Say Anything Blog

Our members are concerned that with reduced state revenues, the state would not be able to meet its obligations to help fund local governments,

WOW!  Talk about out of touch.  The state had so much money they could jack up spending 24%.  They better start worrying about how we’re ever going to keep up with the legislature.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

You can be for this tax cuts without being for this AFP tax cut. Some people are concerned that this moves too fast and may have some unpleasant results, especially coupled with the new trust fund vote. Others would like to see property taxes addressed more than income taxes. I suspect that is where the FB comes in at.

You can be for this tax cuts without being for this AFP tax cut.

That’s true, but unfortunately the governor and legislature have been AWOL on the issue.  In fact the last session was: Government workers 4; Taxpayer 1. 

(And in my opinion it got even worse with the way they structure our “tax relief.”

Some people are concerned that this moves too fast and may have some unpleasant results, especially coupled with the new trust fund vote.

Unfortunately with the state’s wild 24% spending increase there isn’t any time to wait to see if they’ve learned their lesson and will do the right thing.  As I said before a 24% increase is outrageous.  When you couple that with the fact that they raided the ”PERMANENT oil tax TRUST fund” even with the huge amount of overtaxation (tax surplus) it makes it vital to address the issue sooner than later. 

Others would like to see property taxes addressed more than income taxes. I suspect that is where the FB comes in at.

That very well could be their reasoning.  Many people don’t realize what a burden the property tax is on farmers.  On the other hand much of the property tax increases have been coming from valuation on the housing market.  That means the farmers might not YET have seen the brunt of the wild spending increases on the local level.  Of course they will unless we reign in local governments.

One thing we’ve already learned from the 2007 legislative session is that even with huge spending increases to education our property taxes aren’t going to go down.  And we’ll soon learn that the local governments feel entitled to the paltry income tax relief that we did get.  (Of course too bad for those who aren’t eligible for tax break like Rob’s pointed out today.)

Who was foolish enough to think that giving money to spendaholics (like the local school boards) was going to reign them in?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

So George, what kind of tax cuts ARE the powers that be talking about? 

They are talking about tax cuts aren’t they?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler,

Actually, rural land prices are going up as well as urban housing.

Property taxes are the largest drain on North Dakota taxpayers. They account for more tax collections than any source and are focused on the smallest number of taxpayers without regard for the ability to pay.

Hopefully, the powers that be will consider even more property tax relief combined with income tax relief.

Whistler,

The final property tax relief bill allows everyone eligible to gets his or her tax credit. If you earn enough to pay taxes, you get a credit against what you owe in income taxes. If you don’t, you can carry the balance forward or get a certificate redeemable at all county offices.

See: http://www.nd.gov/tax/property/taxrelief/individual.html for all the details.

Thanks for the info on the redeemable portion.  I dd look into the tax break to see how it handled some investment property of mine.  But I didn’t go any further than that.

I don’t believe the land prices have gone up as much lately, but that’s fairly moot since they will with the farm commodity prices. 

The main fallacy with your plan is that you can’t have one group supplying the money and another side spending.  The spenders (who have already proven irresponsible) All you’re going to do is enable them to be more irresponsible.

And now we’ve got both the local taxing entities and the state government spending money irresponsibly.  Plus the governor has allowed the BIG LIE to get propagated that the reason we have high property taxes is because the state doesn’t do enough.

The reason we had high property taxes is the locals were spending too much.  The reason in the future will be that in part the governor is aiding and abetting them.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Hopefully, the powers that be will consider even more property tax relief combined with income tax relief.

That’s what I feared.  They have no intention on cutting our taxes even though they’ve spent hundreds of millions more than they should have and still have a tax surplus. 

I guess we really do need to take matters into our own hands.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

The final property tax relief bill allows everyone eligible to gets his or her tax credit. If you earn enough to pay taxes, you get a credit against what you owe in income taxes. If you don’t, you can carry the balance forward or get a certificate redeemable at all county offices.

This is just another Trojan tax horse similar to the scam they passed under the guise of “decoupling” which led to my state income tax rate to go from 14% of my federal income taxes to 33% MORE!

I’d really LOVE to get the low down on the decoupling fiasco.  If you’ve got any “official” explanation of how they messed it up I’d publish it over and over and over.

I’ve gone back through my old tax returns but I don’t have the info to show how they did it.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler,

Your argument against the property tax relief plan is nonsensical and illogical.

Your property tax billing remains unchanged by the state tax credit. The tax credit comes as a completely separate method of delivery. No property tax increase can be hidden by the state reduction. If they increase the local taxes you will see it. Your argument might have merit if the state just gave the money to the local authority, but they didn’t.

If we follow your argument any tax cut would be justification for someone else to raise another tax. Cut state taxes and the feds could “hide” a national increase, etc.

Your frustration is misapplied. The local government is where your ire belongs, not the state. Quit looking to the state to blame (you sound like a Dem) and fix the local problem. If you want to take matters into your own hands, then take on the local school, city or county board. They are the ones raising your taxes.

No matter how hard you try, you cannot deny that $120 million will be flowing back to taxpayers as a result of the 2007 property tax relief plan.

Kevin,

After looking into the history, I believe you make a good point.

When the legislature decoupled the state income tax from the federal income tax, they did so to make ND’s tax rate look more favorable. National comparisons listed ND’s income tax at 14%, not 14% of the federal liability. It made the state seem high tax, when it fact we compared favorably at 2-5% depending on income. Not a good if you are trying to attract business and people.

What the legislature didn’t calculate was the impact of the child tax credit on people like you. While we can debate the fairness of you paying lower taxes than I for the same income solely due to you still having children at home, I do believe it was an unintended consequence of the decoupling. We should all suggest to our legislators to get this fixed next session. I doubt it will be a tough sell since they have the $$$.

BTW: To their credit, the legislature did begin to fix the marriage tax penalty for low and mid incomes families last session.

I do believe it was an unintended consequence of the decoupling.

That’s what Rep. Jim Kasper mentioned to me in his phone call to me last spring after I emailed him about the matter.
The trouble is, to believe that, you also have to believe no one in state government knows how to work a spreadsheet.
I no longer have children at home, but if I did I would pay 90% MORE in state income taxes than federal income taxes! As someone who now files a joint return, the figure is 42% which is TRIPLE what it was in 2000.
There are only two possible explanations for this; greed or fiscal incompetence.

Here are links to the documents I received.
Basically their excuse is that any comparison of the state taxes to federal income taxes is wrong since they have their own tax rules now which aren’t dependent on federal income taxes.
Meanwhile, I still pay 42% in state income taxes of what the feds require from me.\
http://myweb.cableone.net/kevindf/Documents/Nd.%20Income%20taxes.jpg
http://myweb.cableone.net/kevindf/Documents/Nd.%20Income%20taxes2.jpg
http://myweb.cableone.net/kevindf/Documents/Nd.%20Income%20taxes3.jpg

If this is true, you must only pay 8 to 12% federal income tax. According to my tax guy, you must have considerable federal tax credits.

So under the old system prior to our tax neutral decoupling the maximum North Dakota income tax had to be less than 14% of 40%(the fed tax rate wasn’t that high).  And of course that is the highest MARGINAL rate.

So that would be amount to a highest marginal tax rate of under 5.6%.

So when George says:

If this is true, you must only pay 8 to 12% federal income tax.

It makes me really think we were 1)Lied to and B.  Ripped off!

Really any North Dakota tax rate over 5% is proof that the governor and legislature lied (or didn’t know what they were voting on) and failed to fix the problem which they are no doubt aware.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.