I don't understand how the effective tax rate in NY can be the same as Ontario, Canada - but here in Canada we have at least healthcare for all citizens that gets paid for out of that. It's not A+ care but it's good, and it covers everyone. And it's like 1/3 of the budget, it's a huge line item.
What the heyzeus are you Americans spending all that tax money on?
More on topic: the same issue exists between US and Canada, and it needs to be sorted. Some ports of entry on the US/Mexico border are not properly set up to process TN visas etc..
America as a whole? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are 3 mandatory spending programs that make up ~45% of gov't spending. Defense makes up ~15% and is discretionary (albeit also globally projected, though most of which goes to paying soldiers and maintenance/operational costs). [0]
New York? Mostly on healthcare (~22%) and education (~31%). [1]
I don't know what Canada's approach to efficiency is, but most levels of public service in the US are quite indifferent to the idea of maximizing the good that can be done with tax revenue.
In the US about 50% of healthcare is paid by various levels of government. The US spends about twice the percent of GDP on healthcare as most other western countries. So if the US could just figure out how to get similar costs to what Europe has, the US could have a European style government healthcare system without high taxes.
I had this problem between Ohio and Kentucky about 10 years ago: I moved from Ohio to Kentucky, and they both considered me living in their state for the entire year.
I gave up trying to fight it after about 5 years (!!) and just paid the $15K to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and moved on with my life.
I now live in Florida -- legally and physically -- and don't have to deal with the headache of this crazy state income tax drama.
I've left Kentucky twice and in each case when I moved in or out there was no confusion about partial months. Not sure what happened in your case but I can tell you that is not normal. I've only ever paid taxes for the months I resided in the state.
I don't know why anyone would want to appear to leave. Just leave. The property taxes are ridiculous, infrastructure is falling apart, etc.
On a recent trip back up there you can tell when you hit NYS roads - rusted bridges and crumbling asphalt pock marked with pot holes that can damage your car.
Maybe they should focus on things to make people want to stay?
It would be like a SaaS business changing the contracts so people can't leave (e.g. can't take data) instead of building features that people want.
New York is also aggressive about collecting taxes from remote employees. If you work for a NY-based company, but live in another state, you most likely have to pay NYS income taxes. Depending on how your _actual_ home state deals with things, you might end up double-taxed.
what if two higher tax states both claim they are your home state because they want to fight over your taxes. this must happen. that's different than moving 'mostly' to a lower tax state. and then what's the threshold for ny claiming you moved there? what a mess.
It happened to my buddy who happens to be millionaire and flies every few weeks cali versus new york. Two years ago state of california sued him for non payment of taxes. It went down to literally receipts from gas station making difference proving he spent over 183 days in new york versus cali. intresting - credit card purchases were not admitted because state tried to prove he used proxy (he does) so he could be in any state when purchasing off of Amazon. He won and gov appealed Then cali went after new york asking for all the evidence of his taxes knowing new york wont comply. For over year both states fight with each other with my friend being literally non-involved. Eventually cali dropped the suit some 16 months after filing appeal.
This happens all of the time. For example, it is very common to live in NJ and work NYC. In that case, you pay NYC tax, NY and NJ tax and receive credit for your NJ tax based on the NY state tax you pay.
People aren't moving because the rich would rather pay a little extra and do what they want.
What I find interesting is that, in following the California real estate market for the last two years in preparation to moving there, there is a drop in demand for high-end housing since the tax law took effect. The combination of higher taxes and lower mortgage deductions has kept a lot of people from buying bigger houses. I've also seen a lot of empty-nesters downsizing.
Interestingly enough, the higher priced homes are the only ones somewhat holding up. "Sales below $500,000 dropped 21 percent on a year-over-year basis, while deals of $500,000 or more fell about 3 percent, marking the first annual decline for that price category in nearly two years,” said LePage. “Home sales of $1 million or more last month rose just a tad – less than 1 percent – from a year earlier following annual gains of between 5 percent and 21 percent over the prior year.”
Interesting. From the perspective of someone already living in California, there has been an increase in demand for high-end houses in SoCal despite the tax law changes. Pricing trends plateaued briefly the first half of the year but half resumed their upward climb, especially in the nice parts of LA.
If you really decide never to set foot in the filthy dump that is NYC, why do you care about their claim on taxing authority anyways? Can they enforce that across state line?
Not to be pedantic but the article is about NY state, NJ, CT etc. Many people live in NY state but do not live in NYC. Additionally, as the article explains, some people try to live outside of the state for over half the year in order to avoid paying state taxes. Presumably, there are considerable financial and personal incentives for maintaining some presence in NY state. So, the answer to your question is yes because the people in question are still typically maintaining a residence in a high tax state.
How is the current exceptional focus on taxes a productive policy? Taxes are investment in your (country/locality). While nobody likes the cost of investment, our lives and prosperity and everything else depends on it. And while some investments are worthwhile and some are not (just ask any VC!), to say we should minimize and avoid all investment is, of course, ridiculous. For example, nobody would suggest you minimize investment in your home unless you were leaving soon, or would advice YCombinator to minimize investment in startups unless they simple wanted to close out business now. You can't leave your country (or you must live somewhere) and it's never going out of business, you hope.
Places with low investment (and taxes) in the U.S. and around the world generally have a lower quality of life and don't produce much beyond rent-seeking industries such as fossil fuels. Is the goal to model the U.S. economy on the great successes of places like Alabama,[0] or would it be better to model it on California or New York? Almost all leading industries, as well as education, arts and other things, are in high-investment places like California, New York, Michigan (automobile industry), etc. Successful people from low-investment areas move to high-investment areas to pursue their dreams, for straightforward economic reasons: that is where resources are. Tim Cook, from Mobile Alabama, comes to mind as well as the many entrepreneurs in SV from India. Almost nobody born in SV moves to Mobile to start their business. Smart kids from California go to Berkley, not U of Alabama, because the state has invested in higher education. The smartest kids from Mobile go to Berkley too (or to other leading universities in high-investment places).
Poor countries are a simple example: They invest little out of necessity and their citizens are poorly educated and live harder and shorter lives. Under U.S. tax and investment policy, uniquely among wealthy countries life expectancy for Americans is now decreasing.
[0] My apologies to Alabamans for using their state as a simplistic example of low-investment government. Of course there is much more to Alabama than that, and it's much more complicated than a simple number or stereotype.
I think you may be conflating the directionality of success and "high-investment", to use your terminology. "High-investment" government tends to follow domestic success, not vice versa. For instance California is a phenomenally clear example of this. I assume you know what the San Francisco 49ers are named after?
It was the California gold rush of 1848-1855. 49ers was a slang term for the miners. This gold rush created San Francisco. In 1846 California was a backwoods settlement of 200 people. In 1842, its population was 36,000 and it was booming as the primary port on the way to the gold rushes. California was the only state that was granted statehood (which happened in 1850) without first being a territory as the US raced to lay claim to its riches and successes. The Comstock Lode (silver's not quite as exciting as gold I guess) discovered in Nevada would further grow the city.
Even getting down to Berkeley. The university was founded in 1869. You know all those Phoebe Hearst references around the campus? She was a huge early donor that helped really develop the college. And the money? She was the wife of George Hearst, who struck it rich during the gold/silver rushes. The cities (and state for that matter) were built from the ground up by the people, for the people. "High-investment" government only came much later.
Poor countries are actually a great example. Vietnam for instance is an extremely poor nation. Their parity adjusted GDP/capita is $6,925. It's $2,305 nominal. They end up spending a paltry $450/capita party adjusted on education [2]. In the US we proudly spend $3,455/capita - upwards of 700% more. [1] This is a listing of nations in academic performance by PISA results. [2] This is a list of countries by how much they spend on education, if you'd like to compare other nations. Vietnam is not a single outlier.
Vietnam is currently scoring 22nd in the world on math, and 7th in the world on science. The US is 41st on Math, 24th on science. And we spend more to anywhere in the world, excepting 3 nations, on education. You'll find Vietnam is not alone in this peculiar aspect. The correlation between government spending on education and educational performance is not particularly good. And people still think we need to substantially increase educational spending. This is really one of the fundamental problems with government. Everything is seen through the lens of money. Is something not performing well? You can solve it by just throwing more money at it! Of course this is not true. The spending tends to be wasteful at best, and completely ineffective at worst.
The point I'm getting at here is that as you see these sort of results of spending across the range of government fields, being asked to give them large sums of your money to continue spending is one reason people can grow discouraged when being forced to give this government so much of their money. Or consider our completely pointless wars. The total cost for the Iraq war alone is going to end up in the trillions of dollars. And on top of all of this it seems that no matter how much the government increases their gross receipts, they still manage to dive ever deeper into debt. Again, that's not particularly encouraging.
> While nobody likes the cost of investment, our lives and prosperity and everything else depends on it.
Yes, taxes are an investment. In the same way that putting money in your savings account is also an investment. But I wouldn't recommend that anyone keep all their money in a savings account.
Every dollar that the state takes away from people, in order to invest in itself, that is one less dollar that each person has to decide how THEY would want that dollar to be invested.
So higher taxes is not higher investment. It is a reduction in private investment, in exchange for a increase in public investment. Whether the world needs more private or more public investment is a matter of debate.
> For example, nobody would suggest you minimize investment in your home unless you were leaving soon
Well, that depends. If my choice is between paying off my credit cards, or investing in my house, I certainly believe that paying off my credit cards would be a better investment. Every dollar that I personally invest in my home is one less dollar that I am able to invest elsewhere. And those other investments may be a more pressing concern. Or they might not.
Also, even IF it is "proved" that a public investment has better returns than a private one, you also need to take into account that you are taking money from someone else, and there are moral questions about how much money we should be taking from other people.
I believe that it is OK to take some money from people, but certainly not all of it, regardless of how much better the public investment is. What that level should be is matter of debate.
To take it to the extreme, even IF the government had some amazing investment that was better than all private investments, I would STILL oppose it if the government decided to take a full 100% of money from everyone.
This is because I believe in private property, and that people are entitled to at least SOME of the profits of their efforts.
[+] [-] jedmeyers|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonnyblarney|7 years ago|reply
What the heyzeus are you Americans spending all that tax money on?
More on topic: the same issue exists between US and Canada, and it needs to be sorted. Some ports of entry on the US/Mexico border are not properly set up to process TN visas etc..
[+] [-] gravy|7 years ago|reply
New York? Mostly on healthcare (~22%) and education (~31%). [1]
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/CB... [1] https://openbudget.ny.gov/overview.html
[+] [-] klipt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kolbe|7 years ago|reply
Example in NYC:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
[+] [-] justinator|7 years ago|reply
The Military.
[+] [-] njarboe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imroot|7 years ago|reply
I gave up trying to fight it after about 5 years (!!) and just paid the $15K to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and moved on with my life.
I now live in Florida -- legally and physically -- and don't have to deal with the headache of this crazy state income tax drama.
[+] [-] whoiskevin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] millstone|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] civilitty|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt_s|7 years ago|reply
On a recent trip back up there you can tell when you hit NYS roads - rusted bridges and crumbling asphalt pock marked with pot holes that can damage your car.
Maybe they should focus on things to make people want to stay?
It would be like a SaaS business changing the contracts so people can't leave (e.g. can't take data) instead of building features that people want.
[+] [-] justinph|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fhood|7 years ago|reply
Edit: I have a love/hate relationship with NY and NYC in particular.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] driverdan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Latteland|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joering2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lemonghost|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshuaheard|7 years ago|reply
What I find interesting is that, in following the California real estate market for the last two years in preparation to moving there, there is a drop in demand for high-end housing since the tax law took effect. The combination of higher taxes and lower mortgage deductions has kept a lot of people from buying bigger houses. I've also seen a lot of empty-nesters downsizing.
[+] [-] lscore720|7 years ago|reply
Interestingly enough, the higher priced homes are the only ones somewhat holding up. "Sales below $500,000 dropped 21 percent on a year-over-year basis, while deals of $500,000 or more fell about 3 percent, marking the first annual decline for that price category in nearly two years,” said LePage. “Home sales of $1 million or more last month rose just a tad – less than 1 percent – from a year earlier following annual gains of between 5 percent and 21 percent over the prior year.”
[+] [-] gamblor956|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackconnor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dixie_land|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lemonghost|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forapurpose|7 years ago|reply
Places with low investment (and taxes) in the U.S. and around the world generally have a lower quality of life and don't produce much beyond rent-seeking industries such as fossil fuels. Is the goal to model the U.S. economy on the great successes of places like Alabama,[0] or would it be better to model it on California or New York? Almost all leading industries, as well as education, arts and other things, are in high-investment places like California, New York, Michigan (automobile industry), etc. Successful people from low-investment areas move to high-investment areas to pursue their dreams, for straightforward economic reasons: that is where resources are. Tim Cook, from Mobile Alabama, comes to mind as well as the many entrepreneurs in SV from India. Almost nobody born in SV moves to Mobile to start their business. Smart kids from California go to Berkley, not U of Alabama, because the state has invested in higher education. The smartest kids from Mobile go to Berkley too (or to other leading universities in high-investment places).
Poor countries are a simple example: They invest little out of necessity and their citizens are poorly educated and live harder and shorter lives. Under U.S. tax and investment policy, uniquely among wealthy countries life expectancy for Americans is now decreasing.
[0] My apologies to Alabamans for using their state as a simplistic example of low-investment government. Of course there is much more to Alabama than that, and it's much more complicated than a simple number or stereotype.
EDIT: some clarifications and enhancements
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|7 years ago|reply
It was the California gold rush of 1848-1855. 49ers was a slang term for the miners. This gold rush created San Francisco. In 1846 California was a backwoods settlement of 200 people. In 1842, its population was 36,000 and it was booming as the primary port on the way to the gold rushes. California was the only state that was granted statehood (which happened in 1850) without first being a territory as the US raced to lay claim to its riches and successes. The Comstock Lode (silver's not quite as exciting as gold I guess) discovered in Nevada would further grow the city.
Even getting down to Berkeley. The university was founded in 1869. You know all those Phoebe Hearst references around the campus? She was a huge early donor that helped really develop the college. And the money? She was the wife of George Hearst, who struck it rich during the gold/silver rushes. The cities (and state for that matter) were built from the ground up by the people, for the people. "High-investment" government only came much later.
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|7 years ago|reply
Vietnam is currently scoring 22nd in the world on math, and 7th in the world on science. The US is 41st on Math, 24th on science. And we spend more to anywhere in the world, excepting 3 nations, on education. You'll find Vietnam is not alone in this peculiar aspect. The correlation between government spending on education and educational performance is not particularly good. And people still think we need to substantially increase educational spending. This is really one of the fundamental problems with government. Everything is seen through the lens of money. Is something not performing well? You can solve it by just throwing more money at it! Of course this is not true. The spending tends to be wasteful at best, and completely ineffective at worst.
The point I'm getting at here is that as you see these sort of results of spending across the range of government fields, being asked to give them large sums of your money to continue spending is one reason people can grow discouraged when being forced to give this government so much of their money. Or consider our completely pointless wars. The total cost for the Iraq war alone is going to end up in the trillions of dollars. And on top of all of this it seems that no matter how much the government increases their gross receipts, they still manage to dive ever deeper into debt. Again, that's not particularly encouraging.
[1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-mat...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_spending_...
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] valuearb|7 years ago|reply
And taxes aren’t an investment, and neither is most government spending. Most government spending is actually diverted to connected insiders.
[+] [-] stale2002|7 years ago|reply
Yes, taxes are an investment. In the same way that putting money in your savings account is also an investment. But I wouldn't recommend that anyone keep all their money in a savings account.
Every dollar that the state takes away from people, in order to invest in itself, that is one less dollar that each person has to decide how THEY would want that dollar to be invested.
So higher taxes is not higher investment. It is a reduction in private investment, in exchange for a increase in public investment. Whether the world needs more private or more public investment is a matter of debate.
> For example, nobody would suggest you minimize investment in your home unless you were leaving soon
Well, that depends. If my choice is between paying off my credit cards, or investing in my house, I certainly believe that paying off my credit cards would be a better investment. Every dollar that I personally invest in my home is one less dollar that I am able to invest elsewhere. And those other investments may be a more pressing concern. Or they might not.
Also, even IF it is "proved" that a public investment has better returns than a private one, you also need to take into account that you are taking money from someone else, and there are moral questions about how much money we should be taking from other people.
I believe that it is OK to take some money from people, but certainly not all of it, regardless of how much better the public investment is. What that level should be is matter of debate.
To take it to the extreme, even IF the government had some amazing investment that was better than all private investments, I would STILL oppose it if the government decided to take a full 100% of money from everyone.
This is because I believe in private property, and that people are entitled to at least SOME of the profits of their efforts.
[+] [-] shiftoutbox|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sunstone|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpdev_63|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] millstone|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73v3r_|7 years ago|reply