Town Meeting Day and Tax increases

[hillbangin]

every time people complain about their property taxes going up, especially for education, just remember that

1. the feds have defunded education over the past few decades due to neoliberalism, federal taxes on the wealthy went from 90%!!!! in the highest bracket around ww2 to a lower percentage than average workers pay. youre being ROBBED.

2. universal healthcare would solve a lot of problems as much of the costs that go up in education are due to extortion from middleman healthcare insurance companies that do nothing but deny healthcare and are leeches sucking up profits and delivering nothing of value except ill gotten gains to the shareholders

3. that we could have nice things but were too busy bombing the middle east for the past 40? 50? years. never forget, israel has universal healthcare and higher education. our 51st state pays no taxes but gets hundreds of billions of dollars from us to wage a genocide.

just remember those things every time you feel squeezed. your taxes havent served you for decades, your taxes fund the military industrial complex.

Add in the teacher's union , new fire station, new town hall, new welcome center, new zillion dollar schools..........

Schools are well funded - need to get back to math, liberal arts, and science - not hockey rinks and fake turf fields..........

[Finn]

Woodstock Ms and hs has 425 students
Rehab the current school

[Killington_Lover]

Our town was supposed to help fund a 400m tech high school that we send 20 kids to. Thankfully it got voted down. Even in liberal MA enough voters have sense. Good luck VT. Godspeed

[Finn]

Jim Haff’s wife is the finance manager now as the other one left.

[twilkas]

Jim Haff’s wife is the finance manager now as the other one left.

She will report to your town Treasurer, an elected position.

[deadheadskier]

The 3 northern New England states have a combined population like 3.2 million people with 3 seperate state governments. And people wonder why taxes are high around here. Local control is expensive. Most states have county school systems, not multiple districts with very small populations along with every small town having duplicate public works, libriaries, etc. Usually all paid for by property taxes.

For the life of me, I can't understand why our neighboring districts are not one. The state should force it. I think we pay our Super $145k and then assistant Super close to $100k all for a student population of 1000.

[Mister Moose]

federal taxes on the wealthy went from 90%!!!! in the highest bracket around ww2 to a lower percentage than average workers pay. youre being ROBBED.

We’ve never taxed wealth! Not around WW2 and not now.

Top bracket on income was 90% until it was lowered to 70% under JFK.

My point still stands. An income tax at any rate is still an INCOME tax. Not a WEALTH tax! Raising income taxes does not solve wealth inequality.

Wealthy individuals often have strategies to mitigate their tax exposure, such as borrowing against their investment portfolios. This allows them to use the loans for living expenses while avoiding capital gains taxes, and potentially deducting the interest paid on these loans from their taxable income. This exemplifies how raising income taxes doesn't directly tackle wealth inequality, as those with significant wealth can navigate around higher income taxes without diminishing their wealth......at least that is what my butler tells me.

Interesting graph. Higher tax rates do not necessarily infer higher revenue. The higher the tax rate, the higher the capital flight.

[spanky]

We’ve never taxed wealth! Not around WW2 and not now.

Top bracket on income was 90% until it was lowered to 70% under JFK.

My point still stands. An income tax at any rate is still an INCOME tax. Not a WEALTH tax! Raising income taxes does not solve wealth inequality.

Wealthy individuals often have strategies to mitigate their tax exposure, such as borrowing against their investment portfolios. This allows them to use the loans for living expenses while avoiding capital gains taxes, and potentially deducting the interest paid on these loans from their taxable income. This exemplifies how raising income taxes doesn't directly tackle wealth inequality, as those with significant wealth can navigate around higher income taxes without diminishing their wealth......at least that is what my butler tells me.

Interesting graph. Higher tax rates do not necessarily infer higher revenue. The higher the tax rate, the higher the capital flight.

Presumably, since that graph shows INCOME tax, that the "top 1%" is the top 1% of wage earners (measured as income). Again, nothing to do with the wealth inequality we have.

What follows is just a general statement, not a response to you, Sec. Moose!

Just yesterday, this hit the news circuit:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wealth-1-p ... nk-report/

In order to considered in the top 1% (of wealth) in the US, you need at least $5.8M in assets.

Real Strawman Here:
According to Google Generative AI, a person needs to make a minimum of $650K to be considered in the top 1% of wage earners. Conservatively, let's estimate an effective income tax rate of 30%. That leaves $450K after taxes. Generously, if that person saved 25% of those earnings ($112K), it would take them 50+ years to reach $5.8M. Of course, nobody starts out in the top 1% of wage earners and, yes, I'm ignoring compounding returns and really simplifying this. But, it just goes to show that even the high wage earners, are not necessarily "the rich". But go ahead, keep thinking raising income taxes will fix the wealth inequality!

[GMCrra]

Wage earners are hit pretty hard with taxes. In VT, NJ, MA, CA etc you are talking near or over 50% total tax including top fed, state and local Tax rates. The top 1% each year includes a bunch of people that exercised stock RSUs or sold homes or businesses, so they have a 1% income for only a short time. I've been in the 1% due to this. The top 1% income threshold will fall quickly in recession as will the net worth of top 1%. Northern states build their budgets around progessive income tax which is very volatile and drops when economy is poor or wealthy people flee the state, see NY or CA issues with this. They love the regressive property tax since it's fixed and reliable regardless of the economy.

The really wealthy make their money in carried interest or capital gains, or borrowing against huge equity in businesses like Bezos or Buffett. Or with a huge nest egg you can make 4% tax free on muni bonds, if you have 10 million in Munis that's 400k tax free each year. It's definitely better to be high net worth than a high wage slave like 2 doctors or lawyers etc.

[Pedro]

I remember when 5.1 Million was a lot of money

[Mister Moose]

My point still stands. An income tax at any rate is still an INCOME tax. Not a WEALTH tax! Raising income taxes does not solve wealth inequality.

Presumably, since that graph shows INCOME tax, that the "top 1%" is the top 1% of wage earners (measured as income). Again, nothing to do with the wealth inequality we have.

But go ahead, keep thinking raising income taxes will fix the wealth inequality!

Are you desiring to create a special tax code to tax only the 200 billionaires (and near billionaires) in the US? Or do you want there to be no wealth inequality at all (and close all ski resorts and re-distribute all the 2nd homes in the US)?

[Bubba]

My point still stands. An income tax at any rate is still an INCOME tax. Not a WEALTH tax! Raising income taxes does not solve wealth inequality.

Presumably, since that graph shows INCOME tax, that the "top 1%" is the top 1% of wage earners (measured as income). Again, nothing to do with the wealth inequality we have.

But go ahead, keep thinking raising income taxes will fix the wealth inequality!

Are you desiring to create a special tax code to tax only the 200 billionaires (and near billionaires) in the US? Or do you want there to be no wealth inequality at all (and close all ski resorts and re-distribute all the 2nd homes in the US)?

I think he was responding to Asher's comments about taxing the wealthy, not agreeing with her.

[KingsFourMan]

I remember when 5.1 Million was a lot of money

A million dollars, and being a millionaire, definitely isn't what it used to be.

[hillbangin]

I remember when 5.1 Million was a lot of money

That was modest FU money.

25 is the new 5

Sent from my SM-S906U1 using Tapatalk

[twilkas]

Wage earners are hit pretty hard with taxes. In VT, NJ, MA, CA etc you are talking near or over 50% total tax including top fed, state and local Tax rates. The top 1% each year includes a bunch of people that exercised stock RSUs or sold homes or businesses, so they have a 1% income for only a short time. I've been in the 1% due to this. The top 1% income threshold will fall quickly in recession as will the net worth of top 1%. Northern states build their budgets around progessive income tax which is very volatile and drops when economy is poor or wealthy people flee the state, see NY or CA issues with this. They love the regressive property tax since it's fixed and reliable regardless of the economy.

The really wealthy make their money in carried interest or capital gains, or borrowing against huge equity in businesses like Bezos or Buffett. Or with a huge nest egg you can make 4% tax free on muni bonds, if you have 10 million in Munis that's 400k tax free each year. It's definitely better to be high net worth than a high wage slave like 2 doctors or lawyers etc.

and even though RSU's 'can' be tamped down with an 83(b) election, that doesn't always work either.(vesting schedules, current tax rates, success of company, etc) CPA's are kinda my hero's in that they know this stuff cold. plenty of CPA's get their security licenses too, maybe not so much to proffer this specific tax advice, but to position themselves to gather more AUM.