Should Florida have a state income tax?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]
Just because the government implemented something and labeled it “public”, doesn’t make it a good thing to keep around. They need to look at their balance sheet and cut the fat. And if that means Floridians need to accept that they cannot drink lattes anymore, so be it.
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Or, we could implement a state income tax and continue to drink lattes. Reductions in service must be decided on a case-by-case basis, but tax policy is a more broad and all-encompassing question. In short, what’s wrong with having a state income tax to make up for the apparently impending shortfall in property-tax revenue?

42

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
That sailed over my head – it seems to assume that “latte factor” is a familiar cultural meme, but I’ve never heard/read the phrase before. Cite? Backstory? Explanation?
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It was pretty much answered in my question:

Basically, the latte factor is taking into account how much one spends on the unnecessary. Think about the guy that makes 100k per year and is always broke, yet he goes to Starbucks 12 times a week.

http://www.finishrich.com/free_resources/fr_lattefactor.php

I don’t agree to taxing people to fulfill an unnecessary “want”.

Well, just because there’s a grassroots tax revolt, doesn’t mean that the government will go through with it. Since when has the government done what the people wanted? Personally, I think a balance can be found with property tax and a state income tax. But the fat needs to be cut first. There must be some government services in Flordia that are just huge monkeys on the back of the state at the expense of you and help very little for the public. Get rid of those, and you may find that nothing needs to be done to the taxes and keep the status quo. There’s no point in getting a second job to support a cable tv habbit. Which it seems, is what Florida wants to do. They want the extra income because their bills are piling up, but they still want to watch Sex in the City and drink lattes. :dubious:

Ok, enough about lattes.

43

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]
There must be some government services in Flordia that are just huge monkeys on the back of the state at the expense of you and help very little for the public.
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No doubt. But far fewer such monkeys than in other states, I assure you, owing to our tax-averse culture. No obvious examples come to mind. Can you think of any? Specific to Florida, that is.

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]
Which it seems, is what Florida wants to do. They want the extra income because their bills are piling up, but they still want to watch Sex in the City and drink lattes. :dubious:
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No, that’s just what I want, and many others, but the general political culture here is still tax-averse, and hostile to the idea of a state income tax. But, as noted in the OP, this thread is about the desirability, not the political viability, of the idea.

44

I suppose I cannot.

45

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]
There must be some government services in Flordia that are just huge monkeys on the back of the state at the expense of you and help very little for the public.
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Must there be? Certainly all gov’ts have some amount of wasteful spending, but I’m always suspicious of claims that are billions of dollars of waste flying out the door that can be cut so that we won’t have to raise taxes or cut any programs that people care about. It sounds too much like a free lunch.

Aside: I remember Governor Schwarzenegger made a similar claim about the CA budget when he was first elected. He would cut billions out of the budget in wasteful spending, so that taxes wouldn’t have to be raised and the state wouldn’t have to borrow money to meet the shortfall. Does anyone know how that turned out (Not a rhetorical question, I don’t know the answer).

46

[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
No government EVER thinks it has enough revenue, and they will lie, cheat, and steal to get it - literally. Income taxes inevitably get pushed up year after year, just as expenditures do.

Income taxes are enablers. Every year the government pretty much will try to jack them up a seemingly tiny bit. And every year, they’ll trot out the old lies about “termporary increases,” “fixing the loopholes,” and my personal favorite “making the wealthy pay their fair share.”
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During your favorite decade, the '20s, the top marginal tax rate started out at 73% (for incomes over $1million) and ended the decade at 24% on incomes over $100,000. We then sailed immdeiately into the greatest depression ever. During the 30’s and the depression the tax rate shot up to 79% on incomes over $5million and in the war years of the 40’s the top rate was 94% on incomes over $200,000. In the prosperous 50’s, and in fact, until 1963, the top tax rate was 91% over $400,000 and amazingly we seemed to be doing OK. With a couple of slight hiccups it fell to 70% on incomes over approx. $200,000 and remained there until 1982 when it fell to 50% on incomes over $82,500. Do you think we were becoming more or less prosperous as the tax rate fell remarkably? The tax rate fell again in 1987 to 38.5% and again in 1988 to 28.5% on incomes around $30,000. Under Clinton as we were reducing the national debt the tax went back up to 39.6% on incomes over $250,000 (increasing with inflation and basically remained there until Bush lowered it to 35% (now on incomes over $350,000 or so) as the national debt approaches 11 digits. Are we feeling more or less confident?

In short, (too late for that eh) there sems to be little correlation between skyrocketing marginal tax rates and prosperity. It also seems as if paying for things like World war II, as the costs are being incurred is an idea whose time has come and gone.

I would think that an income tax, in Florida, and I do not live there, is a bad idea, simply because so few of its residents are actually employed (on a percentage basis) and it seems unfair to lure retirees to the state and then tax them on retirement income that was not earned there. Perhaps a small tax on retirement income and a graduated income tax with rebates for anyone earning below a certain threshhold. Whatever is decided it seems obvious that Florida cannot continue to encourage unlimited growth without some kind of plan to pay for it.

47

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Still, California and New York seem to have no lack of rich people.
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I would guess that a lot of those rich people derive their income from work they do in New York and California and therefore cannot flee the sate. Florida is a different story. Lots of rich people in Florida could easily take their income elsewhere.

Ok, so maybe a better solution would be to leave the current tax structure in place!

Logically, this should roughly balance out the increase in tax revenue, no?

48

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]

Each approach to the social contract has its pluses and minuses, but on balance America has made a very bad bargain for itself.
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I think that a lot of those problems - poverty, teen pregnancy, HIV infection, murder - would exist in the USA more than other industrialized nations no matter what sort of tax structure we adopted.

Since we are looking at the state level, I would point out that murder is not much of a problem in New Hampshire even though there is no state income tax or state sales tax. Is that because of their economic policy? No, it’s because New Hampshire is 98% white.

Look, I believe that income taxes should be more progressive (at the federal level not the state level). But we shouldn’t kid ourselves that this sort of change will turn the US into Iceland or Japan. It ain’t gonna happen.

49

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Ok, so maybe a better solution would be to leave the current tax structure in place!
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Perhaps, but the objections to it and the grounds for those objections aren’t going away.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Logically, this should roughly balance out the increase in tax revenue, no?
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Yes, I suppose it has – what’s your point?

50

[QUOTE=brazil84]
I think that a lot of those problems - poverty, teen pregnancy, HIV infection, murder - would exist in the USA more than other industrialized nations no matter what sort of tax structure we adopted.
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Why? Are we really such a sick, dysfunctional culture?

51

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Perhaps, but the objections to it and the grounds for those objections aren’t going away.
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And the objections to a state income tax aren’t going away either.

The point is that there may not be the sort of crisis you seem to be describing.

52

[QUOTE=brazil84]

I would point out that murder is not much of a problem in New Hampshire even though there is no state income tax or state sales tax. Is that because of their economic policy? No, it’s because New Hampshire is 98% white.

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And less than 1% black. However states that rank even lower in Black population rank higher in murder rates such as Montana, Vermont, Idaho and Utah as do states such as South Dakota and others with roughly the same proportion of Blacks. Is it really the tax policy of the state or the race of the inhabitant that is the major factor in the murder rate or is it actually something else entirely? Like maybe educational levels, population density, unemployment rates or something else?

53

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Why? Are we really such a sick, dysfunctional culture?
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In a way. yes. Social problems cannot be fixed by throwing money at them. If they could we would have won the “War on Poverty” that we’ve been throwing money at for 43 years.

54

I’m not going to say that there is never going to be a Florida state income tax. But I’ll be very surprised if it happens in my lifetime. It’s been awhile since I studied it but I’m pretty sure it can only happen by a straight vote of the people, who are never going to do it. The problem is that “we the people” aren’t really lacking anything. More museums and culture would be nice but not so nice that I’m going to part with 5% of my income. Wouldn’t mind better education but that’s what Lotto was supposed to pay for, and I’m against giving those corrupt fuckers another dime. Healthcare is an expensive gouge, but it’s a gouge anywhere and no one believes that will change. Crime isn’t rampant, the cities are functional.

The gov rode the property bubble and now it’s burst. Tough luck. They should face reality and realize that no one with half a brain is going to pay what could buy them a decent villa in the Greek Isles, or a huge beach estate in the DR, to live on a rim of hardened Florida swampland. Or they ignore it and continue to grow the class of dedicated renters (like me) who don’t pay into their system and have no intention of getting ripped off just so they can die penniless in sofla. But they won’t get their income tax.

55

[QUOTE=denquixote]
And less than 1% black. However states that rank even lower in Black population rank higher in murder rates such as Montana, Vermont, Idaho and Utah as do states such as South Dakota and others with roughly the same proportion of Blacks.
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I’m not sure what your point is. There are a few states that are 95%+ white. As far as I know, they all have low crime rates. There are a few states that have large black and Hispanic populations. As far as I know, they have higher crime rates.

Do other factors affect crime? Probably. My only point is that places like DC aren’t going to solve their crime problems by adjusting property and income tax rates to be more similar to those of New Hampshire. And the US isn’t going to solve its social problems by tweaking its tax structure to be more like that of Japan.

56

[QUOTE=brazil84]
I’m not sure what your point is. There are a few states that are 95%+ white. As far as I know, they all have low crime rates. There are a few states that have large black and Hispanic populations. As far as I know, they have higher crime rates.

Do other factors affect crime? Probably. My only point is that places like DC aren’t going to solve their crime problems by adjusting property and income tax rates to be more similar to those of New Hampshire. And the US isn’t going to solve its social problems by tweaking its tax structure to be more like that of Japan.
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Well I could not agree more that the income tax has little to do with crime and if that is your point we are in agreement. It was just the introduction of the race issue as a factor that seemed to place the responsibility for the high murder rate on people of color that threw me off.

57

[QUOTE=denquixote]
Well I could not agree more that the income tax has little to do with crime and if that is your point we are in agreement. It was just the introduction of the race issue as a factor that seemed to place the responsibility for the high murder rate on people of color that threw me off.
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Another thread, Highlander!

58

[QUOTE=brazil84]
And the objections to a state income tax aren’t going away either.
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The objections to state income tax are cultural, therefore negotiable; a progressively graduated tax is relatively easy for the population to bear. But the objections to our present level of property taxes are based on taxpayers actually feeling the pinch. It’s one thing to have a bit less in your paycheck each week and a slightly larger deduction on the stub; it’s quite another to have to come up with a certain amount of cash for the county or have a lien put on your property.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
The point is that there may not be the sort of crisis you seem to be describing.
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You don’t seem to understand. The local-government financial crisis does not exist yet, but will exist as soon as the tax protestors win any major reductions. The local governments understand that perfectly well, which is why they’ve frozen their hiring and started to study (and furiously argue over) where they can make cuts to their budgets.

59

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
In a way. yes. Social problems cannot be fixed by throwing money at them. If they could we would have won the “War on Poverty” that we’ve been throwing money at for 43 years.
[/QUOTE]

The War on Poverty lasted nine years at most, was never adequately funded due to the costs of the Vietnam War, and did nevertheless achieve some results.

60

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
I’m not going to say that there is never going to be a Florida state income tax. But I’ll be very surprised if it happens in my lifetime. It’s been awhile since I studied it but I’m pretty sure it can only happen by a straight vote of the people . . .
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True.

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
The problem is that “we the people” aren’t really lacking anything. More museums and culture would be nice but not so nice that I’m going to part with 5% of my income.
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I would, for high-speed rail, but the problem is not really how to pay for new stuff, the problem is that if property taxes are reduced, “we the people” are facing severe cutbacks in public services we already enjoy.

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
Or they ignore it and continue to grow the class of dedicated renters (like me) who don’t pay into their system and have no intention of getting ripped off just so they can die penniless in sofla.
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If you’re a renter, you do pay into the system. Your landlord pays property tax, a cost of doing business he/she takes into account when deciding how much rent to charge you. If the assessed value of the building where you live goes up, the taxes go up, and your landlord will raise your rent the next time your lease is up for renewal.