CapitolFax.com - Latest Comments in Question of the day

Re: Question of the day

Anon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:53:22 -0000

Rater give the money to the individual who provided the services than to give it to Stroger, Blago or Daley so they can redistribute it to their friends and relatives. Besides the barber pays income taxes remember and he might spend that 10% tip on something that will generate wealth and sales tax. You guys really need a lot of money don't you? In the 21st century, local government in Illinois turned into the outfit.

Re: Question of the day

47th Ward — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:20:20 -0000

Would you pay 10% more for a haircut, or would you start cutting your own hair? Most people tip that much anyway.

Would you pay 10% more for a carwash, or wash it yourself?

There are lots of services that should be taxed, and if you don't want to pay the tax, you don't have to.

Re: Question of the day

Anon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:53:25 -0000

Illinois should tax political dilettantes and little would-be policy wonks for their "services". First because there are so many of them-- a very lucrative tax base; and second because every one has to endure their brilliant theories of governance. This is just one of the reasons why Israel has a mandatory draft.

Re: Question of the day

Cassandra — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:59:24 -0000

Uh, plutocrat 03.

How do you know I'm not one of the favored one?

One's views of the tax system are not necessarily a function of one's income or "envy."

Way too simplistic.

Re: Question of the day

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:38:54 -0000

The bottom 50% of income pay only 3% of income taxs collected. What is amazing is that this would be the group using most t of the free social services provided by yhe govt. Most people who make alot of money have to work very hard to do so, to villify them and punish them for hard work seems stupid. and no Im not rich yet

Re: Question of the day

plutocrat03 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:00:34 -0000

The envy that is exemplified by Cassandra is chilling.

I fail to see where the rich she refers to are getting away with anything. As pointed out earlier in this thread the top 5% pay 57% of the income taxes in the country. So what case of murder are you talking about?

The irresponsible thing about adding taxes to Illinois is that there is no spending reform. The excesses of staffing , compensation and pensions will continue unabated and consume any new revenue in a heartbeat.

Lets get away from the politics of envy and reform how we spend our money before we raise the taxes.

The scary part of who pays taxes is that the 50% who pay the 3% already get more in services than they pay. What is their incentive for reigning in spending? As far as they are concerned more governmental programs are free...... of ourse they will vote for more free stuff.

Re: Question of the day

Way Northsider — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:47:49 -0000

Services such as lawn care and other "non essential" activities should be taxed.

Re: Question of the day

late night anon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:28:24 -0000

Re: Cassandra - Thursday, Oct 25, 07 @ 11:10 am:

The problem with the current tax system is that it doesnâ€™t take the growing wage gap into account and fails to progressively tax at any levelâ€“local, state, national.

The rich are getting away with murder in the tax sense.

--------------

When people talk about taxing the rich I always wonder what their definition of rich is. I suspect they think of it in terms of some multiple of their income. After all, everything is relative. I am curious as to whether that multiple is consistent across all income levels. Hey Rich (Miller that is) how about starting a thread on this issue.

Re: Question of the day

Don't Tax My Brain — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:24:30 -0000

A fable of my ownâ€¦A state in dire need of money due to
inept spending practices, run away salary and pension benefits and an idiot
executive decided one day to tax people based on the amount of knowledge in
their brain. As a starting point, the strong willed Governor with an 84%
approval rating decided that Google had siphoned away the money from the good
high paying jobs of his constituents and thought, why not tax on Google each
time our residentâ€™s found something?

He declared God was on his side in this debate, â€œbecause
clearly, as a society, weâ€™ve become less productive and found that there a worse
life for people since Google became ubiquitous.â€ Rather than tell people,
that the future was in developing services to complement Google or inventing the
next new thing, he called the developers and owners names like 'evil-doers' and
'fat-cats.'

The people bought into the rhetoric.

The result was the dire state became the dark state and
was the only spot on Earth where you couldnâ€™t Google.

While I respect the position of trying to look at the
taxing issue we have in this state and country, the fact is a tax on service
becomes a tax on knowledge. The reason you have someone perform a service for
you, is that they can do it better, faster i.e. productive than you can. Thus a
tax on services is a tax on specialization and knowledge, and the quest for
increased productivity.

The argument is made that lawyers, bankers, architects and
yes, even journalists, donâ€™t have to pay taxes and as such have a free ride. In
todayâ€™s economy ask yourself, where are the high paying jobs and where does the
future lie? Will Illinoisâ€™ have a larger tax base if we have scores of lawyers,
or whatever profession that has yet to be created, coming to or flocking in our
state?

We can choose to incentive brining knowledge into the state
or we can choose to penalize those with the most knowledge and the ability to be
productive. Maybe we could slap a graduation tax on all those smart-e-pants
college graduates who will go perform work in a service sector job, after all
they are the oneâ€™s really cheating the system. Donâ€™t forget those professors
too; you can tax them on a per pupil basis.

The sales tax is fair, no matter who you are you pay and no
matter who you are, you pay the same rate. The same isnâ€™t so for property tax
or income tax. If anything we should be discussing raising the income tax,
after all itâ€™s low, after we talk about raising the sales tax.

You want the income tax to create more revenue for the
state, stop taxing businesses and get them to move and expand here!

Re: Question of the day

Six Degrees of Separation — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:04:57 -0000

I was following the original post until I saw this in the second paragraph: "...relatively few people still selling or buying goods..."

Who among us has not bought food, clothing, a car, an electronic gadget, or SOMETHING if not many, many things during the past year? If this is a consumer-oriented society (which I think it is), everybody's still buyin'. Internet and mail order sales are way up and they are slipping under the taxman's net, but this could be fixed if the will was there. Sure, there are opportunities to tax more services; this is correctly viewed as robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the consumer will have less disposable income after paying the service tax to pay for consumable and durable goods (unless the service providers cut their rates to equalize the end price).

Re: Question of the day

Dan Johnson-Weinberger — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:04:14 -0000

Thanks Rich and most commenters for the discussion. One point I intended to make more cleanly is that that it's potentially easy to balance a lot of budgets (state, county, transit, municipal) with a modernized sales tax that includes services as well as goods. I think our spending should be modernized as well (particularly with consolidation of local governments and a commensurate reduction in overhead), but I don't buy OneMan's argument that only tax-haters should be tax reformers. I think saying you are against taxes is like saying you are against prices. It's all about what we're buying. And often we enhance freedom when the government buys something for all of us. For example, with the expansion of Medicaid, a lot of families are free of the threat of medical bankruptcy. That's a good thing. If the government bought health insurance for all of us, we would all be free to take a job or start a business without factoring in how we'd get our health benefits. That one is one of the heaviest burdens on our economic freedom today, as lots of people feel trapped to stay in a job they don't like in order to keep their health insurance.

Anyway, I suspect that a lower state sales tax rate combined with an expanded base would bring in new revenue and meet with majority political support among the electorate. I think the many critics of the Governor should offer him some credit for identifying the problem of a 1950s tax system and embrace modernization. We do not need to wait until 2011 to modernize our taxes.

Re: Question of the day

BBishere2 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:00:51 -0000

Merchants get to keep 1.75% of the sales tax they collect from consumers. If that practice was stopped, and that money turned in to the government, there would be a good increase in the tax funds collected without raising any of the taxes. This percentage is to "pay" merchants for collecting the tax and then filling out a simple form and mailing in a check. It is required by law to be done, so why pay the merchants for doing it?

Re: Question of the day

pc — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:27:27 -0000

Yellow Dog has the right slogan: wider base, lower rate. That was the mantra behind the Reagan-era income tax reforms, after all, but in the time since then the GOP has forgotten the first part of it and become the "all tax cuts, all the time" party.

Re: Question of the day

FAN of CAP FAX — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:56:47 -0000

As always, an excellent analysis of part of the problem today, Dan. Good job and excellent comments from other. Surely we can find a way to work it out...

To the single nasty comment, where is your plan? What have you produced other than another nasty comment? We have enough of that in leadership right now. All nasty, no substance.

Illinois deserves more.

Re: Question of the day

Muskrat — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:53:56 -0000

I have to take issue with Capitol View's remarks that immigrants are bringing with them the idea of gray-market cash transactions. That kind of activity has been around for decades, has been a tax enforcement problem for decades, and is engaged in by all sorts of people, including Joe Dimaggio, who was famous for signing autographs for (undeclared) cash.

Re: Question of the day

one of the 35 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:33:38 -0000

Just remember that by taxing services you do get to tax lawyers, but you also tax the small shoe repair business at the same time.

Re: Question of the day

Yellow Dog Democrat — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:24:57 -0000

Any economist can tell you that the best tax system is one that raises only the money it needs, is broad-based, non-regressive, stable, and the lowest rate possible.

Like a good investment portfolio, it also needs to be diverse.

Re: Question of the day

Elmhurst 1 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:32:30 -0000

In theory, it makes sense to tax services as well as goods. The bigger issue is understanding what we are using tax revenue for. If I was a member of Cook County, I'd have a pretty big problem with tax increases of any kind. If the government is inept at making sound decisions on how to use taxes, does it really matter where they come from?

Re: Question of the day

FED UP — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:25:54 -0000

The rich pay the most taxes the top 5% income pay almost 57 percent of taxes collected and the top 10% pay over 65% of taxes collected while the bottom 50% pay less tha 3% of income taxes collected. The bottom 20% income or so pay no income tax and get tax credit. I hate the idea of an increase in income taxes because you penalize people for working hard ( I have two jobs) and reward the people who dont work. Consumption taxes are a better option let smokers pay for healthcare and sales taxes are a steady source of revenue. That being said Crook Co already has one of the highest sales taxes in the country and where does all that money go, Strogers friends Daleys donors waste is the problem. I would like to see a small increase in fares for the transit system and consolidate the three agencys CTA Pace Metra to get rid of overlapping managment,and consolidate purchasing power for savings. then look at what is really needed and A tax hike might be acceptable

Re: Question of the day

Rich Miller — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:48:44 -0000

"Blah," please don't post those long links. Learn how to use the easy tool of html hyperlinking. Those long, raw links screw up the page in a big way.

Re: Question of the day

BLAH — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:47:03 -0000

Just realized my link didn't go through,

http://www.ctbaonlin
e.org/All%20Links%20
to%20Research%20Are
as%20and%20Reports/Budget,%
20Tax%20and%20Revenue/Expansion
%20of%20the%20Sales%20Tax%
20Updated.pdf

Sorry - you have to copy and paste.

Re: Question of the day

BLAH — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:45:07 -0000

But the all the attorneys would sue the state of course!

Lobbyists baby!

Re: Question of the day

Kuz — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:06:52 -0000

Thanks BLAH -

Seriously, start with attorney fees. If there's anything our culture is addicted more than smoking, it's lawyers.

Re: Question of the day

BLAH — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:59:26 -0000

There is a paper about lowering the tax rate and bringing in more revenue at:

http://www.ctbaonline.org/A...
nks%20to%20Research%20Areas%
20and%20Reports/Budget,%20Tax%
20and%20Revenue/Expansion%20
of%20the%20Sales%20Tax%20Updated.pdf

Re: Question of the day

Greg — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:20:46 -0000

"The wealthy plutocrats who run this state will squeal like the piggies they are..."

Come on, Cassandra, that's no kind of argument. Why such hostility to high-earners? Some of you guys should really visit me some time, I'll show you around a couple downtown funds, you can take a look at how hard these people work and the kind of taxes they pay, and then say it to their faces.

In the meantime, don't expect that raising marginal income from 35 to 44 effective (per Rangel's proposal) will raise federal revenues substantially.