7 states to eliminate their income tax

link.

Basically, since the GOP in the state legislative branches succeeded in their endeavours in regards to abortion rights, voting rights (see Voter Disenfranchisement topic) and Immigration, they are now attempting to zero out the Income tax for Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

This is insisting that you're balancing the budget while taking a lot of money out of the Gain side of the equation.

EDIT: Ok, found a better, more in depth article. Each state's plan:

It seems the bulk of the states in question are going to be increasing their sales taxes, or relying on the increase in economic activity/ corporations, however, this is a problem for Nikki Haley, of South Carolina, who is Phasing out the corporate income taxes. Furthermore, Oklahoma gets 30% of its tax income from income taxes.

edited 1st Feb '12 11:17:29 AM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Could you drop us some more info (like a summary of the link) in the OP?

Thanks.

edited 1st Feb '12 4:04:03 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

These states have shot themselves in the foot by removing funding for their education and infrastructure.

Greed leads to ruin. This is a policy for the greedy.

I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok. I sleep all night and work all day.

Every such thread further reduces my faith in humanity. Income tax is the fairest of all taxes, taking money from where it is; removing it is going back to taxing the peasants.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Can the federal government do anything about this recent run of madness?

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Ah, but their feeling is that the people who pay income taxes don't need public education. Their kids all go to private schools. I think it's the AP article where one of the people putting this forwards outright says that company executives will prefer to locate companies in areas with less income tax.

They don't seem to have noticed that, ultimately, this means China. Not Oklahoma.

Seriously, it's a 'starve the beast' right-wing libertarian approach. Everything is better handled by the market. If they reduce the income, states won't have the money to pay for these services, so they'll have to hand them over to the private sector.

edited 1st Feb '12 4:47:05 AM by Bluesqueak

It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.

I seriously doubt it. I mean, it's a state tax, not a federal one.

Fight smart, not fair.

I've just been struck with the full brunt of the problem of whether it's even mathematically possible to build a model of a society without financial government intervention that doesn't fall into catastrophic ruin the moment it runs into, say, a Tragedy of The Commons kind of situation.

I mean, it may be possible- (or possible to prove that it's not possible!)- but it's certainly not as trivial as leaving everyone naively to their own devices. If this is true, it has certainly not been well thought-through.

edited 1st Feb '12 4:53:33 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

So whats the plan, hand everything over to the private sector? The roads, the education system, the lot?

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Well, the states that don't have income tax have a higher sales tax. Over here we pay 8.5% in sales tax. When I was living in Oklahoma, the Warr Acres area (lowest sales tax in the metro area) had a sales tax of 3.something.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

You know, it's threads like these that make me wonder if it's time to get the hell out of the US before everything falls apart, it seems like everything that gets done makes things worse...Considering how trigger happy the GOP, you'd probably want to avoid Canada to.

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I live in Oklahoma. The sales tax in town is just over 8.5%, although there are communities where it is as high as 9%.

And unlike many states, where food and other basic essentials are often exempt from sales tax, nothing is exempt here. Thus, a highly regressive tax regime which is only going to get worse if this pile o' dog #### makes it into law.

Around here, you have a sales tax of 16%. To quote Rebecca Black et al., fun fun fun fun.

edited 1st Feb '12 7:04:12 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

As long as the basic essentials are tax exempt, I don't really see a problem with ditching the income tax system for a sales tax system.

Of course, based upon my belief that "those who've got it, flaunt it," I always seen sales taxes as being the best balance between fair taxation and progressive*

taxation. For example, a middle income family might spend $500 on a basic refrigerator, while a high income family might spend $5000 on one with more bells and whistles. Given the same tax rate, the high income family will then shell out 10x the amount of taxes as the middle income family.

Of course, on a state level, there is a loophole: buy out of state. Of course, some states, like the one I live in, close this loophole with what is called an "usage tax". (That is, you have to pay state sales tax on all out of state purchases.)

edited 1st Feb '12 7:56:31 AM by OscarWildecat

Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.

Indirect taxes always burden the poor more. They are inherently regressive taxes.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

This has been addressed in other threads, but the case seems to be that after a certain point, wealthy individuals stop increasing their spending. So someone earning $10 million a year might spend exactly as much money every year as someone who makes $1 million.

The same, apparently and to some degree, goes for investments: at some point, people tend to just let their bank account grow instead of putting their money in the stock market.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

@Best Of: Fair enough(*). Then again, in our current system, people with incomes at the $10 million level already have ways of minimizing their tax burden down to the $1 million level. And as far as the stock market goes: with the volatility in the market, I wouldn't hold it against a person if they avoided it like a plague. Of course, even if one leaves one money in a savings account, it's still being invested. It's just that the bank is doing the investing instead of the savings account owner.

(*)I can see the argument that a rational person can only spend money at certain rate. (OTOH, a non-rational person might decide to buy a new gold plated toilet every month instead of flushing... )

edited 1st Feb '12 8:27:32 AM by OscarWildecat

Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.

You folks are aware that there are already nine states *

, that have no state income tax at all, aren't you? It can work.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

That seems excessively devil's advocatey. I'm not seeing any propositions to MAKE it work by finding serious alternative revenue sources - it's just another attempt to shrink the parts of government that the Republicans don't like. (And if I'm wrong in this, I'm open to being corrected.)

edited 1st Feb '12 8:54:06 AM by Karkadinn

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Of course it "works". Feudalism also "worked". That isn't the issue. The issue is how unfair such taxation systems are, which feed themselves via indirect taxes.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

It can work... just let industry-parks incorporate cities. Then you can have corporate stewardship of society and then no income tax is required! Afterall, you're paid a salary that is less than what the company gains from you, so it's like an instant income tax, except levied by corporations.

But they'll still ask for federal money and aid though I suppose...

And I assume the senators and congressmen will work for free too?

edited 1st Feb '12 10:01:02 AM by Thorn14

They'll be on the payroll of the largest companies in the area.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Then I won't have to miss Judge Judy to go vote.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

You mean they aren't already??

Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.