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IncidentFar3094 t1_iucwiyz wrote

Question One opponents say Massachusetts already has enough money, and point to the surplus funds that are being rebated to tax payers.

But Question One is about fairness, not about the amount of money that is raised. It is about ensuring that the most wealthy pay the same overall rate as the rest of us. Including property taxes, the most wealthy are taxed at a lower percentage of their income. This is because a wealthy person's property tax is a smaller part of their income than an ordinary person's

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Intrepid_Priority154 t1_iud3wrd wrote

Property taxes are local. Also, rich live in high property taxed areas to keep out the poor.

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LetsPlayCanasta t1_iue93hm wrote

>It is about ensuring that the most wealthy pay the same overall rate as the rest of us.

They DO pay the same rate: MA has a flat tax on income. What could be more fair?

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gerkin123 t1_iuebokk wrote

MA has a structural problem with it's failure to adopt county-level funding systems. Schools within 5 miles of each other have different tax bases and consequently grossly uneven distributions of resources (doubly so since the state has been pushing ed-funding formulas onto townships for the past decade+).

The wealthy spend a far smaller percentage of their earned income, meaning that when it comes to sales taxes, the wealthy pay a smaller percentage of their total income to the state. Reason for this? People who are middle class and working class spend a much larger percentage of their earned income on week-to-week expenditures, while the top percentage folds much of their wealth into "not taxable annually" places. This futzes with annual calculations for state revenue.

Their property taxes flows proportionately to their community, meaning the ridiculously wealthy communities get ridiculously funded schools. But the state has less funding through sales to appropriate to the poorer districts with the greater volume of low income housing and higher population densities and greater student populations with smaller net revenue to be distributed across many more schools.

We have to acknowledge that, nationally, MA is in the minority--34 states have progressive tiered tax systems that acknowledge that wealthy need to contribute a higher percentage of their wealth because so much of it can be squirreled away, untaxed or undertaxed.

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SharpCookie232 t1_iudquv8 wrote

America is falling apart because the rich don't contribute. We need to be a society again.

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Comprehensive-Bus661 OP t1_iucx7vb wrote

So, they can pay for bloated salaries more fairly? Well, I guess I can get behind that. Not that it actually REDUCES the taxes I pay as a non-millionaire… It doesn’t take less from me so I can support myself, it just takes more from them. yay

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IncidentFar3094 t1_iucxqo5 wrote

Yes, if One had passed five years ago, the surplus would have been bigger and the upcoming tax refunds ordinary taxpayers are receiving soon would be bigger

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Intrepid_Priority154 t1_iud3ys7 wrote

So socialism?

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IncidentFar3094 t1_iudc97t wrote

Yes, only inverted socialism, where the ordinary earners pay 10% = 5% state and 5% local while high earners currently pay 5%= 5% state and just a small percent local.

Clarify: we currently have inverted socialism.. High earners pay less. Q1 evens it up a bit

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IncidentFar3094 t1_iudd6sa wrote

But I have to admit I have no idea what a rebate would look like with Q1 in place. Would the high earners get a higher rebate? Seems only fair they should. So I don't know

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fetamorphasis t1_iugkpfv wrote

The rebate is a flat percentage of total tax liability. So the high earners would get more absolute dollars but the same percentage refund.

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Comprehensive-Bus661 OP t1_iucy6fh wrote

MA legislators are currently working on a bill to redistribute the refund on a progressive scale but I don’t think it passed, yet so not sure that’s correct.

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IncidentFar3094 t1_iucy9z2 wrote

Yeah, it hasn't happened yet, but Charlie Baker is gonna make it happen

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dogmom603 t1_iufii8l wrote

Not allowed under the current constitution. Not allowed to tax the same class of income at different rates for different people, so the rebates have to happen proportionally based on how much each taxpayer actually paid.

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