Sinquefield's next target may be Missouri income tax

[FangKC]

Sinquefield's next target may be Missouri's income tax.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... a=e_du_pub

[DaveKCMO]

hide your kids! hide your wives!

[Highlander]

popularism run amok

[grovester]

this crap is going to end within 2 years, or things are going to crater to the point that it will be the least of our worries.

[FangKC]

Nothing like an 11 percent sales tax to scare off anyone from Kansas from ever buying anything in Missouri.

[knucklehead]

It is pretty simple. The baby boom is aging and the number of retirees is increasing.

Once most people retire they don't pay much in income tax.

But they still buy stuff out of their life time of savings.

So how do you soak them. Raise the sales tax, and while your at it raise the co-payments for medicare.

It is pretty simple. It is all about screwing the little guy.

Basically its double taxation. You taxed their income during their entire working life. Then you tax their spending once they retire.

Something Mr. Burns would love.  

PS: The 1982 social security tax increase was the biggest screw job in my life time. Social Security taxes were raised to vastly exceed benefit payments for three decades. Supposedly the money was being set aside to pay baby boomer benefits. Now the politicians tell us all that money isn't available to pay our social security because it has been spent on giving big tax breaks to the wealthy and we are screwed.

The big tax breaks were supposed to result in high economic growth rates. Instead wages stagnated as our patriotic corporations exported jobs overseas. The "leakage rates" of tax breaks for the wealthy are very high. They get the tax break and invest the money overseas instead of in the U S.

Given that history is the sales tax proposal suprising? It is all about screwing the people in this country that actually work for a living.

[phuqueue]

Nothing like an 11 percent sales tax to scare off anyone from Kansas from ever buying anything in Missouri.

Not to mention I can guarantee a lot of Missourians will start doing their shopping in Kansas too.  Maybe the "fair tax" experts have explained it already, but I guess I don't fully understand how an income tax stunts productivity while a sales tax supposedly has no effect on consumption.  I mean in the article Sinquefield is even quoted suggesting that families could wait to buy a new car if they couldn't afford the tax at that moment, as if this is a positive aspect of the sales tax -- but it stands to reason that there's some point at which the sales tax is so exorbitant that the family will decide it can do without the car at all (to say nothing of millions of products that are far less necessary in our day to day life than a car is and could be easily given up).

While there obviously is a point at which excessive income taxes become a hindrance to the economy, as a general matter the connection seems really tenuous to me that this 7% income tax weighs so heavily on workers that it impacts their production to some degree significant enough to in turn negatively impact the economy.  On the other hand in our economy where consumption drives growth, it's not hard to imagine negative effects resulting from dramatically hiking sales tax and causing people to cut back on things they would otherwise want to buy.  Even if they've got a little more money in their pockets without the income tax, there's gonna be sticker shock when they see the new price tags, and then anyone close enough to the border (which, between KC and STL alone, is probably at least half the state's population) is gonna start shopping in Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, wherever.

I guess I'm taking the wrong approach though.  For guys like Sinquefield it's not about what's best for the state or the economy or anyone else, just about what's good for their bank accounts.  And in that regard there really is no strong argument against replacing income tax with sales tax.  If this ever makes it to the ballot, hopefully the rest of Missouri won't be so stupid and shortsighted.

[shinatoo]

This is a direct and dispaportionate shift of the tax burden from the upper class to the lower class. Low income families pay little to no income tax now, but they also have almost no discretionary spending, putting off buying a car, let alone buying one, isn't even in the picture. It would be a question of choosing to buy shoes and food or not. This may be a more equal spred of the tax burden but is it a more fair one. I say no. In fact if you look only at non discretionary spending this puts a much larger percentage of the tax burden on low income families.

[IraGlacialis]

This is a direct and dispaportionate shift of the tax burden from the upper class to the lower class. Low income families pay little to no income tax now, but they also have almost no discretionary spending, putting off buying a car, let alone buying one, isn't even in the picture. It would be a question of choosing to buy shoes and food or not. This may be a more equal spred of the tax burden but is it a more fair one. I say no. In fact if you look only at non discretionary spending this puts a much larger percentage of the tax burden on low income families.

Don't forget that they will be less able to simply cross the state line to buy items with a lower sales tax.

[shinatoo]

Don't forget that they will be less able to simply cross the state line to buy items with a lower sales tax.

Not if they have to put off that new car.

[IraGlacialis]

Not if they have to put off that new car.

Last I heard, not having a car makes a person less able to cross state lines.
Unless the person's right at the state line or something?

[shinatoo]

Last I heard, not having a car makes a person less able to cross state lines.
Unless the person's right at the state line or something?

You could always make that jo connection downtown and ride out to target on mission.

[IraGlacialis]

You could always make that jo connection downtown and ride out to target on mission.

What is this public transit you talk of? &&

Seriously, I would count those living in KC, as well as STL, as being at the state line and bolstered by public transit.
What I am mainly thinking of are those living out of the urban zones and out of easy reach (10 min drive max) of a neighboring town on the other side of the border.
This is considering that the plan is to abolish the income tax and jack-up the sales tax state-wide, not just in the cities.

[shinatoo]

What is this public transit you talk of? &&

Seriously, I would count those living in KC, as well as STL, as being at the state line and bolstered by public transit.
What I am mainly thinking of are those living out of the urban zones and out of easy reach (10 min drive max) of a neighboring town on the other side of the border.
This is considering that the plan is to abolish the income tax and jack-up the sales tax state-wide, not just in the cities.

I think we are saying the same thing. This is a bad idea for low income people. Especially seniors.

[kboish]

Interesting brief history of income tax from UMKC prof Michael Hudson (interview)

http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php ... mival=6000

[IraGlacialis]

I think we are saying the same thing. This is a bad idea for low income people. Especially seniors.

Exactly. Same thing for small-business owners, unless they have successfully dug themselves a niche that allows them to weather it out due to no alternative.
It will also probably be a pain for students as well, though not as distressing as what would befall the low-income and seniors.

Whole thing is a cluster****.

[aknowledgeableperson]

This is considering that the plan is to abolish the income tax and jack-up the sales tax state-wide, not just in the cities.

Isn't this what some in DC want to do, drop income tax and go to a Value-added-tax which is a tax on comsumption instead of income?

[Highlander]

Exactly. Same thing for small-business owners, unless they have successfully dug themselves a niche that allows them to weather it out due to no alternative.
It will also probably be a pain for students as well, though not as distressing as what would befall the low-income and seniors.

Whole thing is a cluster****.

Not that I am for this but there are ways to mitigate the impact on low-income and seniors just like income tax is reduced-to-eliminated for lower income people.