| A couple of random thoughts as a former WA state resident... * WA omits groceries, prescriptions, and rent from sales tax. So many of the actual necessities in life are already not impacted. * No personal income tax drastically simplifies and shrinks the tax bureaucracy. According to the Seattle Times, the city's goal of taxing high earners will cost "10 million to $13 million to set up, plus $5 million to $6 million per year to manage and enforce". That isn't counting the overhead costs on the citizens themselves. This is all money that could more productively flow elsewhere. * There seems to be an assumption that income taxes will drastically reduce the sales tax. But from my memories of living in both CA and NY don't really bear that up. If anything, these states all have problems with spending too much... more tax revenue is like giving alcohol to an alcoholic and just makes the problem worse. * Income taxes give politicians another tool for pandering to special interests. In NY, one of my exes got a fixed tax deduction for classroom supply expenses because she was a teacher. That's neat, but there was no such tax-payer candy for my own professional expenses. And back then her salary quite a bit higher than mine. Not fair. * (bonus!) We often tax things that we wish to disincentivize, such as cigarettes. If you accept the premise of anthropogenic global warming, then perhaps we should drastically jack up sales tax instead to reduce consumption, keeping the omitted categories above. |