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Big bucks tax plans gaining ground

February 24, 2012

Strong statewide support exists for imposition of a so-called “millionaires’ tax” as California residents indicate fatigue with budget austerity. [SanFranciscoChronicle]

A recently released Field Poll shows that sentiment is growing for a higher tax rate for high income earners.

Several groups are circulating initiative proposals to accomplish this result; one of those, sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown, showed majority support in the poll. Brown’s plan would raise about $35 million during the five years of its life, administration officials say, and earned a 58 percent approval rate, according to the Field Poll.

Each of the plans being championed would require only a majority vote to take effect. Brown’s bill would specifically benefit state schools.

Another similar measure by the California Federation of Teachers, California Nurses, and others, got 63 percent approval from those polled.


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I think it is a misstake to put a sur-charge tax on the rich. That’s punishing people for being good businessmen and using their talents. Where does the idea come from? Sounds commie to me.


I say we tax the wealthy tv personalities and movie actors. They make a fortune no matter what show they are on. I heard Seinfeld was offered 5 million dollars per episode and he turned it down. This was a clue to how much money he had or has.


I do not begrudge these people their wealth or good fortune but they should pay their fair share or even a little more. I have done business with a few and have gotten to be friends over the years and they say the same thing. At least about being over paid. I guess I’m being somewhat of a commie also.


I say when millionaires are giving jobs to people their taxes should be down. When they don’t then raise the taxes.


Blessings to all.


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The Tax Tale: 50-state comparison


Using this map, you can check how each state collects taxes and measures up nationally on tax burden, government spending and user fees.


http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/89702927.html


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There are 2 different things going on here the first is the state then the there is the federal.

In the state it is easy to move to a different state, for example leave California and move to Reno where the rich pay 0 state taxes instead of the 11% currenty paid in CA not including the proposed new tax, it will not work it has not in the past.


The way to make it work is to make it a Federal tax, nowhere to go and still keep the income.


I would like to see 5% surtax over a million in earned income and 10% over 5 million in earned income.


When the tax rates were very high in the past that had nothing to do with the actual rate the rich paid, do you remember tax shelters ect.


We need a system a flat tax and no deductions and then a surtax on the wealthy.


Also remember that in the 50s and 60s all Americans paid at least some income tax while today the aprox. bottom 50% pay no income tax.


The current system stinks.


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The tax shelters of those days were nothing like the ‘shelters/loopholes’ of today.


“Also remember that in the 50s and 60s all Americans paid at least some income tax while today the aprox. bottom 50% pay no income tax.”


The bottom 40% paid taxes back then because for the most part they weren’t living below the poverty level. If we stimulate the economy then we won’t have 40% living below the poverty level and they will rise to the middle again and pay taxes again. Raising those living in poverty should be a priority goal but taxing them won’t help our economy it will only make it worse. So Sally would you rather have those families living in poverty pay taxes or have the wealthy pay taxes?


You’re right that really this is about the state as opposed to the feds but it’s the same principles.


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Sorry, although “income” taxes are zero in Nevada, their tax burden is only about 2% on average, less than Cali’s burden.


They have sales, property, etc


http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/336.html


Bottom 50% no income taxes? You mean that share of federal revenues hitting a post WW2 war low of 41% of federal revenues?


You know the bottom 50% of US made 13% of ALL US income right? A drop of 30%+ of the pie since 1980!


Top 1% made 20%+ the past decade!


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In 2008, the new IRS data show, the top 400 paid only 18.1 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax. The top 400 in 1955 paid 51.2 percent of their total incomes in tax.


In 1992, IRS stats detail, only 33 of the top 400 paid less than 20 percent of their incomes in federal income tax. In 2008, 253 did.


http://toomuchonline.org/for-top-400-taxpayers-a-near-record-year/


WHO IS IN CHARGE AT THE TOP (GOV POLICY) MATTERS!


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The Governor has proposed that taxes should be raised on those who make more than a million dollars a year; what that means (pay attention here conservatives, it’s not that complicated) is that a wealthy person who “earns” a wage or income of one million dollars will not see their taxes raised. When and if they make one dollar more than one million dollars, then they will pay increased taxes on any amount they make over one million dollars. An income or wage of one million dollars a year is pretty damn high, surely those making that much aren’t going to suffer if they pay a higher tax on any amount over the one million dollar threshold. Broken down, an income of one million dollars a year equals to over $83,333. a month, $19,230 a week, and at a forty hour work week, that is $480. an hour, not counting time off for vacations or whatever. But apparently that is too much to ask those who are that fortunate to make that much money. Conservatives love to claim that the rich will simply move out of state; can anyone furnish any evidence of such claims? I for one would like to see such data; please post a link here if you have “proof” of a millionaire exodus when the tax rate is raised.


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Listen my fellow Christian Republicans, we wax nostalgic for the happier days of the 1950s when the United States was more moral and more united, but we ignore one of the central reasons behind that wonderful middle-class era: very high taxes on the rich! What we need to do is to restore President Eisenhower’s top tax rate on the wealthiest 0.1% Americans to 91 percent again!


Reading the history within this time period, one has to agree that the Golden Age for America’s middle-class AND the economy was under Republican President Eisenhower, when the top tax rate reached 91% for the wealthiest Americans! The economy was GREAT!


No more “Trickle Down” or “Bush Tax Cuts”, but let’s just get real for a change, because if these two entities actually worked over the years that they were implemented, we’d have no unemployment because everyone would have a job, as these propositions are based upon, get it? But, THEY HAVEN’T WORKED AS IS EVIDENCED!


Fellow Republicans, we should all join hands and write our Republican Congressmen and Senators and plead with them to restore a 91 percent tax upon the .01 percent! Then once again, we’ll all live in Nirvana!


Praise Jesus for giving me this enlightenment! Thank you Jesus.


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Right on Ted. Until our country gets back on it’s feet the top 1% should be taxed at a much higher rate. I believe in the 70s they were actually taxed at 94%. Tax high for now, until things turn around and then go down to a reasonable rate ie 40% or so for the upper 1%. Their money needs to put into the economy instead of stashed in their off shore accounts.


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Yes, except when taxes, fees and other financial impositions are put on “the rich” they just tend to leave to greener pastures.


Besides, who do you think runs the State and government in general? You won’t get Democrat or Republican politicians to pass any real measure, as they ARE the rich. They’ll make sure there are still loopholes for themselves and their puppetmasters.


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“except when taxes, fees and other financial impositions are put on “the rich” they just tend to leave to greener pastures”


Source?


Tax Flight Is a Myth


Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration


http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3556


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As far as leaving for greener pastures they already do this, even with lower taxes. They will only stay if there are incentives such as tariffs on goods made outside of the state, perhaps there could be incentives statewide such as payroll tax cuts, but this doesn’t mean that the wealthy shouldn’t pay their fair share. Both higher taxes and insentive to do business here can be achieved. BTW, although I like it my idea regarding tariffs might not be that great but there are ways to bring business to Ca that don’t involve letting them get off tax free.


The dems do not support the tax loopholes and the low to 0 tax rates on the upper 1%. Who’s purposing the higher taxes in this article,,it sure ain’t repubs? I dont’ know of one dem politician that is against raising taxes on the wealthy and I don’t know of one repub that favors it.


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Also, don’t forget about that time period. A much smaller percentage of people getting tax dollars in the form of handouts and pensions. So if you want the same for the rich lets do the same for the other side of the scale. It takes changes on both ends to keep a scale balanced.


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Source?


But you understand the most welfare is actually Corp welfare right?


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The federal budget has all the information. On a local level the Paso Robles school district spends +90% of their budget on salaries, benefits and pensions, this amount was recently quoted , and you think just by giving them more tax dollars they are going to fix this problem. Spending that much of ones budget on salaries, benefits and pensions is a big problem and unitl they fix that imbalance more tax money is not going to help. All the additional money from fixing corp welfare and taxing high income people and businesses is not going to help unitl you control the spending. Putting in controls to fix future pensions is not going to fix or change the fact that the current system is broken and needs fixed too. And get the uncontrolled money out of politics, from weathly donors, corporatations, PAC’s and unions. Until that is fixed their is little hope.


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kayaknut


Got it you make an assertion then say go find it, lol


“Paso Robles school district spends +90% of their budget on salaries, benefits and pensions”


AND WHERE DO YOU THINK THE MONEY SHOULD GO?


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Here’s an idea, how about the students and the structures


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Because salaries and benefits account for 91 percent of the district’s $54 million budget, that’s the most obvious place to cut costs, said Maureen Evans, vice president of School Services of California, a nonprofit hired by the school district to analyze the budget and offer recommendations.


Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/01/11/1903936/paso-robles-likely-to-target-teacher.html#storylink=cpy


Make sure you site exact details for everyone of your assertations JohnnyB,


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Pl, I ALWAYS SOURCE MY FACTS!


So you point to an outside hit-woman to point out that 1% of the school budget is employees associated? AND?


LOL


How about critical thinking? It’s NOT total expenditures. Because capital improvements (buildings) are NOT part of the budget


They are funded through state, federal or school bonds pdf


Want to try to back up your INITIAL PREMISE?


Or just stick with the strawman you brought up?


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I noticed some your your so called sources, no hiddden agendas there…….


I never said anything about capital improvements how about just fixing the current ones, and lets not forget bonds are just more taxes, of course not for us but for the next generations, so no reason not to spend their money now. Kinda how we got in the mess were in. Your simple solution is tax tax tax, good luck with that. Let’s not fix any current problems just create new ones


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kayaknut


Hidden agenda’s? You mean like the Anti tax Foundation? Or Heritage has none?


Either prove them wrong, or stop with the ad homs!


Gawd really? You don’t understand that the budget is 91% employee costs BECAUSE capital improvements come from OTHER BUDGETS (State/federal/bonds)?


How “we” got in this situation in 30+ years of CONservatives/Repuglithans starving the beast, lower taxing AND increasing spending to create this mess!


If you listened to TeaTards, you’d think the US was collecting 18%-20% of US GDP like we did under Ronnie Raygun when he tripled US debt, instead of the less than 15% under Obama in 2010!


You’re correct though, Repuglithans don’t want to fix ANYTHING, they just want MORE tax cuts!


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LOL! JonnyB got b!tchsmacked yet again… he gets so lively when repeatedly proven wrong… Good job, K. Stick to you guns and the truth.


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Brother Ted, i admire your resolute conservative tendencies to return to tradition, but I regret to inform that your plan will not work. not today.

As has been offered by another post here ..IF the rich were required to pay sufficient ‘fair’ taxes to make the whole of civilization run efficiently and as it should; they ( the rich ) would just pack up and leave in a pout. Just like they now ship off their unearned profits to some PO Box in Third World stinkholes and island dictatorships to evade domestic taxes and avoid being real citizens.

The 1% simply don’t care for you, me, and the rest of God’s creation.


So, what do we do ? What CAN we do ?


We have to be TRUE Christians …and fortunately we have excellent models available to emulate.

No, I am not talking about going back to the prophets. We are not a land of wandering nomads or a band of evangelists looking for a bunk and dinner .

We have to be modern KNIGHTS of CHRISTIAN Businessmen, as portayed in various films as the Corleone family. Although romanticised and ‘Hollywoodized’, these tales are based on FACT.


Remember the scene where the corrupt landlord was going to throw out the poor widow from her apartment, simply because she had a cat ? Don Vito was at first reasonable with the man, and the landlord acted just like these rich punks today ! Then, the landlord found out who he had been talking with, and not only did the poor widow get to keep her cat, he actually reduced her rent !


Or recall how Vito attended to the “Black Hand” that was extorting money from all of the hard working people in the ghetto, so that he could smoke big cigars and strut around in a white suit and Panama hat !


Or the ostentatious and bigoted movie producer with his horse.


We deal with the rich by making them an offer they can’t refuse !


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Remember the scene where the corrupt landlord was going to throw out the poor widow from her apartment, simply because she had a cat ? Don Vito was at first reasonable with the man, and the landlord acted just like these rich punks today ! Then, the landlord found out who he had been talking with, and not only did the poor widow get to keep her cat, he actually reduced her rent !

Or recall how Vito attended to the “Black Hand” that was extorting money from all of the hard working people in the ghetto, so that he could smoke big cigars and strut around in a white suit and Panama hat !

Or the ostentatious and bigoted movie producer with his horse.

We deal with the rich by making them an offer they can’t refuse !

________________


Even though the super-duper rich should pay more etc., your ‘evidence’ is (as usual) simply knocking down Hollywood strawmen. And your last sentence proves, yet again, that Leftists are the true Fascists..


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Mussolini started out as a Leftist/Socialist. Becoming a fascist was a natural progression for him.


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You can repeat this until you are blue Gim; the, command-and-control, central-statist Leftists will never get it or, more likely, they know it well and it is their true end-goal even as they attempt to inoculate themselves by painting the ‘fascist/Nazi’ label on any opposition, esp. the con/libertarians.


Except for the overt and tacit complicity of the media and education industries, they would have been laughed out of polite society generations ago…


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Gawd your revisionist history is repulsive :(


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follow the money


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LOL, I love watching all the pawns heads explode at the thought of forcing the wealthy to be patriots and to pay their fair share of maintence for our state so not just the middle class are paying for our roads, schools etc..


I always enjoy watching Jon Stewart, really the best way to get the news. He showed this woman from an old movie crying and going berserk as if it’s going to be the end of the world. That’s how the pawns act when it’s suggest that we go back to the Clinton era of taxing. Lord help us, dear God please lets not go back to when the economy was good and wealthy paid their fair share in taxes like they did back in the 60s-90s ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!! It will be okay pawns, your masters will get by, they might have to rough it for a while, they might have to pay taxes instead of hoarding their millions in the bank, they might have spend some of it but I promise that they will still be around to lead you by your noses.


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Liberals want to kill individual incentive in order to kill Capitalism, and “give to each (equally) according to their ability”, regardless of their work ethic.


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Sure, that’s what “liberals” want. *shaking head”


Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich.


“We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share,” he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, “sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that’s crazy.”


The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan.


How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich


The inside story of how the Republicans abandoned the poor and the middle class to pursue their relentless agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109#ixzz1nK5zA6an


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A tax on very high incomes sounds great.

The problem is when Maryland tried it a few years ago it was a disaster.

Maryland put in force a 5% tax on earned income over 1 million dollars as a way to help the state cover their surplus.

The income to the state from people making over 1 million dollars was considerably less as high earning voted with their feet and left the state.

Even worse in several cases they moved their business with them.

Maryland had to stop the tax.

California is possibly the least business friendly state so this could easily be a disaster.

To increase income to the state make it more business friendly.


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Oh so true Sally. Look at the 90’s and 2000’s when California lost a lot of population to Nevada, Idaho, Arizona. We also lost a lot of business in that time. I know a few people that where long time in this area (whole life, folks raised here to) that now reside in Idaho and Nevada. And what are we left with? A lot of low paying jobs and people on welfare.


The thing that KILLS me about liberals is they think you can just tax and tax and tax business and people and what are they going to do?? Well look at the business and people that where here in the 80’s and aren’t now. Look at how California was in the 80’s and now. Hmm. any correlation? I think so.


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Cali lost population in the 1990’s-2000’s? And I thought Cali grew and lead the nation in VC and the “Internet age”?


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Tax Flight Is a Myth


Higher State Taxes Bring More Revenue, Not More Migration

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3556


Are the Millionaires Really Leaving?


According to a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the decrease in Maryland millionaire tax returns had less to do with millionaires leaving the state and more to do with the recession’s effect on their income

http://itepnet.org/state_reports/maryland.php


Who says Cali’ is “Biz unfriendly”? Oh those groups that say Cali isn’t racing to the bottom fast enough like Texas, who is at or near the top with min wage jobs, percentage of population in poverty, absolute numbers of people on food stamps (even though Cali has 50% more people), uninsured, high school dropouts, etc


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Seems like a no-brainer. The rich are outvoted by those who want their money. Why stop at $35 million, why don’t we take ALL their money?


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“the shift in income inequality over the last three decades is the equivalent of moving $1.1 trillion of income from the 99 percent to the top 1 percent every single year. This has led to a severe shrinking of the middle class”


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/12/403324/krueger-income-inequality-envy/


From 1945-1980 the bottom 90% of US grew our incomes by 75%. Next 28 years? 1%


From 1945-1980 the top 1% RECEIVED 6%-9% of ALL US income. By 2007 they TOOK 23%.


The pie only has 100% no matter how large it gets!


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racket,


The wealthy .01 percent are not out voted when the easily hacked Diebold voting machine is within their disctrict!


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