pay in property taxes? What happens if you fail to pay your property taxes? You lose your home. What happens if you fail to pay federal or state income taxes? You go to jail or pay stiff penalties. Do you drink or smoke? How much are you paying in taxes? Just yesterday I paid our auto insurance bill and there was a $20.00 surcharge tacked on. Guess who it goes to? New York State! I was taxed $20.00 by the State of New York for paying for something they compel me to purchase! And today it was announced that Governor Paterson wants to hold back New Yorkers’ tax refunds to pay the state’s bills. The only reason the federal government isn’t floating a similar proposal is because they can print money and states can’t.
Stop and think about all the taxes you pay. Even if you’re one of those Americans who thinks they’re getting more from the government than you’re giving. Have you ever stayed at a hotel? Do you have a home phone or a cell phone? Do you pay sales tax? Do you pay sin taxes? Do you buy gasoline? Do you pay for electricity? Check your bills and receipts and add up just how much you pay in taxes? And it’s only going to get worse. There aren’t enough rich folks in America to cover the $14 trillion we all owe.
It’s pure insanity. The entitlement society is insanity. The public employee unions are insanity. I wonder how many public sector workers from states like New York move to low tax states when they retire? There ought to be a law, if they want their retirement funded by New York State taxpayers they should be required to stay in New York and pay the taxes along with the rest of us. Then again, if Obama and the Democrats have their way there won’t be any low tax states left to flee to.
So yeah, I’m opposed to all of that. I work hard. I’m responsible. I take care of my kids. I pay my bills on time and I’ve had it. I’ve had it with a government that refuses to be as responsible with my money as I am. So call me a radical. What do I care?
It looks like Mark Levin and I aren’t the only radicals out there. A group of conservatives has gotten together and tomorrow will ratify what they call the Mount Vernon Statement. I love it, radicals for liberty in the twenty first century!
The American Spectator reported:
On Wednesday, more than 80 conservative thinkers and organization heads will come together to ratify a joint manifesto ahead of the 2010 elections. Dubbed the Mount Vernon Statement, its goal is to unite the right — economic, social, and national security conservatives — under a set of shared principles. The idea is to make different conservative groups feel part of the same team and also to bind them in a common intellectual enterprise.
Participants read like a virtual who’s who of conservative movement heavyweights: former Attorney General Edwin Meese, American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene, Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, among many others. But the final product will be short on policy wonkery.
Unlike the Contract With America, the Mount Vernon Statement is not a detailed legislative agenda. Instead, it intended as a set of philosophical principles that can serve as the foundation for policy formulation later. It is less Frank Luntz than Frank Meyer.
In fact, parts read like Meyer’s “fusionist” conception of conservatism. The document reminds “economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to Americas safety and leadership role in the world.”
The Mount Vernon Statement specifically calls for a new “fusion provided by American principles” through “constitutional conservatism.” “In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics,” the document reads. “The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.”
“Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new,” the statement continues. “But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?” The Mount Vernon conservatives assert “we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
Welcome to the “radical” club, Mount Vernon Conservatives!
What great timing. The Mount Vernon Statement will be ratified just before CPAC kicks off.
I hope the media keeps calling conservatives radical. It makes us sound cool. What’s more hip? Collectivism or rugged individualism? I’ll go with the latter. Apparently, quite a few college students feel the same way. And hey, conservatives must be doing something right if major publishing houses are paying liberals to put out hit pieces on them.
Tune in later this week and this weekend. Thursday and Friday this radical little mommy blogger will be linking to the other CPAC Bloggers, and I’ll be blogging live from CPAC all day Saturday.
Find out what others are saying at memeorandum.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Larry Summers: High Taxes Fuel Job Growth
Posted by: | CommentsEven if an economy could be centrally planned, would you really want this gang doing the planning?
Business Media Institute: Among the administration’s proposals for small businesses are a $5,000 tax credit to hire new workers, elimination of capital gains taxes, and new incentives to invest in plants and equipment. At the same time, however, the administration plans to raise taxes on “the wealthiest Americans.”
Obama’s chief economic adviser Larry Summers appeared Feb. 9 on the Fox Business Channel to discuss the administration’s economic agenda and defended proposed rate-hikes for those making over $250,000. “Almost all economists who studied these things have that kind of view,” he told Fox’s Liz Claman.
Perplexed, Fox News contributor Gary B. Smith replied: “it’s the biggest bunch of B.S. I ever heard … this is such a political game. , Larry Summers thinks everyone is Rockefeller living in their Newport, Rhode Island mansion. These are guys that are starting businesses, investing. You can’t give people business money to hire people, they have to have a reason for hiring these people and that’s because they see sales increasing or costs decreasing. You can’t just say ‘go hire these five people’ because the businesses will go ‘What for? I don’t have the demand!’”
The economists who agree that high taxes fuel job growth are probably the same ones who are repeatedly surprised at the massive numbers of jobs lost.
Via American Conservative Values Journal
Popularity: 3% [?]
Obama ‘Agnostic’ on Middle Class Tax Hikes
Posted by: | CommentsIf you voted for Obama because you believed he wasn’t going to raise taxes on the middle class you’re probably kicking yourself. Personally, I’m not the least bit surprised by his latest statement on middle class tax hikes, other than his odd choice of words.
New York Daily News: In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek on newsstands Friday, Obama said a presidential budget commission needs to look at all options for deficit reduction – including tax increases and cuts in spending on such programs as Social Security and Medicare.
“The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” Obama said. “So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.”
Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 campaign to spare households earning less than $250,000 a year from tax increases.
H/T Maggie, who says tax hikes are next to Godliness for Barack Obama.
Find out what others have to say at memeorandum.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Liberal Dems: Let’s Get to Work Selling a Tax Increase!
Posted by: | CommentsLiberal democrats are determined to make this recession drag out in perpetuity.
The Hill: House Democrats say leadership has their work cut out in convincing the public to support a tax increase on those making more than $250,000.
Centrists and liberal Democrats told The Hill they support allowing President Bush’s tax cuts on those making more than $250,000 to expire, but said leaders must win public support by portraying the tax increase as reducing the nation’s record budget deficit. “I believe there is a message from back home that is loud and clear: do something about these out of control deficits,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), a centrist whose district was won in 2008 by GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
“Failure to address that would produce the worst consequence for the country and therefore the worst consequence politically,” Pomeroy said.
What a dope. The Bush tax cuts fueled economic growth and increased revenue to the federal government.
Americans do want to see the government get these deficits under control. A good place to start would be for the government to stop spending so much money.
Via memeorandum
Popularity: 1% [?]
Soaking the Rich Might Be Good Politics But It’s Bad Policy
Posted by: | CommentsNew York Governor David Paterson is finding out the hard way.
The New York Post: So the state couldn’t have picked a worse time to enact yet another “temporary” income-tax hike — yet that’s precisely what Gov. Paterson and the Legislature agreed to do last spring, as part of the 2009-10 state budget. This hike has raised the top state rate to 8.97 percent on filers with taxable incomes of more than $500,000 (and to 7.85 percent for those starting as low as $200,000).
It hasn’t raised as much money as they hoped for, though: Revenue from New York’s tax hike on high earners was coming in $400 million below the governor’s original estimate for this year even before he announced Wednesday that income-tax collections in January had fallen another $1 billion short of projections — a result, in part, of investment banks’ decision to shift some bonuses from cash to stock options. Simply squeezing harder on higher earners wasn’t such a smart strategy, it seems.
On the face of it, New York state’s top rate is still much lower than the all-time high of 15.35 percent reached in the mid-’70s. But, thanks to changes in federal deductibility, the effective rate is actually higher now than it was 35 years ago.
Read the whole informative article to find out why soaking the rich is bad policy – at both the state and national level.
Come on folks, this is America. We’re supposed to strive for the “rags to riches” American dream. Do we really want to punish those who achieve it? What does that say about us as a society? Is this still America?
Popularity: 2% [?]
Another Broken Promise: Tax Hikes for the Middle Class -Updated and Bumped
Posted by: | CommentsYou didn’t really believe Obama when he promised not to hike taxes on anyone making less than $250K a year, did you?
Reuters: The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration’s Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated. ….
Ouch! That’s going to hurt. Not to mention the taxes on investment. Not to worry, though. Obama’s doing all he can to destroy the economy so there won’t be much of a middle class left by the time he’s through.
**********
This is weird: Reuters advises that the backdoor tax story has been withdrawn, but the link above still works. I’m not sure for how long. Strange, maybe they got a call from someone in the White House.
Find out what others are saying at memeorandum.
Update: Left Coast Rebel has screen shots of the yanked story. And then there’s this:
UPDATED: It is confirmed via TPM that the White House contacted Reuters and ’suggested’ (forced) them to pull the middle class tax hike story. It was actually pulled at 8 p.m. last night just 4 hours after it ran. A spokeswoman for Reuters acknowledges that the White House contacted Reuters about the ‘inaccuracies’ of the report.
Memeorandum has a new thread, and here.
Update 2: Some say there are inaccuracies in the original Reuters article. We’ll have to wait and see, but I found this from John Boehner.
2. President Obama’s budget taxes too much. The President’s budget includes more than $2 trillion in tax hikes, with a nearly 20 percent jump in the first year alone. This includes tax increases on small businesses, investors, and families earning less than $250,000 per year – a violation of the President’s campaign pledge. The last thing American families and small businesses need right now are new taxes that make it harder to save, invest, and hire.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Obama’s budget includes over a trillion dollars in new taxes
Posted by: | CommentsThis is the absolute worst thing to do in a recession.
ABC News: The budget proposal released Monday would extend Obama’s signature Making Work Pay tax credit — $400 for individuals, $800 for a couple filing jointly — through 2011. But it would also impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Obama would extend Bush-era tax cuts for families and individuals making less.
Obama revived numerous proposals for business tax increases that didn’t fare well in Congress last year, including a scaled-down plan to increase taxes on U.S. companies with major overseas operations, and plans to increase taxes on oil and gas companies.
In all, Obama would increase taxes on some businesses and wealthy individuals by a total of about $1.4 trillion over the next decade, while cutting taxes for middle-class workers and other businesses by about $330 billion. The bottom line: Tax receipts would increase by about $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
Don’t believe these tax increases will bring in more revenue. In fact, the opposite will happen. There will be less production, less investment, less jobs – the economy will shrink while the government expands.
When conservatives and liberals agree that Obama’s spending is going to kill the economy, you know things are bad.
Via memeorandum
Popularity: 2% [?]
