The $89 a year in state income taxes is insignificant compared to the sales tax. The poverty line for a family of 4 is $21,200. Support that they spent $600 a month on housing - that would leave $14,000 to spend on everything else. If they spend $500 a month on food, their sales tax on food alone would be $308, at the St. Louis city food sales tax rate. And if they spend $5,000 a year on other taxable items, they’d pay an additional $412 in sales taxes. That’s a total of $720 a year in sales taxes.

In this election, St. Louis county taxpayers are being asked to approve a total of 3/4% in additional sales taxes. That will cost the above mentioned family an additional $82.50 a year in taxes - almost the entire amount of the income tax levy with which you are so concerned. Refresh our memories, where did the Post stand on these sales tax increases?

HAHAHAHAHA Nick! The P-D and the sales tax issues. Loving it! You are definitely a study of the art of government. I like your posts.

Something to note,I deal with types of corporate taxes at work, and do side work in the personal tax arena, as well. The average family of 4 at the poverty line also qualifies for many medical benefits and perks, and food stamps - which more than covers any sales tax - or income tax - deficiencies. They also qualify for child/dependent care refundable credits, as well as earned income credit in the amount of thousands, generally if the other two dependents are children (some people care for eldrely, which allows different credits, but not some of the child care credits). So while I am not opposed to a progressive tax, and I know that the low income tax payers may get snagged by state income tax, their net tax benefits in the range listed by the study not only are greater than a wash (the tax credits/refunds pay more than sales, income, and FICA combined back to the family) so that the family actually EARNS money for free on taxes, but such thungs as the advanced EIC allow them to collect that money well in advance of the federal tax filing season.

This is another reason that I don’t understand how people buy into “spreading the wealth” theory so generously offered by Obama, and why Post-Dispatch editorials like this one are considered so fair and balanced: While reports may show that “rich people” can deduct enough that they have an income tax liability of say 8%, which is lower than the lowest bracket of 10% (15% was the lowest if you consider the “rebates” for the 10% bracket last year), no one counts all of these refundable credits that end up making the poorest even refunded over the amount that they spend on FICA! So when you hear: the poor are taxed more than the rich, it just isn’t so. So when they talk about raising taxes on the rich, and making refunds for the poor, well, this already happens, so what they are literally talking about IS redistribution of wealth.

So while I am part of the “working poor”, I understand how the tax code works, and therefore, am not afraid of it. I am indeed enraged by the fact that “the Obama’s” idea of how to change that is to take it from the guy who gives me a job, so that the guy who gives me a job has to lay me off, and I have to live on his dime even more through social services, without him even getting the benefit of the labor that makes him the money that they want him to pay more of.

Obama’s tax policies are ones that would keep making the poor poorer, AND the rich poorer. At least Mc Cain’s will keep the rich afloat, so that they can continue to afford to make the poor richer. Why doesn’t anyone see that?

Nick: I think we can agree on the fact that sales taxes are too high. The problem is that voters have proven that they will approve higher sales taxes, but reject income or property taxes.
I really don’t understand why people prefer to pay extra dollars at the cash register, hundreds of times a year, but resist the idea of writing a larger check, only once a year, for income or property taxes.
Although hardly perfect, both income and property taxes are more progressive than a sales tax.

Jim G:

Sales tax = “fair tax” or “flat tax”, which you pay -and the government spends - as you go. That leaves little to social engineering through tax code - either you buy and they earn, or you don’t, and they don’t. It is a libertarian principle. In the same way that it suprises you that people would prefer a sales tax over other types, I find it suprising that so many Missourians are terrified of the scary libertarians, even though (and especially since yours are far from the only comments reflecting the sentiment) most Missourians would qualify themselves in principle as libertarians over most other parties, if they tested soley on their personal beliefs on all platform topics, without knowing which platform held that belief.

I was raised in a state with no sales tax. I believe a progressive tax is good with a very limited top bracket and many less deductions, but keep in mind, the top bracket when the progressive income tax was reinstated was 6%. That was for people making more than $25,000, I believe. Of course that was when you could buy a Model T for under a grand.

Income and capital gains taxes penalize earning and saving but lend themselves very well to social engineering and property redistribution.

Property and sales taxes penalize acquisition and consumption while encouraging saving and fiscal self restraint. But, they deny the politicians and special interest lobbies the powers of the income tax deductions, credits, and exemptions.

That political power is why the Federal Tax Code expands by thousands of pages annually. Just as we are seeing in this election cycle, the public continues to be bribed and blackmailed with our own money. This works well for government worshipers such as the PD editors; while it makes fools of the working taxpayers.

> Nick: I think we can agree on the fact that sales taxes are too high.

I guess it depends upon which “we” you’re talking about. You and I? I can assent to half of that “we” and it sounds like you’re in too. But apparently the editorial board, which almost always endorses sales tax increases, and which endorsed both proposed sales tax hikes in this election, does not agree with us.

PS - I wouldn’t call voters’ failure to approve higher income and property taxes a “problem” - I’d call it a choice. As to why they still approve sales tax increases, I can only assume they don’t do the math.

Also, you are mistaken if you believe that property taxes are progressive. I’m a landlord, and if my property taxes go up, I will increase my rent to compensate. So the property tax is flat at best. But it’s even worse than that, really: Because assessed values are lower, and the demand for public services is higher, in poor areas, the property tax rates tend to be highest in poor areas. For example: A Hillsdale resident faces a property tax rate of 10.3047, including 5.6251 to the unaccredited Wellston School District, and 0.3930 to the City of Hillsdale. A Ladue resident has a rate of 5.1311, which includes 2.98 to the excellent Ladue schools, and no municipal property tax at all. Jennings, 7.8832. Riverview Gardens, 8.9844. Rockwood-Chesterfield, 6.8923. Not exactly progressive, is it?

Nick: In all fairness, someone in Welston may have a household income of $30,000 while owning a $100,000 house, where in Ladue, the odds are more likely that the household income is $300,000 and house would be valued at $700,000. Proportionately different, and obviously, there are probably higher ratios of kids per household in Welston, and thus the need for a higher revenue for schools, proportionately, than the need in Ladue, especially given the number of private school students in Ladue. So technically, that particular tax works the way that it should - it is LOCAL, and it is “progressive” to that overall asset base to work with for the socially provided (read: community-based) schools. Some of the proceeds go to the state (probably a healthy chunk of the rate for Ladue, and conversely a very small part of Welston’s rate) to be redistributed through the funding formula, and some part goes to a safety-net fund for failed budgets (like when Ford dropped out of Hazelwood). I can see, therefore, calling property tax “progressive” in the way that Jim uses the term. You hit the nail on the head on all else.