Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming all have no state income tax. Am I missing something, or is this graph just misinformation?
As a proportion of their income maybe, but X% sale tax of one rich dude’s glamour item(s) - expensive cars, boats jewelry, fashion, etc) could exceed the taxes from many many lower-income essentials.
Yes that’s right. This graph is shate and local tax as a proportion of income, which is a much more relevant statistic than absolute dollars when concerned with the impact on the individual’s quality of life. There might be other reasons to look at absolute dollars, and percentage of income doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to quality of life, but one is certainly more descriptive than the other for that concern.
I don’t buy this, man. Groceries aren’t taxxed, and I just don’t see how a lower income individual could physically buy the same amount of taxed goods as a multimillionaire
You are in fact just missing something because having no income tax doesn’t mean that poor people aren’t being taxed. Think of all the other taxes you pay
…sales tax? I don’t believe that that would be higher for lower income individuals, seeing as higher income people would purchase more things that are taxeable than lower income people.
The only other tax I can think of is property tax, which again, I would expect to disproportionately be played by higher income people as they are more likely to own property.
I’m not saying that taxing the rich is bad, I’m just saying that there is positively no chance that rich people pay less taxes even if you exclude state income tax.
The cited article is for expenses unrelated to taxes. I would like to reiterate that I am not disagreeing that the system is busted, I’m just pointing out that saying that higher income people pay less taxes in literal tax havens is not possible. If they are only paying for sales tax and property tax, the only individuals who will be paying more taxes are property owners, which because of how fucked the system is, will practically be exclusively higher income individuals. Yes, renting costs more than property tax, but we are talking about taxes. The majority of your rent will not be going back to the government through taxes, but all of your property tax will.
Basic example to help you understand since it can be a little abstract: I make $1000 a week and buy a TV with $10 in sales tax. That comes out to 1% of my income on taxes. You make $2000 a week and buy the same TV. In your case you only pay .5% of your income for taxes on the same item.
Pretty well every state charges a combination of those to fund their state. Some have all 3, some rely on just 1. But they all combine to be part of a person’s tax burden.
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming all have no state income tax. Am I missing something, or is this graph just misinformation?
The states that rely on sales taxes for most of their income are the most likely to tax the poor the most, since the poor spend more of their income.
As a proportion of their income maybe, but X% sale tax of one rich dude’s glamour item(s) - expensive cars, boats jewelry, fashion, etc) could exceed the taxes from many many lower-income essentials.
Yes that’s right. This graph is shate and local tax as a proportion of income, which is a much more relevant statistic than absolute dollars when concerned with the impact on the individual’s quality of life. There might be other reasons to look at absolute dollars, and percentage of income doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to quality of life, but one is certainly more descriptive than the other for that concern.
I don’t buy this, man. Groceries aren’t taxxed, and I just don’t see how a lower income individual could physically buy the same amount of taxed goods as a multimillionaire
Might be factoring in more than just state income tax. There’s also sales tax, property tax, etc.
You are in fact just missing something because having no income tax doesn’t mean that poor people aren’t being taxed. Think of all the other taxes you pay
…sales tax? I don’t believe that that would be higher for lower income individuals, seeing as higher income people would purchase more things that are taxeable than lower income people. The only other tax I can think of is property tax, which again, I would expect to disproportionately be played by higher income people as they are more likely to own property. I’m not saying that taxing the rich is bad, I’m just saying that there is positively no chance that rich people pay less taxes even if you exclude state income tax.
Tax burden is the amount of your income you pay as tax. Poor people spend a larger share of their income.
The cited article is for expenses unrelated to taxes. I would like to reiterate that I am not disagreeing that the system is busted, I’m just pointing out that saying that higher income people pay less taxes in literal tax havens is not possible. If they are only paying for sales tax and property tax, the only individuals who will be paying more taxes are property owners, which because of how fucked the system is, will practically be exclusively higher income individuals. Yes, renting costs more than property tax, but we are talking about taxes. The majority of your rent will not be going back to the government through taxes, but all of your property tax will.
Basic example to help you understand since it can be a little abstract: I make $1000 a week and buy a TV with $10 in sales tax. That comes out to 1% of my income on taxes. You make $2000 a week and buy the same TV. In your case you only pay .5% of your income for taxes on the same item.
Pretty well every state charges a combination of those to fund their state. Some have all 3, some rely on just 1. But they all combine to be part of a person’s tax burden.
Penny power bitches.