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Comment by cenal | Hacker News Reader

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was engineered to do this.

Punish blue state earners with higher taxes. These folks flee into red states and hopefully bring some jobs with them.

If you're poor in a blue state, the local tax cap isn't going to affect you. It's just another form of progressive taxation.

It may be that more rich people live in blue states, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a political punishment for blue states... at least not anymore so than the income tax brackets are a punishment.

Here are some states that are particularly hit by this change: Iowa (5th highest state income taxes), Minnesota (4th), Wisconsin (10th). Illinois has the 4th highest total local taxes. Are those the blue states you're referring to?

I think it could have been structured in a better/different way.. but there's no need to turn this into some kind of political witchhunt. The US tax system has been a system of progressive taxation for a very long time.

This is silly, it’s been well established even by voters that this is punitive.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/us/politics/t...

Unsurprisingly, democrats flipped all but 1 seat in NJ by aggressively messaging the tax bill. The voters see it for what it is.

The 3rd chart on that page clearly shows this is a progressive tax increase, nearly entirely falling on those households making over $200k per year.

Again, it may be that more rich people live in blue states, but that does not make it punitive.

You could get the same graphic shown at the top for ANY tax increase. This article amounts to a general argument against any form of progressive taxation.

Is that why they decided to end a deduction instead of just doing an across the board percentage hike (or even both)? Again, even if you don't think so the people affected have gotten the message.

Punish in this context means reduce the amount of state taxes they can deduct from federal taxes - in effect increasing their tax rate. Isn't it predominantly "blue" people asking for more taxes for more social programs? Sounds like they got what they were asking for..

They want other people to pay increased taxes.

Most federal social programs are spent in red states.

Most poor people live in red States. This is effectively pointing out that our government spending is progressive.

That may be true in percentage terms, but it definitely appears not to be true in the absolute terms that would predict spending. States with households below the poverty line are, as you'd expect, dominated by the most populous states, which tend to be blue states.

Blue person here. I would be asking for the social programs, things like, educating children, to get more money.

For me to have to PAY more money, but for those social programs to get less money, is not at all what I would be after, no.

This is such an obvious distinction that it would lead me to assume you are not arguing in good faith. If that is not correct I would appreciate your expounding on your views more so I understand you.

You are paying more money than you did before, but because of a deduction cap not an increase in tax rate. You still have the same gross tax bill from state and federal, but you can no longer deduct the entirety of those state taxes from your federal taxes. The same amount of money is going to the social programs in your state through those taxes, and at the same time there is more money going to federal taxes. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say these social programs are getting less money.

He’s claiming that high taxes are not an end for people like him, they are a means to an end. If the end is not achieved via the means then the means are undesirable. If I had to hypothesize I might venture to say that were the President to pass a bill raising taxes progressively on the most wealthy while keeping spending on social programs the same, he would oppose it.

As a third party, I’d say I find this to be the highest likelihood interpretation of what he told you and so by far.

I’m an advocate for higher taxes; particularly on people of means. I’m opposed to a form of taxation that punishes someone based on the state they are living in. For instance, I’d be opposed to an increased tax on just wealthy residents of Mississippi. I’m on the fence about whether or not I favor the particular tax change under discussion but one shouln’t have the attitude that you have regarding it. You should come up with a better reason for supporting it. If you can’t then you should be opposed to it.

Pray tell, what social programs did they get for this? The tax bill was barely paid for.

Not to mention that affluent blue states already pay more net to the federal government than they get back in services.

This is the one I'm most excited about https://eig.org/opportunityzones

Describing a tax incentive for private capital as a "social program" stretches the bounds of credulity.

Furthermore, speaking as a resident of one of the designated "opportunity zones", it's already full of luxury condo developments.

Some argue that allowing residents of high tax states to deduct more from their federal taxes is in effect a subsidy to high tax states. Why should someone who lives in Washington or Texas (no state income tax) have to pay more in federal taxes than if he lived in California (highest state income taxes in the USA)? This never seemed equitable to me.

>Sounds like they got what they were asking for..

Where are the social programs then?

lol in this case it's more money going out of state to fund things like the military. So... not really.

The article talks about multi-year trends. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was introduced in November 2017 and became law in December.

At most, you can claim the law accelerated an existing trend but without 2018 data, you're just making things up.

This article https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2018/07/06/milli... connects most of the emigration to Prop 30 and Prop 55, but it's kinda hard to take it at the face value with "an estimated 138 high-income individuals" and no context on total number of high-income individuals or the tax bill they would've responsible for had they stayed.

>Punish blue state earners with higher taxes. These folks flee into red states and hopefully bring some jobs with them.

Of course, that's hoping they don't bring their politics.

I also have a hard time believing that the Act was actually engineered to combat market concentration, rather than that being a happy side-effect of punishing people perceived as likely to vote Democratic.

I benefitted significantly having always lived in states with significant local taxes.

And I never understood why those taxes should be deduced from my federal taxes.

Major increase in standard deduction should've left most income earners in those states flat (or better), and affect only upper echelons of earners.

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