An economics lesson for governments
Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:37 pm
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budget ... Go-Missing
I thought this was great. Not the event, but the article. It's posted on Yahoo, and comes from a Wall St. Journal story, but that's pretty mainstream for this kind of thing. Yay! Yes, it's a little heavy-handed, but some people never learn even so.
I thought this was great. Not the event, but the article. It's posted on Yahoo, and comes from a Wall St. Journal story, but that's pretty mainstream for this kind of thing. Yay! Yes, it's a little heavy-handed, but some people never learn even so.
Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy.
...
One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires [as a whole] paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.