Do It Yourself Tax Policy
Do you not like this tax or another? You think we should change the way we are taxed? Can you make the hard choices?
This is your opportunity. The Legislative fiscal office has laid out some choices for raising some taxes and cutting some taxes and what the expected impact might be on the state budget.
Note carefully these are static estimates of outcomes. For example these tables assume that if you cut the capital gains tax rate in half, the revenue will fall by half. Under Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and G.W. Bush this has not been the case. A cut in the rate has increased tax collections. Never-the-less, we have to start somewhere.
This is my first attempt using the first full year numbers for FY 2008-09 and striving to be "revenue neutral":
Reduce Income Tax by 4% accross board. 5-7-9% becomes 1-3-5% |
$3,124.4 |
|---|---|
Reduce Capital Gains Tax to 3.5% |
348.2 |
Total Cost |
$3,472.5 |
Broad Sales Tax at 4% (excludes shelter and in-home food |
$3,474.0 |
|---|
There are literaly thousands of changes one could make. I think that the changes proposed above would actually lead to an Increase in revenue. Try your hand at it with these tables your legislators have.