Earnings Tax and Propositions Every 5 Years

ajwillikers · PostDec 02, 2015#762015-12-02T18:10+00:00

quincunx wrote:OK, so what does the city do if MOLeg or city voters (not likely) gets rid of the earnings tax?

The funding solutions St. Louis County munis have come up with seem worse to me. Chasing sales taxes and traffic tickets. And its lack of an earnings tax hasn't deterred people, jobs, and wealth from leaving it either.

Being a "Want to watch the world burn" sort of person I say we ride this race to the bottom into the ground. If the City income tax gets overturned by the State Government, Urban Democrats need to fight fire with fire and start slashing the State Government which disproportionately benefits the rural areas of the State at the cost to Donor Urban counties' paid revenues.

quincunx · PostDec 02, 2015#772015-12-02T20:49+00:00

Here's the Senator talking about his bill on McGraw KTRS

Seems to me the drag on the state's economy is spinning our wheels on sprawl, fragmentation, segregation, retail subsidies, not enough educated/skilled people, etc.

In the court case he's citing a resident in MD sued because counties wouldn't offer a credit for taxes paid on income earned out of state. So I guess a city resident who worked in IL would have to sue.

Ebsy · PostDec 04, 2015#782015-12-04T08:30+00:00

Rex Sinquefeld strikes again and his lackies.

This a**hole wants to be governor of our fair state some day, but I think he is making a mistake attacking both St. Louis and Kansas City at the same time. Republicans do best in Missouri when they play the two major cities off against each other, exploiting the long present divide.

I think we would need likely around 54 votes in the House or 11 votes in Senate the to sustain Nixon's veto. Currently there are only 8 Democrats in the Senate and 45 in the House.

ajwillikers · PostDec 04, 2015#792015-12-04T14:14+00:00

Let's ride the race to the bottom into the ground Dr. Strangelove bomb style! We can't let the Missouri State Legislature completely destroy the Urban Areas and THEN let them cut the taxes to zero.

The Urban Cities can win at this game by saying "No more state sales or incomes taxes, good luck with your free market." Rural Republicans are either outright lying about wanting Smaller Government happy to rake in revenues from the Urban areas, or they'll flourish without state subsidies and good for them.

bprop · PostDec 04, 2015#802015-12-04T16:00+00:00

^ huh?

Kevin B · PostDec 04, 2015#812015-12-04T16:59+00:00

I've been trying to think about what needs to happen within St. Louis to make a revoked earnings tax somewhat palatable -- 100,000 more residents and 8-10 more F500 businesses headquartered within the City of St. Louis (rather than using "St. Louis, MO" as an address while being located in Town & Country...cough, cough...Rawlings and Energizer...)?

At that point, does the nascent new STL economy somewhat justify the removal of the earnings tax? Anything less, I guess, certainly does not.

MarkHaversham · PostDec 04, 2015#822015-12-04T17:10+00:00

ajwillikers wrote:Let's ride the race to the bottom into the ground Dr. Strangelove bomb style! We can't let the Missouri State Legislature completely destroy the Urban Areas and THEN let them cut the taxes to zero.

The Urban Cities can win at this game by saying "No more state sales or incomes taxes, good luck with your free market." Rural Republicans are either outright lying about wanting Smaller Government happy to rake in revenues from the Urban areas, or they'll flourish without state subsidies and good for them.

Not sure what you are thinking, Rural Republicans would loooove to eliminate the state income tax. They'd be happy to watch the state fall apart and say "See, government doesn't work, eliminate roads/trails/schools/shelters/etc".

quincunx · PostDec 04, 2015#832015-12-04T17:15+00:00

It'd need much more or more valuable property. So much of the land is already tax exempt, WashU, BJC, Engineers' Club, SLU, State, Feds, NGA, stadiums, LRA, etc. Then there's all the TIFed and abated properties, though at least those end at some point.

And/or more sales taxable transactions.

roger wyoming II · PostDec 04, 2015#842015-12-04T18:01+00:00

^ that issue of non-taxable real estate is a huge one and also makes me scratch my head a bit on why the Slay administration is all hell-bent on transferring another 200 acres in Greater Downtown off the property tax rolls. Our credit rating recently was reduced in part due to our over reliance on earnings tax yet here we are having NGA as our top economic development priority. (And of course the stadium site would be tax exempt in addition to being a fiscal burden.)

I know the NGA issue is a difficult one, and we certainly aren't like Washington, D.C. where they actually are quite happy that the FBI HQ will be leaving for the burbs so they can redevelop the property for a higher return to the city, but if the NGA moves forward and doesn't increase surrounding property taxes substantially I don't think we'll be seeing very much of a fiscal benefit.

quincunx · PostDec 05, 2015#852015-12-05T16:58+00:00

If the loss of the earnings tax were made up for by higher property taxes the rate would go from 1.4672 / $100 assessed to 5.3797 (How high can the city raise it?). Looks like I'd be at a net loss of about $70 in that scenario. I fear for those whose income to home value ratio is smaller.

ajwillikers · PostDec 07, 2015#862015-12-07T23:59+00:00

Why raise property taxes? So people can continue to come into the city to work and not contribute to fund the local infrastructure meanwhile the State of Missouri taxes from the local economy with sales and income taxes to redistribute to outstate Missouri?

What is it going to take for us to realize the level of animosity outstate Missouri has for the St. Louis area? And even worse how they take our tax money and give less of it back in state spending.

It would be dumb for a city resident to pay more money so others can commute here at reduced cost, especially St. Charles County, Jefferson County, and Illinois.

quincunx · PostDec 08, 2015#872015-12-08T01:34+00:00

Or the general sales tax could go from 1.375% to 5.775% (Probably can't do that w/o state permission) or broaden what it applies to (probably can't do that either). Don't know how I'd fare in that situation because who keeps track of their sales taxes? That's why they love it!

Or the city could 17x its traffic fines and fees, oh but it can only go to 20% of gen rev due to SB5, so it can only triple it.

Or quadruple the franchise tax

A tax on the gross receipts of utility companies operating within the City, including sales of electricity, natural gas, telephone services, water and steam, and on the gross receipts of the Airport.

Or a combo by doubling property, sales, and franchise taxes.

jstriebel · PostDec 08, 2015#882015-12-08T05:56+00:00

So, uh, what's the process for becoming a state?

ajwillikers · PostDec 08, 2015#892015-12-08T14:33+00:00

quincunx wrote:Or a combo by doubling property, sales, and franchise taxes.

1) Calculating total sales tax is pretty easy. You take Take Home Pay - Amount Put Into Savings - Non Sales Tax Spending Rent/Utilities/Loan Payments to equal disposable income and then multiply that by the sales tax rate.

2) Why should we allow the Outstaters to make it more expensive to live in the city of St. Louis while making it cheaper to live in the rural areas and commutes are still raking in State subsidies and siphoning off the Urban value created? Enough of this bleeding heart "What about the poor rural children?!" and be tough that the Democrats shouldn't be advocates for the people that don't vote for them.

The Democrats need to be a Pro-Urban party if they have any hope of having any power outside of the Presidency. That means cutting the state government subsidies that go to rural areas to bring more power back to Urban areas. #SlashTheStateBudget

MarkHaversham · PostDec 08, 2015#902015-12-08T15:27+00:00

Unless you want to support an armed insurrection, I don't see how you expect St. Louis to force the rural-dominated state legislature to do anything.

ajwillikers · PostDec 08, 2015#912015-12-08T16:06+00:00

MarkHaversham wrote:Unless you want to support an armed insurrection, I don't see how you expect St. Louis to force the rural-dominated state legislature to do anything.

The pen is mightier! We don't have to *force* anything. Just "take our ball and go home" in the economic sense by eliminating the state income or more importantly the state sales tax. Seems like an easy sell to the anti-tax folks while we know full well it benefits those same folks disproportionately especially through infrastructure funding of the sales tax on automobile sales that goes to MODOT.

If we can't get our Representatives to at the very least call out the hypocrisy of the Rural legislators taking in disproportional subsidies from the Urban counties, we might as well move now since it's going to get much worse in this state because the Rural Republicans are going to pass a bunch of stupid regulations on labor, minimum wage, planned parenthood, etc before they bother to cut the State Budget.

Say what you will about Kansas and their cuts, but I haven't heard of any problems coming out of their more Urban areas as result of decreased state funding. (Yes I shuttered a little thinking of Topeka as Urban).

quincunx · PostDec 08, 2015#922015-12-08T16:43+00:00

ajwillikers wrote:
quincunx wrote:Or a combo by doubling property, sales, and franchise taxes.
1) Calculating total sales tax is pretty easy. You take Take Home Pay - Amount Put Into Savings - Non Sales Tax Spending Rent/Utilities/Loan Payments to equal disposable income and then multiply that by the sales tax rate.

No, it's not. Account money spent on gas, cigs, prescriptions, tickets, travel, purchases in other jurisdictions, accounting different rate for groceries, internet purchases. You'd need to keep track of each purchase.

ajwillikers · PostDec 08, 2015#932015-12-08T16:51+00:00

quincunx wrote:
ajwillikers wrote:
quincunx wrote:Or a combo by doubling property, sales, and franchise taxes.
1) Calculating total sales tax is pretty easy. You take Take Home Pay - Amount Put Into Savings - Non Sales Tax Spending Rent/Utilities/Loan Payments to equal disposable income and then multiply that by the sales tax rate.
No, it's not. Account money spent on gas, cigs, prescriptions, tickets, travel, purchases in other jurisdictions, accounting different rate for groceries, internet purchases. You'd need to keep track of each purchase.

Materiality. Peg it at 4.5 state and then another 5.5% local. Being off 1% over $10,000 of spending works out to less than a $10 margin of error per month.

I do agree with you, that Sales Tax purposefully obfuscates how much is being collected and puts it in slush funds so it's inherently a less fair way of taxation as opposed to user fees.

quincunx · PostJan 27, 2016#942016-01-27T18:27+00:00

I thunk it'll pass with >80% of the vote. Voters are much more worried about crime, IMO.

CarexCurator · PostJan 29, 2016#952016-01-29T13:54+00:00

Are we even going to be able to vote on this?
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... 378b8.html

Guy from columbia is pushing a removal of the earnings tax in Jefferson City. He's got to be on Sinquefield's dime, right? Or else why does he care?

pat · PostJan 29, 2016#962016-01-29T14:07+00:00

He is. To the tune of...

Schaefer has received $750,000 from Sinquefield, a retired investor and the state’s No. 1 political donor, in his quest for the attorney general’s office.

quincunx · PostJan 29, 2016#972016-01-29T14:10+00:00

How about the state gives a credit on state taxes for the earnings tax?

Or better yet exempt StL residents from all state income taxes?

roger wyoming II · PostJan 29, 2016#982016-01-29T14:17+00:00

^^ do you know how much Slay has received from King Rex is recent years?

CarexCurator · PostJan 29, 2016#992016-01-29T14:30+00:00

^I've been angry with Slay since at least the century building demolition. His priorities are always in the wrong place. He opposes great plans (city to river) and supports horrible plans (mckee, cupples demo, rams, etc.). He has to go. I just wish we had someone other than Reed to run against him. Reed and Antonio French occasionally do great things, but more often then not they just act political and do the opposite of Slay even in those rare times when Slay is doing something right. It's petty and annoying. I can vote for Reed but I'm hardly doing so in an inspired fashion that I joyfully share with my neighbors.

roger wyoming II · PostJan 29, 2016#1002016-01-29T14:48+00:00

^ While he would have some time to recover before next election, I think if we lose NGA to Metro East Slay's days as Mayor would be in danger of coming to an end. Personally I think we need a younger and forward thinking person in office who can move things forward into the 21c.

Earnings Tax and Propositions Every 5 Years

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