Posted on 05/14/2009 5:12:28 AM PDT by mathprof
One of Maryland's budget-balancing tactics - asking millionaires to pay more money to the state - appears to be backfiring as the number of the highest-earning taxpayers dwindles with the flagging economy.
A year ago, Maryland became one of the first states in the nation to create a higher tax bracket for millionaires as part of a broader package of maneuvers intended to help balance the state's finances and make the tax code more progressive.
But as the state comptroller's office sifts through this year's returns, it is finding that the number of Marylanders with more than $1 million in taxable income who filed by the end of April has fallen by one-third, to about 2,000. Taxes collected from those returns as of last month have declined by roughly $100 million.
Many taxpayers in that bracket likely filed an extension and won't complete their returns until October, but a trend is emerging that indicates a "substantial decline" in the number of residents and small businesses with that kind of income, Comptroller Peter Franchot wrote in a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislative leaders.
"The revenue figures are ugly," Franchot said in an interview. "Right now, we're digging through a pile of tax returns and trying to understand this."
The recession provides an obvious explanation. Capital gains have become almost nonexistent as stock markets have tanked. Corporate executives have seen their salaries slashed. And small businesses, many of whom file individual income tax returns, have seen their profits gouged by the economic downturn.
Another more debatable explanation would be that millionaires have simply fled the Free State. While some say they have heard anecdotal evidence of the wealthy packing it up, officials say there's no proof yet of such a development.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
It’s being tried in EVERY Democrat-run state across the nation and people are fleeing. Yep. That’ll work, LOL!
Dorks.
Socialist brain trust at work.
“The revenue figures are ugly,” Franchot said in an interview. “Right now, we’re digging through a pile of tax returns and trying to understand this.”
These people are truly stupid.
How many of the former “Maryland Millionairs” are the 200+ professional athletes who avoid O’Mallard’s repressive tax policy by living in VA, or PA?
Ooops. - forget it Pete.
If you don't understand the entire concept intuitively, then you will never get it.
Stop thinking - you have been thinking your entire life - where has it ever gotten you, anyway?
Besides, thinking is better handled by the government agencies in charge of such things.
Remember the liberal mantra: - Ignorance is bliss.
Libs ignore ... actions have consequences.
“Socialist brain trust at work.”
Double oxymoron...socialists have no brains and certainly do no useful work.
Someone this stupifyingly ignorant needs to be placed somewhere safe where they are unable to harm either themselves or others!
What precisely did they think was going to happen????
“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the rest of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders–what would you tell him to do?” “I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him to do?”
“To shrug.”
And so....they shrugged
They probably won't recognize the proof until there's no more million-dollar tax returns left.
“Who is John Galt?” indeed.
This current crop of arrogant, tax-increasing, aspiring totalitarians may one day find a way to remove the ability to move around freely. (They’re very creative when it comes to manipulation and propaganda.)
IMHO
“Another more debatable explanation would be that millionaires have simply fled the Free State.”
....my wife and I have a solid 7 figure net worth and fled Howard County in 1995...we felt it would only get worse because of the path Baltimore was on...that city will leech prosperity from the rest of the state...
Words fail me.
“One of Maryland’s budget-balancing tactics - asking millionaires to pay more money to the state - appears to be backfiring as the number of the highest-earning taxpayers dwindles with the flagging economy.”
That’s ok. They still have four years left on the politburos five year plan. Like every good lying SOB socialist, they will lower the tax from 1,000,000 dollars to 500,000 dollars. They will also probably tax those leaving the state at 100%.
That will make up the revenue.
Riiiiiiight.
"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own free will, and that he build the furnace besides.”
And so, rather than submit to government directed suicide, they simply left.
And the idiots in the Maryland state gummint can't figure this out????
Sheeeeeesh!
John Galt bought a beach house in Delaware and now it’s his legal residence.
Texas will welcome any millionaire refugees as long as they will leave their liberal politics at the border.
Saw on TV this morning that CA is asking for TARP money (U.S. taxpayer money) to stay afloat. Why not let CA go bankrupt and put it on the auction block? States who have the funds could buy it and perhaps run it more effectively. CA could become “West Texas” or “South Alaska.”
Triple...ya certainly can’t trust ‘em!
This is why they have to do everything at the federal gov’t level,
so people can’t use the “moving box” of liberty.
Give it to China to pay our debt.
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