Posted on 11/17/2017 6:56:41 AM PST by Mariner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From Pataskala, Ohio, to Conroe, Texas, local government leaders worry that if Republican tax-overhaul plans moving through the U.S. Congress become law, it will be harder for them to pave streets, put out fires, fight crime and pay teachers.
A tax plan approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday would sharply curtail a federal deduction that millions of Americans can now claim for tax payments to state, county, city and town governments.
Ending that deduction, the local leaders say, could make their taxpayers, especially in high-tax communities, less likely to support future local tax increases or even tolerate local taxes at present levels.
The proposed repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction is part of an "assault on local governments" by Republicans in Washington, said Elizabeth Kautz, the Republican mayor of Burnsville, Minnesota, near Minneapolis.
"My hope is that we look at being thoughtful about what we're doing and not ram something through just to get something done before the year is out," Kautz said of the plan being rushed through Congress by her own party.
In the United States, local governments run schools, operate police and fire departments and maintain streets, parks and libraries, among other essential services. The federal government's role at that level is limited.
Cities, towns, counties and states collect their own property, sales and income taxes. Under existing law, payments of those taxes can be deducted, or subtracted from federal taxable income, lowering the amount of federal tax due.
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A bill being debated in the Senate, with Republican President Donald Trump's support, would kill the SALT deduction entirely for individuals and families, although businesses would keep it. The fate of that bill is uncertain.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.news.yahoo.com ...
When I explained corporate tax to my 8 year old I did it this way.
I said suppose you start a business selling book marks and sell them for 10 cents a piece but it costs you 5 cents to make them. The government notices that you are making a profit and decides to tax you 5 cents on each bookmark you sell, what happens to your business?
No one knows. Hillary lost 6 Billion. According to Dr. Carson there is 500 Billon missing at HUD and I think I recall something said a few years back about the DOD couldn't find 1.5 Trillion.
Obama though, could always find a few hundred million to hand out like Christmas candy. Fact is no one has any idea how our money is spent because we haven't had a budget in eight years.
This tax bill had to remain revenue neutral meaning the government must still collect the same amount of money after the tax cuts. How can that be called a tax cut, asks Rush? It is merely a shuffle of payments from one person to another. Of course if they do it right they actually would increase the number of people actually paying, so total amount collected would go up. Unfortunately as always, expenses would go up to eat the increase.
“Yep, and I am from Virginia, and SALT is my highest deduction (I have a modest mortgage). I look at it this way, what is best for America, a corporate tax cut and somewhat higher taxes for me, or is all about me? No, we need to do what is right for all of America.”
“You hit the nail on the head. That’s it. If they did and people were actually paying attention, they’d be run out of the building as it was set on fire.”
Actually, I’d prefer if a lot of those people were chained to pipes in the building, and THEN it was set on fire...but running the bastards out of office will suffice, for now. People WILL pay attention when they can’t have Uncle (which is to say, all the rest of us) subsidize the irresponsible, Leftist policies of NY, CA, etc.
I honestly believe that when all is said and done regarding Trump’s time in office, this will be looked upon as one of the most significant things that he did, domestically, besides unleashing the energy industry. It will re-make politics for decades.
*EXACTLY*
Why in the h-e-double-toothpicks should a middle class family in the Midwest in a $100K home mortgaged to the hilt paying $4,000 per year in mortgage interest and low property taxes, getting to deduct none of it as it is less than the standard deduction; subsidize some Palo Alto tech worker’s mortgage interest payments on his $1,000,000+ mortgage and outrageous property taxes?
If California needs 8x the taxes that Texas needs to run its government, let the Commiefornia residents (and NY, CT, etc...)pay out of pocket without causing Texans and the rest of us to share in paying for *their* homes in addition to ours by causing our Federal taxes to be higher than they would otherwise be.
You have reality exactly backwards on this.
I just want to know if this is a tax cut, or a tax increase, or is it shifting a tax burden to high taxed states?
And, if SALT deductions are bad, why do all corporations and all businesses get to keep them?
+1
Don’t know if it is this specific provision or some other heinous provision, but one report I saw said this tax bill, or the House version, will cause home values to fall by 10% ...
That should take care of many home owners equity nicely, and perhaps the ability to even sell their home.
Ain’t Republicans swell?
“You propose using the tax code for social engineering, denying some deductions which benefit blue states, but keeping those which potentially could harm Red states if they are lost.”
I propose getting something done vs getting nothing done.
I do not “propose” using the tax code for social engineering. It is already there and no one in Congress, not even any Conservatives are proposing scrapping the whole thing for my ideal of a flat tax everyone would pay with zero deductions, exemptions, exclusions or credits.
So, yes, in the absence of any possibility of my ideal being adopted, I propose winning SOME battles on SALT, since trying to win the whole war on SALT is likely to lose enough votes to pass any tax changes at all.
It is not that the “property tax” is more Conservative. It is in fact more neutral, but the high income & sales tax states ARE mostly “progressive states”, while even more Conservative states have the property tax. Yes that’s “political. Well politics is how legislation is done, and winning some battle and getting something done is always politically better than batting zero.
Then go without cable. If you are talking cable internet then use wireless internet. It's slower, but adequate. Or use DSL for internet.
If Comcast corporate taxes are significantly reduced, will they reduce what they charge to customers??? Absolutely not...They'll just pocket the extra profit...And because of that, tax 'em to high heaven', I say...
You are the exact reason we can't make America great. The tax plan will fail, the market will drop, the economy will flounder, and Americans will vote socialist as a backlash.
All because you hate the cable company.
We live in NYS. We own a home. We’ve seen what that deduction enables. It can be removed with our blessing.
You only see collusion to raise gas prices and government requiring lower prices so the above doesn't happen. But the real reason that owners check the other stations' prices is so they can lower theirs.
Not sure why I need to explain capitalism to a freeper, but oh well.
Gee thanks for talking to me like you’re 8 year old. Explain this to me. If corporations don’t pay taxes, why do they need a tax cut and have it paid for by the middle class through tax increases because our deductions are being taken away? Why have the corporations and lobbyist spent millions getting Congressmen on their payroll to vote to give them a cut in the corporate rate from 35% to 20%? You are arguing semantics. The truth is, corporations DO pay taxes. You know it, and I know it. So please stop trying to spin it otherwise. We are not children, and we know when we are being played for fools. Remember that line in the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales? “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”
"… it will be harder for them to pave streets, put out fires, fight crime and pay teachers."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
If local government leaders were making sure that their community's grade schools were teaching students the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood, then school children would probably be able to school their local leaders on the fed's limited power to appropriate taxes as follows.
First, regardless that low-information local leaders are now complaining that they won't have the federal funding to support public projects, note that President Thomas Jefferson had officially indicated the following.
The states would first need to amend the Constitution to grant the feds the specific powers to tax and spend for such projects — something that the states have never done.
"On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added]"—Thomas Jefferson : Sixth Annual Message to Congress
But more importantly, consider that the Supreme Court had reflected on Jefferson's words, clarifying that Congress is constitutionally prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues. That basically means that Congress cannot tax and spend for any issue that it cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, Jefferson having indicated that schools and roads, for example, are not included in those powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States."—Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In other words, misguided local and state lawmakers unsurprisingly don't seem to understand that the federal funding that they want for public projects are arguably state revenues that the corrupt feds have stolen from the states by means of unconstitutional federal taxes.
In fact, it can be argued that career federal lawmakers are exploiting widespread ignorance of the federal government's constitutionally limited power to appropriate taxes in the following way.
Federal lawmakers promise citizens and their local / state government leaders all kinds of federal social spending programs in order to win their votes to get reelected, low-information voters evidently not understanding that the feds have no express constitutional authority to tax and spend for such purposes, evidenced by the clarifications by Jefferson and the Supreme Court.
So how did the states get themselves into the mess of unconstitutional federal taxes?
Note that the Founding States had established the federal Senate partly to kill unconstitutional House appropriations bills, bills that not only steal state powers, but also state revenues associated with those powers.
In fact, the Founding States had given the power to vote for federal senators uniquely to state lawmakers, the founders expecting lawmakers to elect senators that they could trust to protect their respective states by killing unconstitutional House appropriations bills that steal state revenues.
The problem is that the anti-constitutional republic Progressive Movement successfully spooked citizens to pressure their state lawmakers to ratify the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A), state lawmakers foolishly giving up the voices of the state legislatures in Congress by doing so.
In other words, by unthinking ratifying 17A, state lawmakers politically repealed the 10th Amendment, making it easy for the feds to greatly overstep their constitutionally limited powers.
Consider that the corrupt Senate, arguably the most unconstitutionally powerful office in the land, now not only helps the likewise corrupt House to pass unconstitutional bills like Obamacare for example, but the Senate then confirms state sovereignty-ignoring, activist Supreme Court justices who wrongly declare unconstitutional laws like Obamacare to be constitutional.
What a scam!
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added]." —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"The smart crooks long ago figured out that getting themselves elected to federal office to make unconstitutional tax laws to fill their pockets is a much easier way to make a living than robbing banks." —me
"Federal career lawmakers probably laugh all the way to the bank to deposit bribes for putting loopholes for the rich and corporations in tax appropriations laws, Congress actually not having the express constitutional authority to make most laws where domestic policy is concerned. Such laws are based on stolen state powers and uniquely associated stolen state revenues." —me
The clear remedy for an unconstitutionally big federal government that 17A has helped to foster …
In order to make sure that Pres. Trump's vision for MAGA lasts for many generations, patriots should now be doing the following. They should be making sure that there are plenty of Trump-supporting, state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots who will commit to express-laning a ConCon for the specific purpose of repealing the 16th (16A) and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.
For those patriots concerned about a possible overthrow of the country by a pirated ConCon, note that the product of a ConCon is never a new amendment to the Constitution, but a proposed amendment that the states can either reject or ratify.
Once 16 & 17A are repealed, and patriots support Pres. Trump in working with the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, the states will probably find a tsunami of new revenues that they won’t know what to do with, ultimately depending on the threshold of state tax pain of a given state's legal majority voters.
For starters, the states can establish their own custom healthcare and retirement programs, increase funding for public schools, police and fire departments, and repair infrastructure.
Also consider that repealing 16 & 17A will also effectively secede the states from the unconstitutionally big federal government imo. (Are you listening Gov. Brown?)
Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!
Only in your mind...The prices of gas at stations across a town go up and down within minutes of each other...
You are the exact reason we can't make America great. The tax plan will fail, the market will drop, the economy will flounder, and Americans will vote socialist as a backlash.
So you're going to make America great by stiffing the middle class taxpayers and cutting Medicare for the retired??? Good luck with that...
I'm not going to cut Medicare, it will be strangled if we don't get the economic growth to support it. There are only three ways out of our debt: inflation, default or economic growth. The socialists overtax their corporations and end up in default (Greece) or inflating (Venezuela) The growth option is by far the most sensible. Growth comes from capitalism which thrives on turning company profits into new companies.
Pipes and chains work, too.
“The most important determinants of whether you will itemize is income and whether you have a mortgage.”
I don’t disagree with you in that what is owed is a problem. That’s what I’m saying.
But zero based revenue won’t get it done either. My thought is why does it have to be done with taxes based upon taking. Why can’t it be done with taxes that are available. We tried taking, that got us in debt. And when the “great” days of economy were told to us starting in the nineties, and the market was sold as a boom based upon things costing more, people took the bait rather than used their heads. So they got themselves into a debt, both personal and public, that was over their head if the shoe dropped. And it’s about to.
No one can hold off the dump that’s coming. The destruction of Medicare and social security for the aged is just as much, if not more, than the problem with people and their debt.
When you put sixteen of twenty-four years using the grasshopper theory of spend without the backup like has happened during the Clinton and Obama administrations, with out of control spending, out of control programs, destroying the value of the dollar worldwide and local, based upon stealing votes to pay for something down the road without trying to create something to bolster the economy, and stop the fall, to cover it, you are walking on the burning bridge. And it is going to collapse without change.
The destruction of the housing market like your situation was the start. And then the lying by the libs of the backup funds from Freddie and Fannie by Barney Frank and Chris Dowd stalled off the correction possibilities until they were gone. And in time, it will clobber many in the public who trusted our leaders all parties. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I saw it in the 90’s and did what I had to to prepare for this. But I can’t say many did because they were so fat and sassy. And because it hadn’t bit them on the a$$, they turned their heads.
Like I mentioned, we have big headaches. We can’t go back, and we can’t stay where we are. We will have to generate new income and the only way to do it is though the market to help itself. Right now it’s our only tool. So if it isn’t opened up, and given the chance to start to bring us back using adjustments over the next 10 years, we’ll all be in the breadline. And if that happens, so will the world. And I don’t want them knocking on our door to look for help when we can’t even help ourselves. Ugly. And some here will have to pay a price for their indiscretions called lack of forethought. I feel for them. But I can’t help someone that has already jumped off the cliff. And I don’t want to go with them.
Maybe when the smoke clears, there will be help. But in my mind, not for years. I can only hope they have a long fall.
rwood
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