Its still incredible how little taxes we pay the US, compared to the Netherlands or other European Nations.
True, but other countries don’t pay for certain things we do so when you suck 10% out of someone’s 10k a year paycheck, and in Oregon there isn’t much you can deduct from that, they may not be making rent or eating.
Yes, 10% income tax rates on people earning at the poverty level are stupid. There’s nothing wrong with the rates themselves, but the brackets need some serious work. Has anyone tried?
Oh sure, there are a lot freebies in the Netherlands. Financial support for children, subsidized Higher Education and subsidized Healthcare. 4 weeks of vacation.
Then again, gas taxes in the Netherlands is about 3.79 per gallon and 21% VAT taxes on most goods (but not all).
You pay out the nose in taxes in Europe, but you get what you pay for.
I honestly don’t know or why they’re like that. During downturns, our state gets screwed, like can’t keep the libraries open, a few counties loose the entire sheriff department thing. I don’t know why we don’t get some real brackets in there and mess with the rates instead of this well let’s add a line item on everyone paycheck for transportation thing. Like I said, it’s almost like a flat tax it’s so… well you see it.
I just know Kate and everyone behind her just likes to throw out new taxes every year, many of them fail, a few get through, anger ensues.
Fucking good. Personal automobiles are the root of a truly stupid share of the modern world’s evils.
Its one of the many reasons that people bike or use a moped.
Okay, the main reason is that NL is flat.
We don’t even have a bus stop in my city, and you know what would pay for one if we did, the property tax, not the state. I know because it was voted down, and they gave a breakdown of what it would cost per 1,000 to get one. it was not cheap, but we were out-voted.
I’ve been living without a car for nearly three years now. I really like it, but there’s no way most people could do it.
Pretty much this.
@Nesrie, I’m not crazy about the form this tax has taken (the same percentage on everyone, and higher fees for car registration and all that, which are flat and thus even worse). Still, between her and Bueller, who’s probably gonna try backing Oregon out of expanded Medicaid (which my own sis depends on) there’s just no question who I’m voting for.
@scottagibson Income taxes here in OR need to be reformed here to be more progressive (they’re only barely progressive) and fall less heavily on regular folks (I think the rates were drawn up in the 1930s, when a $10K/year salary was really good), but a sales tax? HA! Eff that regressive noise. Every time the powers that be try to foist it on us via referendum it goes down 3 to 1. They always say “it’s not gonna tax necessities” but last I checked shampoo, bath soap, toothpaste, diapers and TP were necessities, not to mention at least basic clothes.
What would greatly help us in Oregon (besides making the income tax more progressive) would be to lose that STUPID “kicker” law and put that extra money into a proper rainy day fund to smooth out the revenue curve.
Oh yeah. I am going to vote for her. It’s not just that I agree with Medicaid and general support of the working poor (some of our cities and states rank really high on the not doing well lists), I also think we’re one of the greener states too. I want to keep our forest forests, and protect the salmon, that sort of thing. Even as someone who is not going to vote for the other guy, I’m extremely pissed at that Transportation Tax. We’re a sleepy state so they’re not really running with it yet, but some reports might be suggesting they’re moving the OR Gov from lean D to toss-up, and the only reason we’re not paying out the nose in taxes is because several of her attempts have failed. That’s a fact. It would be worse if she got what she wanted and that’s before you even look why she’s in the office in the first place. This was always going to be a more uphill battle after the scandal, but she’s made it worse since taking office and it’s not fixing anything. It’s just stacking tax after tax.
Or Gov, a toss-up? What?
Yeah, that’s a “progressive” tax in name only. That 9% bracket probably hits 90%+ of the working age population. And then the tax bump at $125K and above is 0.9%. Yeah.
Nesrie’s right. A lot of folks (including me) had perceived Oregon as bluer than it actually is.
What kind of tax are we talking about and what would it have been used for?
Here’s CA for 2018:
| Tax Bracket | Tax Rate |
|---|---|
| $0.00+ | 1% |
| $8,015.00+ | 2% |
| $19,001.00+ | 4% |
| $29,989.00+ | 6% |
| $41,629.00+ | 8% |
| $52,612.00+ | 9.3% |
| $268,750.00+ | 10.3% |
| $322,499.00+ | 11.3% |
| $537,498.00+ | 12.3% |
| $1,000,000.00+ | 13.3% |
Now, that’s a decently progressive income tax IMO. One notable thing is that it doesn’t top out at 100K or 200K like a lot of US jurisdictions, but has brackets at 322K, 537K and $1,000,000.
If the US federal income tax were structured like that, we’d have a top rate of around 47% (instead of the current 37%) on incomes over $1,000,000. That would help a lot with our current deficit, cutting it roughly in half by my back of the envelope calculations. Although it would decrease the formation of investment capital, right now we have a surfeit of capital so I feel the economic impact would be small, compared to the benefit of reducing the deficit by half (or using some of that money for useful spending like infrastructure).
Measure 97. It was a completely disaster, and an attempt to tax businesses on their Gross Revenue instead of their Net, simplification, and I don’t think it took into consideration companies with high revenue but also high costs which meant narrow margins. It fell through. I’m sure his 13 billion number is including that one which didn’t actually pass. It would have been the biggest increase in state history. Because that’s what you want playing around, biggest increase in state history always sounds good.
I wonder where all that pot money is going, you know, from the growers that aren’t going belly up because we’re completely overproducing.
Yeah we should have something closer to that… but CA also a sales tax so… maybe similar brackets +2/3%. Still drop the bottom groups quite a bit.
Okay, but what would it have paid for? Why raise so much money?
Also, the problem with net is that if you have a good account, net can be very small.
I don’t really want to argue or go through Measure 97; it was complex. It was a long and heated battle, millions of dollars from both sides, lots of heated debates but it boils down to more money for the state to for things like education. They wanted to get 6 billion every two years or so and instead wound up with a 1.4 billion shortfall when it failed. They went too far and asked for too much. And no, I don’t think a high cost, high revenue but small margin business should be penalized because they happen to be a high cost and high revenue industry.
And all those Portland people, they voted too. This did not pass even with with the blue lean, and it was roughly 60 / 40. You cannot treat Oregon like it’s WA and CA, and just expect stuff to pass, no matter how trendy Portland gets.
I don’t understand why the population doesn’t try to push for a more progressive income tax here in Oregon, although I’m guessing it’s because the types who are always pushing the sales tax proposals know that they’d end up paying more if the income tax were more progressive, and the poorer folks just think “that’s the way it is” and are too busy/tired to bother. There are probably a lot of people like me for whom it would probably be about the same after all the dust settled.
I am not so old that i can claim any sort of decades of knowledge, but I’ve been paying this since I’ve been able to legal work. I didn’t even think it was weird until I saw what other states were doing.
My sister’s:
| New Jersey Taxable Income | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 - $20,000 | 1.400% |
| $20,000 - $35,000 | 1.750% |
| $35,000 - $40,000 | 3.500% |
| $40,000 - $75,000 | 5.525% |
| $75,000 - $500,000 | 6.370% |
| $500,000+ | 8.970% |
And they have sales tax of 6.6 and bunch of stuff they don’t pay taxes on and tax free days.
I agree she’s in trouble because she’s done a lousy job. It’s not one tax. The Oregonian’s editorial selecting Buhler hit most of my talking points.