Taxes Driving the Rich Out of Rhode Island?

While this was aimed at explaining different conclusions about the risks of climate change, it is likely applicable as well to why people derive different conclusions about taxes or government purpose -

http://www.env-econ....te-science.html

QUOTE "Cultural cognition" is the term used to describe the process by which individuals' group values shape their perceptions of societal risks. It refers to the unconscious tendency of people to fit evidence of risk to positions that predominate in groups to which they belong.

Looking in a mirror?

I guess you are right. It's not high taxes.
It's stupidity from the elites who must control and discipline the stupid masses.

New York City plans to ban sale of large sodas, other sugary drinks, @nytimes reports http://nyti.ms/NgQQb9



Soon each New Yorker will have a government handler and watcher to make sure they don't drink too much soda, eat any salt or say any of the 50 banned words:
PC student tests forbid dance, dinos & lots more
50-plus banned words on standardized tests
By Valerie Strauss

You might expect a standardized test to avoid using profane words but, it turns out, other words are banned too and they may surprise you: dinosaur and Halloween, rock ‘n roll and rap music, just to name a few.
That, at least, is what New York City education officials recently did when they provided guidance to standardized test developers.
“The intent is to avoid giving offense or disadvantage any test takers by privileging prior knowledge,” said Robert Pondiscio, a spokesman for the Core Knowledge Foundation, an education group.

“But the irony is they’re eliminating some subjects, like junk food, holidays and popular music, that the broadest number of kids are likely to know quite a lot about.”

Banned words:
Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)
Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs
Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
Bodily functions
Cancer (and other diseases)
Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
Celebrities
Children dealing with serious issues
Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
Computers in the home
Crime
Death and disease
Divorce
Evolution
Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes
Gambling involving money
Halloween
Homelessness
Homes with swimming pools
Hunting
Junk food
In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge
Loss of employment
Nuclear weapons
Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
Parapsychology
Politics
Pornography
Poverty
Rap Music
Religion
Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)
Rock-and-Roll music
Running away
Sex
Slavery
Terrorism
Television and video games (excessive use)
Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
Vermin (rats and roaches)
Violence
War and bloodshed
Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)
Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 30 May 2012 - 10:56 PM.

The Golden State Is Crumbling

If Stockton Is Broke, Why Isn’t San Diego?

U-Haul Rates Confirm The Great California Exodus

Bleeding Green: California losing green businesses

Jerry Brown to propose limiting environmental challenges to high-speed rail



http://blogs.sacbee....speed-rail.html

STUDY: New York, Connecticut Top State Income Tax Per Capita...

Behind those top two were:

3. Massachusetts, $1,549 per person in income taxes

4. Oregon, $1,293 per person

5. California, $1,229

6. Minnesota, $1,219

7. New Jersey, $1,176

8. Hawaii, $1,127

9. Virginia, $1,086

10. Maryland, $1,077


On the lower end, New Hampshire collected the least per person in state income taxes: an average $63.

Completing that lowest 10 list from New Hampshire up were the following:

Indiana, $597

Oklahoma, $585

Michigan, $555

Alabama, $543

Louisiana, $506

South Carolina, $473

New Mexico, $466

Mississippi, $456

North Dakota, $454

Arizona, $379

New Hampshire, $63

The states that have no state income tax are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

It's interesting to compare the population stagnation in the northeast compared to the growth in tax free states:
http://www.google.co...york population

Edited by Rogerdodger, 19 June 2012 - 12:23 AM.

Illinois: the Deadbeat state
Owes billions in unpaid bills

Chicago Called Most Corrupt City In Nation

Weekend of violence claims 10 shooting victims across Chicago

Retirement Benefits May Sink the States

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently offered a stark assessment of the threat to his state's future that is posed by mounting pension and retiree health-care bills for government workers. Unless Illinois enacts reform quickly, he said, the costs of these programs will force taxes so high that, "You won't recruit a business, you won't recruit a family to live here."

There are 228 dead: That's the number of murders this year in Chicago. It's nearly twice as many as the number of Americans lost on the battlefields of Afghanistan over these last six months.

The cops tell us it's the gang members who have turned some neighborhoods into free-fire zones. More people were cut down today.

Across Chicago, nine people were killed between Friday and Sunday, and two more were gunned down just hours ago - a murder rate of two a day.
"It's tragic," Pastor Robin Hood told CBS News. "This is like Beirut was in the 70s. It's war."

Hood lives in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, where three of the victims were killed.
"People are scared to come outdoors," Hood explains. "They're scared for their kids to sit on the porches and play in the playground. It's total fear."


http://www.cbsnews.c...gh-murder-rate/

Many of these murderous gang members even drink large sodas! Some will even drink a 32 oz.!!! One viral video showed a gang of these lawbreakers with salt shakers full of salt! Oh the humanity!

Edited by Rogerdodger, 19 June 2012 - 01:16 PM.

In Maryland, Higher Taxes Chase Out Rich: Study
Jul 9, 2012
A new report says wealthy Maryland residents may be moving out due to recent tax hikes – a finding that is sure to escalate the battle over taxing the American rich.

The study, by the anti-tax group Change Maryland, says that a net 31,000 residents left the state between 2007 and 2010, the tenure of a "millionaire's tax" pushed through by Gov. Martin O'Malley. The tax, which expired in 2010, in imposed a rate of 6.25 percent on incomes of more than $1 million a year.

The Change Maryland study found that the tax cost Maryland $1.7 billion in lost tax revenues. A county-by-county analysis by Change Maryland also found that the state’s wealthiest counties also had some of the largest population outflows.

In total, Maryland has added 24 new taxes or fees in recent years, Change Maryland says. Florida, which has no income-tax, has been a large recipient of Maryland's exiled wealthy.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48120446

Edited by Rogerdodger, 09 July 2012 - 06:36 PM.

Isn't it funny how the very people who want higher taxes are the very ones who refuse to pay them?
(See Warren Buffet, John F. Kerry, Tim Geithner, Charlie Rangel, General Electric)


Socialite, songwriter Denise Rich renounces U.S. citizenship...

By handing in her American passport, tax lawyers say she is able to legally avoid paying significant taxes on her estate.
Rich, 68, is the ex-wife of billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich, who was pardoned in 2001 by then-president Bill Clinton for oil profiteering and tax evasion after he fled to Switzerland. The pardon was considered controversial because of Denise Rich's $1.3 million in financial contributions to the Democratic Party and to the Clinton Library.
Secret Service logs show that Rich went to the White House the last night of Bill Clinton's presidency.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 12 July 2012 - 09:34 AM.

Lowering taxation is a race to the bottom.

Make it zero and you will attract everyone.

Forget income taxes. Allow as much income tax free as you wish and then tax purchasing.

Purchasing cannot be avoided and will be taxed. Saving or generating income is not taxed.

Sounds good to me.

Preface:
Studied the theory of taxation in college, in the halcyon daze of the sixties,
have not really studied tax on purchasing other than the potential for being regressive.
Comment:
Voltaire's premise to tax purchasing is the first I've seen that actually makes sense.

The Real-World Middle Class Tax Rate: 75%

We can argue fruitlessly about how many tax angels can dance on the head of a pin, but all the caveats and quibbles don't change the basic fact that real-world tax rate for the "middle class"
earning more than $34,500 in taxable income in high-tax locales is a confiscatory 75%.

Above a rather modest $34,600 in taxable income and up to around $106,000, the real-world middle class tax burden in high-tax American locales is 75%:

Social Security and Medicare: 15.3%
Federal income tax: 25% (28% above $83,600)
State income tax: 5% (mid-range)
Healthcare insurance: 15%
Property tax: 15%

15% + 25% + 5% + 15% + 15% = 75%


http://www.familysec...75?f=must_reads