Taxachusetts wrongly named? - Tax burden per US state

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You bastards also have no income tax .

That's a very regressive thing to do; eliminating the income tax and putting up a sky high sales tax. That just hits the poor super hard and lets the rich off the hook.

[JohnT]

But it did. It didn't get the name for no reason, Oerdin.

[Dinner]

I see Republicans label people with false names all the time. Let's see what the tax rates were in 1988 and see if it deserved to be called Taxachusetts or if it was jusr another Republican smear campaign.

[JohnT]

That's the best you can do?

Earliest reference to the word "Taxachusetts" that I can quickly dig up is from 1978 (before Reagan was Pres, btw): An article in Land and Liberty by Edith S. Capon.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That's a very regressive thing to do; eliminating the income tax and putting up a sky high sales tax. That just hits the poor super hard and lets the rich off the hook.

Eliminate means to get rid of. Tennessee has never had an income tax, though the legislature tried to get one passed. Unfortunetly there was a MASS protest and Tennessee was forced to not pass its income tax plan.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I see Republicans label people with false names all the time. Let's see what the tax rates were in 1988 and see if it deserved to be called Taxachusetts or if it was jusr another Republican smear campaign.

Another 10 minutes of research and the answers are revealed. Aren't you glad that I'm here to do your homework tonight?

State and Local Tax Burdens by Rank, Year, % of income taxes (Massachusetts):

Year - Rank - %
1970 - 18 - 10.8%
1971 - 9 - 11.0%
1972 - 5 - 11.8%
1973 - 4 - 11.8%
1974 - 3 - 12.0%
1975 - 3 - 12.1%
1976 - 3 - 12.3%
1977 - 3 - 12.4%
1978 - 2 - 12.1% (MA finally beat Alaska, but still falls behind NY (13.4%))
1979 - 2 - 11.5%

By the time Dukakis rolled into the nomination, MA had fallen to 31st place, partly because of a overall reduction in the burden (to 9.7% of income) partly because so many states had burdens greater than 9.7%.

So it's easy to see what happened: MA, never a low-tax state, raised the tax burden an additional 20% and some political wag coined the phrase. It was already in use by 1978, of course.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/statelocal.html

[Berzerker]

1 Maine 13.00%
2 New York 12.00%
3 Hawaii 11.50%
4 Rhode Island 11.40%
5 Wisconsin 11.40%
6 Vermont 11.10%
7 Ohio 11.00%
8 Nebraska 10.90%
9 Utah 10.90%
10 Minnesota 10.70%
11 Arkansas 10.50%
12 Connecticut 10.50%
13 West Virginia 10.50%
14 New Jersey 10.40%
15 Kansas 10.40% ******* Repukes run this state except for the guv's office, these numbers show there just ain't a difference between the 2 parties.

16 Louisiana 10.40%
17 Maryland 10.30%
18 Indiana 10.30%
19 Kentucky 10.30%
20 California 10.30%
21 Arizona 10.20%
22 Michigan 10.10%
23 Wyoming 10.10%
24 Washington 10.00%
25 Iowa 10.00%
26 Mississippi 10.00%
27 Idaho 10.00%
28 North Carolina 10.00%
29 New Mexico 9.90%
30 Illinois 9.80%
31 Georgia 9.80%
32 Massachusetts 9.80%
33 South Carolina 9.70%
34 Virginia 9.70%
35 Pennsylvania 9.70%
36 Oregon 9.60%
37 Colorado 9.50%
38 Nevada 9.50%
39 Montana 9.50%
40 Oklahoma 9.40%
41 Missouri 9.40%
42 North Dakota 9.40%
43 Texas 9.30%
44 Florida 9.20%
45 South Dakota 8.80%
46 Alabama 8.70%
47 Tennessee 8.30%
48 Delaware 8.00%
49 New Hampshire 7.40%
50 Alaska 6.40%

District of Columbia 12.20%

Source: Tax Foundation, 2005

[Dinner]

I have to agree with Berzerker the main difference isn't the tax issue. Instead the main difference is one party is inclined to help wealthy people and the other party is inclined to help common citizens. Neither can really be trusted but one one would benifet more people then the other. In any event we should be trying to keep Congress controlled by one party and the Presedentcy controlled by the other to prevent the worst abuses.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Odin
What I find disturbing is that people whine and ***** about thier income taxes, but don't whine about sales taxes and other flat taxes which often affect the people with less money more. Ignorance or right-wing brainwashing?

Neither. Income taxes cost me more than sales or property taxes, and force almost every entity to deal with onerous paperwork requirements as well as forcing individuals to reveal their personal financial information to the government. Additionally, wealthy scumbags can avoid paying most if not all of their income taxes through various schemes.

A well-designed sales tax exempts necessities like food, medicine and shelter so that poor people aren't unfairly burdened with taxes. And no paperwork wasting millions of man hours every year, or invasion of privacy either.

[Dinner]

Join the army and go to Iraq. You won't have to pay income taxes. Problem solved.

[Sikander]

These figures are interesting, but fall far short of telling the complete story. Two large factors which can skew the reslults a bit are how much the average person in the state earns and how dense the population is (insert red / blue joke as appropriate). Wealthy states can get away with lower tax rates and still generate as much or more as poorer states with higher rates. Higher population densities mean higher efficiencies of scale, resulting in more bang for your tax dollar. Western states often have to support a lot of road miles per capita for instance, while suffering from lower utilization rates for schools etc.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Join the army and go to Iraq. You won't have to pay income taxes. Problem solved.

When they raise the maximum age to 44 for enlistment I'll consider it.

[Starchild]

Would be very interesting to see the formula they used to see if we could calculate how different countries compare.

[TCO]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It's funny how people get all up in arms about income tax, but ignore all the rest.

Those people have income, commie.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Of the five worst tax states 4 are red and one blue while the lowest tax states are all blue. DOWN WITH THE HIGH TAX REPUBLICANS!

Did you get some TJ weed or something? Look at the article:

High tax:
Maine 13.00% - BLUE
New York 12.00% -BLUE
Hawaii 11.50% - BLUE
Rhode Island 11.40% - BLUE
Wisconsin 11.40% - BLUE

Bottom 5 tax heavy states:

Alaska 6.40% -RED
New Hampshire 7.40% -BLUE
Delaware 8.00% - BLUE
Tennessee 8.30% - RED
Alabama 8.70% - RED