Latest budget data available for a break down of who pays what in taxes in the state of California. If only the rich “paid their fair share.”
Does anybody in Canada want to take California from us? No, seriously, I’ll start cheering for the Blue Jays or something.
High end, tippy top, super secret economic analysis here.
Didn’t bank robber Willie Sutton say he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is”? Of course the rich pay the most taxes – they have the most money. In Canada, for 2002 (the last year I could find statistics for), the top 10% of filers paid over 52% of all federal taxes. The bottom 50% paid under 5%.
It’s not going to come to a good end, considering that the “fair share” justifications are easier to see through nowadays.
Here’s a criticism of the current tax structure that you may not have seen before: A ‘progressive’ income tax structure with teeth leads slowly but inexorably to “them who pays the gold makes the rules.” We’re seeing it happen now; the lobbyist industry takes the flak for it.
Wottan irony. If it be genuinely progressive, then the progressive income tax progresses us towards a progressively plutocratic set-up. Looks like us conservatives ain’t the only suckers around.
We’ll trade you even-steven for Quebec. It’s bigger and has more resources.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Wait until bilingualism becomes part of your country.
The best way to destroy a culture is to confound the language.
Ever heard of the Tower of Babel?
At least we can vacation in California in the winter… Quebec just offers us some silly snowman and Justin Trudeau.
Y’all can keep Californicatia, Cap’n.
Too many weirdoes. We got enough of ’em already up here.
we’ll take the California weather, you can keep the weirdos . . especially the uber weirdos in Hollywood.
California is like a bowl of cereal, once you get past the fruits and the nuts, all you have left is the flakes. Ba dump pump.
Time for a consumption tax.
California is the State that a simple note from a Doctor will qualify one for disability. The disability train brings $900.per week (Basic) before the free perks..>$60,000 yr.
Bi-polar anyone? Move to California
What mental midget would pay Prison Inmates Workers Comp?
The Gravy train keeps trucking until the age of 65…. Why work.. Need more illegal black Market workers (no Tax)
Until Statistics include “ALL” entitlement programs the picture in California is distorted
Well Captain, cheering for the Blue Jays is reason enough for me NOT to accept your kind offer.
I have two favorite teams; whoever kicks the stuffing out of the Blue Jays and who ever kicks the stuffing out of the Leafs.
It’s called a progressive taxation system. It’s behaving the way it should. Ask the same tippy-top economist to tease out the miscellaneous last column… the >$100k one, and you’ll find that it’s no-where near as clear as you are implying it is.
For the record, Adam Smith, the founder of economics, including your free-market capitalism, believed that this taxation system was the only one which was fair.
DrAce In case you haven’t been following this thread, no one here is saying that the ‘progressive taxation’ system is inherently wrong. What is being discussed is the fact that the ‘rich’ are not a bottomless pit of money and should the taxation become too onerous the ‘rich’ leave the jurisdiction. When enough ‘rich’ leave the jurisdiction…..
DrAce,
Why not explain your point instead of just telling us your opinion with no factual support for it?
My personal experience with high income people tells me that many of them are on the edge of wealthy, but not wealthy. Their incomes rise and fall with the economy. You base your taxes on them, you are in the same boat. Taxes on the rich are sold as taxes on the Gateses and the Buffetts, but they are levied on the top half of the middle class, because that is where the real money is, and that is where the people live who can’t hire lobbyists and full time tax accountants to protect themselves, yet they are vastly outnumbered by those who make less.
That graph tells a good part of the story of why I’ve been planning to leave here for a while (I’ve been delayed by the ankle-breaking bicycle accident and losing a good deal of my consulting business). The other part is that, although people like me pay nearly all the taxes, people paying virtually no taxes have all the votes. I’m tired beyond belief of having the state of California and its voters regard me as a flesh-and-blood ATM.
DrAce,
I am pretty sure that Adam Smith was talking about progressive taxation in regard to housing rents/taxes. His justification for it was that because the wealthier had larger houses, with more things in them to be protected by the police & fire departments etc. that it was only fair that they paid a proportionally higher tax than those with lesser housing.
There was no income tax until the beginning of the 20th Century, remember? And even then, it was only supposed to be temporary, and was only supposed to target the top 2% of wage earners. Lol! Yup, and I have some beachfront property in Inuvik I’d like to sell ya!
Leftards try using this crap all the time to justify the more nefarious type of progressive tax proposed by Karl Marx, which is intended to keep people from amassing wealth in the first place. There’s a big difference.
I’m going to take the liberty of quoting in full a comment from Capt. Capitalism’s California thread. Doesn’t it all sound so familiar to so many Americans AND Canadians? Unionized govt employees sucking on the public teat massively. And being guaranteed their permanent place at the teat by their massive political contributions to the “progressive” Party that does in return for continued support and money.
“Johnny Boy said…
My parents are leaving for Northern Nevada. No income tax.
All my friends work for the state, while I work for the private sector. They all get paid amazing salaries, and have tons of time to text me all day on my cell phone. One of my friends works for the state in one of the IT departments (that will not be named). He gets paid almost $5,000/mo with the best benefits in the world. He shows up late, takes 2 hour lunches, and leaves two hours early. He trades stocks all day, and if he does do work, everyone in the office makes fun of him. They don’t want anyone to do work because of the furloughs. They want to prove that furloughs keep the state workers from providing the same service. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this state department where one of my friends work, he said that if they fired 90% of the staff, you would not notice anything less getting done. Most of the people in his IT department don’t know anything about computers and make six figures a year.
I have a million stories he has told me, but he is actually a very intelligent and business savvy person. He took the job because it paid really well, and he knew it wouldn’t be that difficult. He had no idea how easy it would be.
Remember the dot-com bubble and all the stories of companies lavishly spending their venture capital dollars? That happens all day every day where he works. Government funded Champagne parties are common. Hey, you got to spend it or you’ll lose it!”
What we must all remember is California feeds North America. Go into any Safeway or SuperStore or a local produce store like Kin’s and you will find “product of California” on most of there stuff. If Cali falls, like it should, I wonder where we will get our avocados from?
What? We aren’t questioning the inherent failure of the progressive taxation system? Oh yes we are! Because that is exactly what we are seeing at work in California.
To KevinB: ‘The rich get taxed the most because they have the most money’. Ah, yeah, but a flat tax system (a non progressive one – in other words a fair one, or a far superior one) would generate the same looking graph. However, the columns indicating the tax paid by the rich would be much taller because you would stop tax avoidance and the wholesale movement of business assets out of the jurisdiction (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAKluP7yIwJY).
DrAce: I haven’t read all of The Wealth of Nations yet, however, I can tell you are just parroting something you have heard elsewhere. There is no way that Smith can be interpreted to support the progressive income tax system. As others have alluded to, I don’t think Adam Smith could have imagined in his wildest nightmares the horrifying tax systems we have in place in N.A.
What is going on in California is a state-level version of “Atlas Shrugged”. The California motor is stopping, but the looters are still looting.
Could we just take California without San Francisco?
glasnost, no you gotta take the fruits with the nuts!
From The Wealth Of Nations (via Wikipedia… cos it was convenient):
“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
Nope… no indication that he might be advocating a progressive tax system there. Especially not in that last sentence. For the record, I HAVE read the book, and enjoy it greatly.
Here’s where the graph is skewed.
If ONE person was earning… say… US$1Billion. That individual would be contributing a huge amount of tax income versus the US$100K person. They would be hugely distorting that graph, implying that the thing isn’t actually telling the whole story.
The same would even be true on a fixed taxation system. So, what, exactly, are you attempting to glean from that graph.
Tim,
Given that, at the time you posted, your only contribution to the discussion was:
“California is like a bowl of cereal, once you get past the fruits and the nuts, all you have left is the flakes. Ba dump pump.”
I think it’s quite odd that you feel I needed to expand what I was getting at. Also, I think my point was quite clear – that graph shows what a progressive taxation system would look like. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Joe,
The term ‘Progressive Taxation’ hadn’t even been raised, let alone anyone’s opinion of it. I had, infact, been following the thread discussion, and felt that the point I raised hadn’t been mentioned. So far, all I’ve gleaned is that I may be a “left-tard”, and that despite evidence that I may have actually read the document I was quoting, I probably hadn’t. Adam Smith was actually a fairly wise man who quite clearly understood what poverty was like, and that the only way to escape it was to be allowed to use what little money you had to better yourself. Hence his belief in a progressive taxation.
While it has been pointed out that there was no income taxation until fairly recently (on the time scales we’re talking about), it’s clear to me that he would have been all for it being progressive too.
OK, so that is what a progressive tax system looks like. Fine. It is also an abject failure. Why worry about that though? Except California is not allowed to just print money.
DrAce put it wonderfully. What that graph represents is a textbook example of graph bias. Intervals of 20, 10, 10, 10, 50, and everything else?
Particularly given that California numbers some of the mega-rich among its taxpayers, that last column could use a breakdown.
Tim,
I worry because it was thrown up as being supposed to mean something. That there was even a ‘tippy top’ analysis of it done. I’m not even an economist (although I am a scientist) and I could spot the glaring holes in it.
Incidentally, printing money leads to hyperinflation. A practice which would make me nervous if I was a US citizen right now.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7578.html
Free, that is an excellent point. When you think about it, the problems in California combined with increasingly expected messes at the border could cause us issues
The next question for Ahnold is how are you going to tax EX-Californians?
It was supposed to mean that progressive taxation carried to great lengths does not produce enough stable revenue to run a govt. I think the point is well taken. You can deny it, but that won’t make California work as a government based on the philosophy of progressive taxation.
How most country able to change economic crisis
so as they need these changes as follows:
this can be used to help Iran existing problems too
by study who has million or billion and where they got it and how those money transfer and if they are good companies are ok if not stop them and learn lesson from big companies how to run country bigger economy too. stop or reduce crime and increase security first before made money hihg if you have it you must keep in safe place
Instead of open more tax they create business run by government and reduce tax pressure from people if their income is low
People who low income or work for oil and government companies in related in business or student go to university need to get help financially by governed by can buy food from government coupon money or use subsidize housing and help them in doctors insurance and etc… and allow solution for poverty
Information technology increase to know more data and know people and link with outside Iran and understand culture to able to not isolate Iran out of world
Good spoke men and women with team of reporter and journalist who assist them and able those people who able to talk in all language in world
Control financial statement to show to public people know what is going on inside country
Work in name of country such as Canada or Iran bring that name up like logo and work in creditability of that name inside and outside country
People with duel citizen able to not force to go to military in Iran if they have children born outside Iran and get optional not force to go to military for two years if they have more than 3 boys not pay money to get allow them to go military
Operation team who made talk to workable inside and outside export too
Financial services and process and share and public and private services and risk management
study and taxation, pension plan and think
better control audit for future of children and ten and youth and older
Study of all province separately and study of all multicultural separately for their needs not confuse all together and grow in balance all people not one group get maximum and other nothing to live with it
Buying good and merchandising
Open more new market for export and inside and open more creativity to country an open more tourism and security to come to Canada and choose best personal to come to Canada
Make land of Canada more useful and better for investment and safer to work with and better salary to gain and lower labor to allow country bring investment in and better result and land for sales to rich people
Invite better law makers to up to come
Better independent advisor to help best consulting such as good background in sport in science in development to help board of director to come up with lawyer criminal civil and family and psychological degree or sport background or stock background, insurance communication and doctors and engineers.
Better press conference and better to tell truth to people not compete in politic
====
study more big companies and learn good and cut the bad from them goverment need to enter in busienss but need to becarfull for corruption too
This is a personal invitation for all California residents earning over $100K per year to move to British Columbia. We need you. We need the conservative viewpoint you will bring and you need the opportunity to pursue your own dreams, unhindered. There are enough of you to change BC into a forward looking dynamic powerhouse. One that will not be preoccupied with dreaming up new ways to tax and spend.
A progressive tax is nothing more than a idealist’s pipe dream or thesis paper. Show me one millionaire that is actually paying the amount that the tax table says he/she should and I’ll show you an idiot who’s tax accountant has fled the country.
Just think, Bill Gates’ taxes could run a few states for a year or two. Hell, it could clear up the debt of many third world countries.
This reminds me of David Miller’s Toronto – except for our tax dollars we get to walk streets covered with grafitti and garbage and step over 5 homeless people every block.
Great place for vacation though, according to most recent marketing campaign.
Question, why is everybody in California dirt poor? Almost everybody makes under $50k, with a big spike at $0-$20k, in a state where houses cost on -average- +$750k? How’d that happen?
And who’s been buying those houses?
I think that the talk about progressive taxation is misplaced in this discussion, because California’s tax rates aren’t all that progressive. If you’re single, as I am, you pay taxes at an 8.0% rate once your taxable income hits $37,233 (in 2008), and at a 9.3% rate (the highest official rate) once your taxable income hits $47,055; there is also a 1% “mental health surtax” on taxable incomes in excess of $1 million (not indexed for inflation and the same for all filing statuses). Married couples filing jointly paid taxes at an 8.0% rate at $74,446 and at 9.3% at $94,110 in 2008. Bear in mind that, on the graph, the incomes shown are adjusted gross income; taxable income is adjusted gross income less itemized deductions or the standardized deduction. In any event, my point is that anybody who would qualify as middle-class in an urban area is probably facing a nominal marginal tax rate of 9.3% in California, and probably a somewhat higher marginal tax rate because of the impact of phase-outs of deductions.
Canada makes California look like Texas. The taxes, regulations, and anti-business, anti-individualist, mentality here is what the Californians are aspiring to.
You think taxes are high in California? Why don’t you try Canada? You’ll be sad you did.
The Western Left has the upper hand in this Big Government vs. Limited Government fight. So long as conservatives retain and practice the moral code of altruism, the Left will continue their enslavement of us all, ably aided by those lily-livered conservatives who love the smell of suffering and government power.
No man’s need is a claim on another man’s property. You disagree? You think it is unChristian? and that anyone who says so is a monster who feels nothing for his fellow man? If so, wear your manacles with pride, slave, and stop complaining about the Left.
Take up your place among their ranks, and stop pretending that you want to live in freedom. When the day of reckoning comes, as it surely will, those of us who do know our individual rights will run you over like you deserve.
The following list was written by William J.H. Boetker, a Presbyterian minister, in 1942:
1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.
—
In other words, there’s no such thing as a free lunch!