Too damn high
You know, I'm not in favor of rent control, and I think the existence of rent control and stabilization has raised the rent on non-regulated apartments somewhat but I have to question statements like this. Many, if not most, of the people working low wage jobs **do** live within the city limits. They don't live on the Upper East Side, true, but they also don't live in the suburbs and commute in to work at the dollar store.
I just looked at real estate ads for my part of Queens- one bedrooms are about $1000, two bedrooms are about $1200 and three bedrooms are around $1600. Now, I don’t know how those rents compare to rents nationwide, but the people I know don’t live in the suburbs because it’s cheaper. It’s really not- the commute is expensive as well as time consuming , they all seem to pay property taxes in the $12,000-$15000 range, plus the mortgage , maintenance etc. They live in the suburbs because they want to live in the suburbs and they wouldn’t move into the city no matter how low the rent was.
(BTW the commuter tax in NYC was eliminated in 1999, and it will most likely never be reinstated because most state legislators do not represent NYC. The OP may be thinking of the MTA tax, which is a .34 payroll tax on employers in NYC and 7 suburban counties served by the MTA)
It’s absolutely a starter. Buyers of bonds like to imagine that there will be a reliable revenue stream to pay them off. The increased risk of losing 1/3 of city revenue means a higher cost to the city to issue bonds.
Hell no, it wouldn’t. People are not going to vote to increase their taxes, guaranteed, especially when they think they are taxed too much (property taxes, sales taxes, etc) already. You can sometimes get a vote for a small millage increase to support library or police/fire services, but a blanket 2.5% tax on the income of every resident. Hell no. If they can do without it in Chicago, they can do without it in the metro Detroit area.
Probably correct, but it also acts as a disincentive for labor relocating to the city. So you have a catch-22, but the people with choices, that is the businesses, are not going to move first. The city has to come up with an alternate funding stream first (also, they have to show that the mayonr and city council are not a bunch of dipshit morons, which has been a challenge here). Drop the tax and the businesses will relocate, and you will eventually build up the base again. But taking the opposite tactic of raising the tax which encourages businesses to leave, so you have to raise the tax some more, is just going to kill the city.
No, but some other municipalities I have lived or worked in have considered it, and I have campaigned against it in those instances.
How are they going to “downsize their city”? Give the unwanted land to someone else? It’s unwnted land for a reason. They need to encourage people to develop it, and that’s not going to happen when there is ripe, tax-free land in other surounding cities.
Yes, plenty of businesses that people think of as located in “Detroit” are really located in cities like Dearborn (Ford Motor Company), Auburn Hills (Chrysler), Ann Arbor (Google – yes not their main offices but they do have offices here) and Southfield (Microsoft Heartland District Offices).
I oppose CIT’s (city income taxes) for several reasons:
- They’re the lazy man’s way out. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that it’s an excuse to ignore the important picture. Big cities (who levy these) are always looking for more taxes, but they’re in the bad habit of ignoring good administration and good policies. Good government is hard - raising taxes may or may not be, particularly when it falls on people who can’t vote for you.
Let me explain: Many cities in much of the US have slowly been undercutting their own tax bases. New York has been the absolute worst at this, ultimately driving out the entire Middle Class for the sake of Rent Control (despite the kind-seeming idea, it’s nightmarishly cruel). But they arne’t the only ones. Cities in America have been cutting their own throats. There are people who do want to live in cities. I have no problem with letting them, but you’ll have to embrace some different ideas to make them livable. Mass Transit is nice, but it’s sorta the last, highly dependent step, and too many people think that it’s the very first. Mass Transit is visible; but policy is invisiblebut far more important.
Make your city such that people want to live there. And they will.
- I prefer modest service/retail/restaurant taxes. Cities offer a lot of services, and they tend to be quite heavy on the ground. A small tax here will hit tourists, commuters, and residents - but nobody too terribly hard. Plus, it means that people who stay briefly also pay relatively little, while those who use lots of city services tend to pay proportionately.
Almost every time I go into Minneapolis, (I live about 5 miles outside) I’m spending money. Restaurants, shows, stores, parking fees…
So I’m already paying taxes, in the form of sales tax.
Why should I also pay a fee/tax if my job also happens to be downtown? Really? Upto 3.5% for the privilage of having a job downtown?
Do cities really think that the people who work in them aren’t already paying taxes there?
Of course they know who pays taxes - they know exactly what their revenue streams are. But they have to either get the money from somewhere, or cut city services. So you, as a city service user, are going to pay somehow. All eliminating the earnings tax means is higher sales taxes, or higher property taxes, or higher fees for city services. All of these have downsides, and balancing them is something better left to professionals rather than referenda, IMO.
It’s not that uncommon as a revenue stream for large cities - Chicago, NYC, KC, STL, San Fran, Philly, Pitt, Denver, Cleveland, Cinci, Columbus, Portland, B-More, Indy, and Detroit, from the list I could find.
I think rent control is horrible but I don’t think it ruins cities. NYC has had rent control my entire life and they seem to be doing alright. Living in Manhattan is not some god given right but NYC acting like it is doesn’t seem to have hurt it very much…
St. Louis is in a bad position when it comes to tax revenues, and that situation does not match up to a lot of assumptions I’ve seen here. For example, they don’t have the tax base of a Chicago, yet their infrastructure costs aren’t too much lower than Chicago’s. They don’t have any significant amount of retail sales, so sales tax doesn’t help.
It is a very bad set up, any way you look at it:
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St. Louis is divided into St. Louis City and St. Louis County, two distinct entities. The earnings tax is only on the City… because the County has a huge tax base and revenue. The City has minimal industry and residents – small tax base. (… probably because of the earnings tax, in part.)
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Urban blight describes large portions of St. Louis city. Most of the industries that used to be around have fled for greener pastures that offered tax incentives. There is some effort to bring residents into the city – such as the “loft district” – but there aren’t many amenities for residents (groceries are still an issue, and MetroLink isn’t remotely the equal of the El or MARTA or others).
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Almost no retail. Seriously, there is basically no shopping available in St. Louis City – everyone goes to the County (which gets the sales tax, of course).
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The City has huge costs for police and other services, and a really underfunded and underperforming school system. And the infrastructure is aging. All of which adds up to “needs more revenue”.
So the City needs the earnings tax, or it’ll just collapse (and, may now do so if/when the earnings tax is voted down). Ironically, the earnings tax is a disincentive for some of the things that might make the earnings tax unneeded – more residents or more businesses moving into the City.
Logically, the solution would be to merge the City with the County – use the County’s tax base to pay for the costs that the City has for and which the county residents make use of and benefit from. However, the county residents are strongly opposed to that idea, so it won’t happen.
As someone who used to pay the city earnings tax, I understand why it’s there, and supported it continuing… but no longer work in the city, so I have no dog in this fight.
(slight digression) Is it true that the Mo. state gov’t has been sabotaging the city of St Louis for years, interfering in the city administration & so forth?
The state government has interferred in the city. But, of course, the city administration has been pretty messed up. Mind you, the state government hasn’t been much better, so it’s all a bit Pot v Kettle. Frankly, I’ve never been able to sort out the accusations and counter-accusations.
No, but you pay municipal earnings taxes based on where you work. If you work 95% of the time at home (not in the municipality), I don’t see how the municipality can claim that you earn 100% of your money within their borders.
At best, they can lay claim to the 5% of the time you go into the office.
No, you pay the earnings tax based on where your employer is located, not the location where you do the work for them. It is based on where you are paid from.
When I worked at Monsanto’s plant in St. Louis, I got assessed the earnings tax when I worked several months at the HQ in the county (I was being paid in the city). Conversely, R&D folks from HQ didn’t pay earnings tax while working at the plant (they were being paid in the county).