l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 December 6, 2012 Posted by Doug Johnson
From The Sacramento Bee:
Thanks to passage of Proposition 30 last month, high-income Californians
would pay the nation’s highest marginal income tax rates — nearly 52
percent — if President Barack Obama and Congress fail to make a deal to
avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” according to a new study.
Without a fiscal cliff deal to the contrary, the Bush era tax cuts on
high-income taxpayers would expire next year and rates would return to their
previous levels.
Gerald Prante, an economics professor at Lynchburg College in Virginia,
and Austin John, a Lynchburg economics student, calculated marginal tax
rates — the highest rates on the highest levels of income — for all 50
states. They combined state, federal and, where applicable, local income
taxes, plus payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare and included the
deductibility of some taxes.
Proposition 30 added three percentage points to the marginal state
income tax rate for California’s highest-income taxpayers, bringing it to
13.3 percent. That action raised California over other high-tax
jurisdictions to a marginal rate of 51.9 percent, slightly higher than New
York City’s level. Hawaii was the only other place with a calculated rate
above 50 percent.
All Things Digital notes that the retroactive rate increases are intended to
capitalize on the Facebook IPO, but with all marginal rates (including
capital gains) now over 50% they’ve just created a real powerful
disincentive for start-up firms to locate in the struggling state.
Nothing terrifies investors or entrepreneurs as much as the concept of
expropriation. When governments decide to expropriate legally obtained
assets, entrepreneurs who worked tirelessly to build businesses and
investors who risked scarce capital end up with little to nothing for their
troubles. In fact, developing countries often get saddled with country risk
premiums, making it harder for them to attract capital because the mere
threat their governments will someday seize profitable companies or
industries keeps investors away.
So it’s all the more puzzling that California, home of Silicon Valley
and the densest concentration of entrepreneurs in the nation (possibly the
world) would pass Proposition 30 in last month’s election. Regardless of
your personal views on the issues of taxing and spending, there is one thing
that cannot be overlooked. Prop 30 includes a gigantic retroactive tax
increase on legitimate capital gains and ordinary income that dates back to
Jan. 1, 2012.
The top marginal rate jumps by 29.13 percent to a staggering 13.3
percent of income. Oddly, California doesn’t distinguish between ordinary
income and capital gains in the way the federal government does. The result
is that we have nearly doubled the 15 percent federal capital gains tax rate
, and this applies to income earned in the past, for which taxes have
already been paid.
By enacting their “millionaire” tax (really a clone of the Obama $250,000
and above plan) California has gambled that the won’t chase away all of
those likely to pay the tax. Good luck with that… |
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