New York Governor David Paterson is finding out the hard way.
The New York Post: So the state couldn’t have picked a worse time to enact yet another “temporary” income-tax hike — yet that’s precisely what Gov. Paterson and the Legislature agreed to do last spring, as part of the 2009-10 state budget. This hike has raised the top state rate to 8.97 percent on filers with taxable incomes of more than $500,000 (and to 7.85 percent for those starting as low as $200,000).
It hasn’t raised as much money as they hoped for, though: Revenue from New York’s tax hike on high earners was coming in $400 million below the governor’s original estimate for this year even before he announced Wednesday that income-tax collections in January had fallen another $1 billion short of projections — a result, in part, of investment banks’ decision to shift some bonuses from cash to stock options. Simply squeezing harder on higher earners wasn’t such a smart strategy, it seems.
On the face of it, New York state’s top rate is still much lower than the all-time high of 15.35 percent reached in the mid-’70s. But, thanks to changes in federal deductibility, the effective rate is actually higher now than it was 35 years ago.
Read the whole informative article to find out why soaking the rich is bad policy – at both the state and national level.
Come on folks, this is America. We’re supposed to strive for the “rags to riches” American dream. Do we really want to punish those who achieve it? What does that say about us as a society? Is this still America?
Can’t remember how many big-earners bailed out of New Jersey, but they took $billions in taxes with them, escaping the Jersey taxes. Didn’t work too well there, happened in Maryland, too.
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Blaming the rich is a time honored technique of Progressives.
What they don’t realize is the rich are mobile and can move their money out of reach of those who would disproportionally tax them.
Besides when was the last time a poor person gave someone a job.
** Gov’t jobs don’t count as they take $$ from the productive to pay these “workers.” **
Once legal grabs at the assets of the wealth fail the next step is confiscation. Not in America you say? Wanna bet?
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