Quote of the Week: Where are you gonna go?

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“With [the] proposed tax, still lowest taxed state. So where you gonna go? – Scott Kendall, chief of staff for Gov. Bill Walker, making the case on Friday to Commonwealth North for an income tax. (Hat tip to Lee Leschper)

“We’re at the point where we can no longer be the only state in the nation that doesn’t have a broad-based tax.” – Gov. Bill Walker, speaking at the same event.

Walker neglected to mention that his halving of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend is a broad-based tax.

In addition, nine states do not level a broad-based individual income tax. Some do tax certain forms of personal income. From Wikipedia:

  • Alaska – no individual tax but has a state corporate income tax. Like New Hampshire, Alaska has no state sales tax, but unlike New Hampshire, Alaska allows local governments to collect their own sales taxes. Alaska has an annual Permanent Fund Dividend, derived from oil revenues, for all citizens living in Alaska after one calendar year, except for some convicted of criminal offenses.[7]
  • Florida – no individual income tax[8] but has a 5.5% corporate income tax.[9] The state once had a tax on “intangible personal property” held on the first day of the year (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money market funds, etc.), but it was abolished at the start of 2007.[10]
  • Nevada – has no individual or corporate income tax. Nevada gets most of its revenue from sales taxes and the gambling and mining industries.[11][12]
  • Tennessee has a “Hall income tax” of 6% on income received from stocks and bonds not taxed ad valorem.[13] The Hall income tax is reduced to 5% for tax year 2016, with legislative intent that the tax be statutorily reduced by one percent annually beginning with the first annual session of the 110th general assembly and potentially eliminated by 2022.[14][15] In 1932, the Tennessee Supreme Court struck down a broad-based individual income tax that had passed the General Assembly, in the case of Evans v. McCabe. However, a number of Attorneys General have recently opined that, if properly worded, a state income tax would be found constitutional by today’s court, due to a 1971 constitutional amendment.[16]
  • Texas – no individual income tax, but imposes a franchise tax on corporations. In May 2007, the legislature modified the franchise tax by enacting a modified gross margin tax on certain businesses (sole proprietorships and some partnerships were automatically exempt; corporations with receipts below a certain level were also exempt as were corporations whose tax liability was also below a specified amount), which was amended in 2009 to increase the exemption level. The Texas Constitution places severe restrictions on passage of an individual income tax and the use of its proceeds.
  • Washington – no individual tax but has a business and occupation tax (B&O) on gross receipts, applied to “almost all businesses located or doing business in Washington.” It varies from 0.138% to 1.9% depending on the type of industry.[17][18]
  • Wyoming has no individual or corporate income taxes.[19]
  • South Dakota – no individual income tax but has a state corporate income tax on financial institutions.[citation needed]
  • New Hampshire – has an Interest and Dividends Tax of 5%, and a Business Profits Tax of 8.5%. A Gambling Winnings Tax of 10% went into effect July 1, 2009 and was repealed May 11, 2011.[20] New Hampshire has no sales tax.[21]

6 COMMENTS

  1. I’m going to go to the voting booth and vote out these losers. Special interest, special formula, special not yours, special interest not needed or wanted in the Peoples House. This is a house of cards and it must go down. We need to not have self serving people who consider only what they need as in slow methodical government.. We all need to tighten our belts and it starts with the operating budget or we need to move them out and sale Juneau to pay for this…The bottom line here is that the state should not pick winners or losers and we need to act before they change the legal wordings of the legislation to benefit them. Time to take away the slush funds and bring back sanity into our government. A job that is not filled should not be funded…

  2. Would it be appropriate to ride the Governor and his ilk out of state on a rail and let him reside in one of his precious high-taxed states? As a bonus could we use tar and feathers or must we use the voting booth?

  3. Walker has gotten around to pi****g off just about everyone. Do you suppose he is so obtuse that he is unaware of how much he is disliked? If so, then add that to the growing list of reasons to show him the door.

  4. Yes, and we must strongly encourage like-minded voters to get to the polls and vote the Governor and his ilk out of office.

  5. The best way to get the oil corporations to pay taxes to Alaska, is to bring back the progressive surcharge of ACES. Parnell and his oil-bought senate cronies, really shafted Alaskans.

  6. All pork barrel project should be made only when the state budget is in the black. The State Government could be cut buy 33 % and still function better than now for the 33% would be the losers and slackers. Give the full PFD and the crime rate would go down and the villagers would quit moving into the bigger cities. The list goes on Governor. Your fault.

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