[QUOTE=brazil84]
And the US isn’t going to solve its social problems by tweaking its tax structure to be more like that of Japan.
[/QUOTE]
Not directly, no. But almost anything the U.S. can do (and there is a great deal) to solve its social problems is going to cost the government money, and it has to come from somewhere.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
No, that’s just what I want
[/QUOTE]
You want the state to continue spending money on trivial fripperies, and raise taxes rather than tighten its belt?
Have fun selling that concept.
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
You want the state to continue spending money on trivial fripperies, and raise taxes rather than tighten its belt?
Have fun selling that concept.
[/QUOTE]
No, I want the state to adopt an income tax to make up for cuts in the property tax to pay for things we’ve already got, which are not “fripperies” (a high-speed-rail system would be, perhaps, but by no means “trivial”).
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
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]
Fundamentally, I don’t see much of a difference. If you pay more income taxes, you have less money to pay property taxes.
So maybe the solution is to keep property taxes where they are.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Not directly, no. But almost anything the U.S. can do (and there is a great deal) to solve its social problems is going to cost the government money, and it has to come from somewhere.
[/QUOTE]
What specifically could Florida (or the U.S.) spend money on to solve social problems, in your view?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
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]
Like what? The high-speed rail was never going to happen, it was a dead duck when they passed it and a dead duck when they removed it, and it wouldn’t be worth even .25% of my income to me, let alone 5%. Other than that, all the public services I currently enjoy were there ten years ago, most of them twenty years ago. Same libraries, same museums, same firehouses, same police stations, same hospitals, same water system. The orchestra went bankrupt like 3 years ago and no one complained. So what’s going to be cut? The services weren’t much to begin with because we didn’t have any money.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, theoretically. But I look out my office right now and I can see the condos across the way. Gorgeous building, twoish years old…empty. No furniture in alot of units. They’re owned but no one lives there. People invested before the bubble burst and now they can’t unload it. So lots of owners here are glad to cut a deal just to keep them out of foreclosure. If I lived somewhere and they held me up for a tax increase, I’d tell them to eat it and move.
I have a gorgeous 2/2 all to myself, stone tile and old hardwood mix floor, nice balcony, new appliances. I haven’t seen an increase in two years and I don’t expect one anytime soon. This isn’t Manhattan; we overbuilt by far and they’re aren’t nearly enough tenants to go around.
BrainGlutton, the people crying the loudest about property taxes are (to some significant extent) those who brought the problem upon themselves.
As mentioned upthread, there is a disparity between assessed valuation, actual value, and taxable value. Actual value refers to current market. Assessed value relates to some past or historic market. Taxable value is some portion of the asessed value. And (homestead exemptions aside) the taxable value of a residence is more likely to be only a small fraction of the actual value.
Say you purchased a home for $100,000 in 1997. Your actual value, assessed value, and taxable value were all then set as $100,000 (the sale price) and you paid the appropriate property taxes.
Your property though appreciated significantly, especially during the “bubble”, and by 2007 (well, 2006, before the “pop”) could have been sold for perhaps $500,000. Nothing unusual here, that’s what Florida was like the past decade. But during that time, the assessed value, therefore the taxable value, was capped and could by law increase no more than 3% a year. You would still be paying taxes on little more than the original $100,000 value. And the actual tax rate (the millage rate) has also hardly increased at all during this time. So your taxes, far from running wildly away into the stratosphere, remain pretty rock bottom. As long as you still live in that house.
If though you chose to sell your highly appreciated home for that $500,000 and then buy a neighboring highly appreciated home for somewhere near that same figure, your values (all three) get re-set to the sale price. And your taxes did indeed increase dramatically. Even though this “new” house is virtually indistinguishable from your “old” house. You took the “profit”-- and then got screwed on the new taxes. Recently, so many people have “taken the profit” that their combined voices have reached the state legislature.
Businesses, on the other hand, never had that “cap” on annual increases in valuation. Most commercial properties are taxed at pretty close to a realistic market valuation. Commercial property owners have been screaming, to zero effect, for years. The recent “bubble” has affected virtually every business property owner, some of them devastatingly. This has softened Florida’s already pretty soft economy even more. And since those business owners are also residents, and many of them “took the profit” and traded up their homes when the market was hot, they’re screwed both ways. Businesses are visibly in trouble here.
Still, given the already transient nature of so many Floridians and their ability to avoid income taxes by the expedient of managing their residence duration, and given the softness of the economy historically and presently for those of us who live here full time, I’m not persuaded that an income tax would be of general benefit.
Sales tax: Can hurt the poor. Drives a lot of business to the web (pay shipping vs. sales tax). Can push business over state lines (not as much of an issue for Florida). Can reduce consumption (a good thing to some). Could hurt tourism? How much of Florida’s taxes come from visitors?
Property Tax: Can hurt the retired/elderly whose retirement income does not scale with the annual increase in appraisel values.
Income Tax: The easiest to abuse, as loopholes are put into it over time to encourage certain types of income.
With all of that, I have long supported flat taxes for this one reason. “If we want to build a high speed train, we will need to raise the state tax rate from 5% to 5.25%.” If not, we get a situation (like here in CA) where people pay for pet projects by taxing others (smokers & very high incomes). People should vote on projects by knowing how much they will have to pay for it.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
The U.S. is already further along that path than any other industrial democracy
[/QUOTE]
How do you figure this to be true? What’s your measurement?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
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.
[/QUOTE]
BG, I think that cite is a bit exaggeratedFrom wiki
There was already a downward trend pre-1964. And while you can attribute some of it to the War on Poverty, I think that people moving from agriculture into factory labor was still a relevant factor at that point.
[QUOTE=Algher]
Income Tax: The easiest to abuse, as loopholes are put into it over time to encourage certain types of income.
[/quote]
I don’t really see that an income tax is more vulnerable to loopholes etc. In Florida, part of the problem with the property tax is the huge host of exemptions, special cases and loopholes that have been added to it (read the article linked in the OP for examples). Indeed I suspect that of the two, property taxes are more vulnerable to this sort of thing, as legislatures are forced to exempt those for whom too large a chunk of their wealth is in the property they own to allow them to pay the tax (family farms, first time home buyers, people whose property has been reappraised upwards from when they bought it,etc.). A progressive income tax already has considerations for those less able to pay built in (of course, income taxes still attract lots of extra complications as well, but I don’t think they necessarily will in the same ways property tax does.)
I know return you to your scheduled debate about the Johnson Administration, or whatever this thread is about now.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
How do you figure this to be true? What’s your measurement?
[/QUOTE]
See post #23 (a most excellent number). But, really, can you name a counterexample? What other industrial democracy is more pro-business or economic-libertarian or tax-averse than the U.S.?
[QUOTE=Paladud]
BG, I think that cite is a bit exaggeratedFrom wiki
[/QUOTE]
Linky no worky.
The local governments here are out of control. Their revenues from property taxes have, on average, TRIPLED since the year 2000, and saying that we need to cut these taxes have them wailing in the streets, complaining that a 5 percent cut in property taxes will cause garbage to pile up, no police, and no fire service.
Local governments are the most wasteful.
I personally liked the first proposal that was introduced. We get an 8.5% sales tax in return for a constitutional amendment to ELIMINATE ALL PROPERTY TAXES on homesteaded property. It would have provided almost equal revenue, while making Florida the lowest taxed state in the nation.
But my GOP friends, who control the legislature, didn’t like that enough…
There’s a reason Governor Martinez was only a one-time governor. I was in college, and he put forth a drive to tax services, hairdressers, attorneys, landscapers, that sort of thing. It amounted to an income tax, which, IIRC, is prohibited by the state constitution.
You’re…kidding, right? Ever heard of a little thing called Disney World? No? How about Sea World, Universal Studios, hell, historic St. Augustine, fun Key West, natural Everglades and lovely Sarasota? Any of these ring a bell?
FWIW, I am in favor of a national sales tax, as outlined here. I don’t want to hijack this, but no, Florida should never have a state income tax.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
There’s a reason Governor Martinez was only a one-time governor. I was in college, and he put forth a drive to tax services, hairdressers, attorneys, landscapers, that sort of thing. It amounted to an income tax, which, IIRC, is prohibited by the state constitution.
[/quote]
But no court ever held the sales tax on services unconstitutional as an income tax; it failed for political reasons (all the lawyers were against it for obvious reasons, and several other groups with clout). An income tax, by definition, would fall on all earners of income whether they work in a service-provision field or not. A sales tax on services would simply be closing what amounts to a great big loophole in the sales-tax system.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
You’re…kidding, right? Ever heard of a little thing called Disney World? No? How about Sea World, Universal Studios, hell, historic St. Augustine, fun Key West, natural Everglades and lovely Sarasota? Any of these ring a bell?
[/quote]
Of course, a state income tax, unlike sales tax, would not fall on tourists, therefore would not discourage them from coming here.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
FWIW, I am in favor of a national sales tax, as outlined here. I don’t want to hijack this, but no, Florida should never have a state income tax.
[/QUOTE]
Arguing for a sales tax as superior to an income tax is not a hijack, it is the essence of this debate. But only if you actually do argue for it, and simple asservation is not argument. Why should Florida never have a state income tax?
[QUOTE=ivylass]
There’s a reason Governor Martinez was only a one-time governor. I was in college, and he put forth a drive to tax services, hairdressers, attorneys, landscapers, that sort of thing. It amounted to an income tax, which, IIRC, is prohibited by the state constitution.
You’re…kidding, right? Ever heard of a little thing called Disney World? No? How about Sea World, Universal Studios, hell, historic St. Augustine, fun Key West, natural Everglades and lovely Sarasota? Any of these ring a bell?
FWIW, I am in favor of a national sales tax, as outlined here. I don’t want to hijack this, but no, Florida should never have a state income tax.
[/QUOTE]
I am NOT kidding - I was honestly wondering what percent of the state’s budget could be tied to taxes paid for by tourists. The follow-up question would be how elastic is the demand for Florida’s tourist business? If taxes targeting tourists (hotel taxes are the classic) were cranked up, how much business would Florida lose?
In Laguna Beach, after the mudslides last year, they cranked up the sales taxes. The arguement was that the city could raise the money to pay for damages, and that the vast majority would be paid by tourists to Laguna Beach and not by residents.
[QUOTE=Algher]
I am NOT kidding - I was honestly wondering what percent of the state’s budget could be tied to taxes paid for by tourists.
[/quote]
According to [url=]this, Florid has a gross state product of $491 billion (2001), a state budget of $64.7 billion (2005-2006), and “The tourism industry has an economic impact of $57 billion on Florida’s economy.” Nothing about the amount of state revenue attributable to tourism, however.
[QUOTE=Algher]
The follow-up question would be how elastic is the demand for Florida’s tourist business?
[/QUOTE]
No figures, but I recall the state economy and budget took a big hit after 9/11/01, owing to a shortage of visiting tourists.
Sorry, here’s the link.
Update: In next Tuesday’s primary, Floridians will also get to vote on Amendment One.
