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Feedback ForumNOW wants to hear from you! Send us your opinions, reactions and ideas about "Taxing the Poor."Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Carroll Comment: As a resident of the beautiful state of Idaho it is an embarassment to me that we have the same regressive tax on food as Alabama.Our legislature is inefective and unwilling to change the law.In my mind that translates into not caring for those who have less than you. Thank you for the great show on this topic and good show every week. I look forward to Friday nights when it is shown in my area. Poster: gary h Comment: Absolutely is regressive and bad. And while the tax and spend world is indeed complex, it's worth considering that almost all of the local and state sales tax increases, increased user fees on public parks and facilities,increased utility taxes, increases in cigarette taxes and other sin taxes, increased property taxes, and increases in gasoline taxes are proposed and supported by the left side (D) of the isle. All of these taxes are regressive and hurt the poor and working class the most by far. Poster: Jo Kurtz Comment: I live in a state that taxes food. The state legislature is dragging its heels taking care of this tax. Excuses abound. You didn't mention though that Toyota passed on building a plant in Alabama, opting instead for Canada. Toyota didn't want to deal with reading challenged workers, among other things. This is what the law professor mentions. Education is getting the shaft. As education falls by the roadside so do jobs and educated voting choices. Poster: Mike Comment: Thank you for the story on Taxing the Poor. Working in the tax field I continue to see the burden placed upon those that can least afford it. I see the decline in our school systems and programs even with increasing sales taxes and new development. Sadly, the unknowing public is un-informed when it comes time for them to decide at the polls due to slick advertisements of promise and prosperity. In reality, at least here, it is the already rich and powerful who are able to control and influence the uneducated and misinformed voter. The rich get richer and the poor pay for it, time after time. Poster: Mary Butler Comment: When I moved with my family to Oklahoma in 1984, I had a blind, dependent mother and three young daughters. Making minimum wage, I still had to pay state income tax, as well as taxes on our food. I am still angry about that situation. Watching your program has made me realize, for the first time, that tax programs can be CHANGED to benefit those who need the help. Thank you, Mary Butler Poster: christina dishmon Comment: well i think if americans would get smart and stop voteing the stupid people in office things would change. here in indiana there are no jobs my husband has be unemployed since december of 2007 had has yet to find a job yet we can't get food stamps oh did i mention i have two kids and we are going to foreclose on our house and do to all this stess i am thinking of divorceing my husband we have had a rough time yet i can't live like this nomore. this state isn't anything yet all they care about is the stupid colts and pacers and thats not right they don't make this state the people who live here and work everyday do thank you i have more yet i know you won't have space to see it christina dishmon Poster: Steve Comment: We need to repeal state income taxes and be more efficient with what taxes are collected.....you do not become wealthier by squandering what we have....thats why America is suffering so much now.... Poster: WAL Comment: I just watched your program on taxes in Alabama. If this is a representative example of what you’ll be doing, I won’t be watching for long. The presentation was simplistic and felt like some thing aimed at an almost illiterate audience. Not what I am accustomed to seeing on Public television. I felt like I was watching the 16 mm films I saw years ago in grade school on dental health, tulips of Holland and how to develop good study habits. I did feel that watching expiated me for the sin of being lower middle class. I thank you for that. WAL Poster: Dave Dunn Florence,OR Comment: I am a tax preparer and OR taxes are regressive because of a low standard deduction. You can subtract federal taxes paid from income to figure state taxable income, I think this is fair because the subtraction is limited to 5,500 for 2007. A good compromise in Alabama would be to only allow a certain amount of federat tax to be subtracted. Oregon has some good breaks for seniors. No social security is taxed and once you are 62 their is no 7.5 percent limitation on subtracting medical expenses. Oregon taxes unemployment which is a burden to people who are not working because you need every dollar of the unemployment but if you have no state and federal tax withheld you will owe on April 15th and if you are not working how do you pay the tax?? Colorado has a sales tax but does not tax food or medicine and I think CA is the same. CA does not tax unemployment. I really thought the Gov't official from Alabama was a hypocrite when he said more money for the poor would not necessarily make them happier. If that is true then more money for the rich does not makde them happier either so they should give a little. That is what would make them happy. Best Regards, Dave Poster: old timer Comment: Regarding the feudal state of Alabama. There is a point in time when the negative energies of hunger, inequality, lack of education, and disenfranchisement all come together in a grand rush of pitchforks and guillotines. The Alabama 'elite' dangerously court these energies with smug disclaimers, while oblivious to the realities unfolding outside the crumbling walls of their bankrupt castles. Poster: Prunella Comment: I felt so terrible for that family that wanted to buy milk for their family and had to put some of it back onto the store shelf because they couldn't both buy the milk and pay the Alabama food tax. After that, came the segment of the interview with the man who is getting a huge tax subsidy because he is bringing jobs to Alabama. How does bringing more jobs to Alabama help the poor people who have to pay the food tax? It is like trying to equate apples with oranges, which do not equate. The interviewer should have more aggressive in his interview with this man and pointed out to this man the flaws in his logic. Also, the interviewer should have been pointed out to the man and to the TV audience - that it isn't only the poor people buying groceries and paying the tax who are helping to subsidize the rich - it is the poor, innocent children of Alabama who have to go hungry; who have to go without their nutritional needs being met, etc. so that this man and other rich people of his ilk can get tax subsidies from the government for doing things like bringing more jobs to Alabama. It is a case of the poor being robbed to pay the wealthy. And we say that we are a Christian- Judeo country? Truly this is absolute opposite of what Christianity is about. Now, it is one thing to expose this evil - but entirely another thing to get this evil stopped. I couldn't sleep all night trying to think of what I could do to help the poor children and their families in Alabama. The food tax in Alabama needs to be stopped - right now!! With a whole lot of public pressure put on Alabama - the food tax would be eliminated. But I'm one person - what can I do? You should have provided us, your audience, with suggestions as to what we can do to help fight back against this terrible food tax levied unfairly upon the poor in Alabama. Poster: Wyn Achenbaum Comment: I applaud your reporting and your attention to this important topic. You came close to what I think is a very important truth, without seeing the full importance of it. You seem to be caught mostly in an income tax box. That is, it seems as if most of your solutions fall into the category of a more progressive income tax. I'm all for progressivity in taxation. But the income tax is not the best answer or even a decent answer, at least not until we've utilized fully a far superior tax. The superior tax to which I refer is a portion of the property tax. The conventional property tax is actually two very different taxes yoked together: a tax on the value of buildings, and a tax on the value of land. The one is very counterproductive and leads to results that no wise person or community would find desirable. The other is perhaps the best tax available to us -- one which could radically reform a number of our most serious problems: housing affordability, poverty, low wages, urban sprawl, urban blight. I'm not overpromising: these are all related to a single malady, a single error we commit through our ways of taxing ourselves. When we tax buildings, we get fewer buildings (less housing, fewer commercial buildings) and older buildings, and less redevelopment and poorer maintenance. We get fewer jobs, less competition among entrepreneurs for our patronage, higher prices, lower wages. But when we tax land, what do we get? For one thing, we get better land usage, most particularly of our most valuable land. Urban land can be worth millions of dollars per acre - there's an acre in midtown Manhattan that may sell for $1 billion shortly - a lot more than the $10,000 per acre that the best agricultural land goes for (other than perhaps wine country land) and a lot more than the $50,000 or $100,000 per acre land that most of us live on if we live in single family homes. That better usage of urban land creates housing. Creates density. Creates commercial venues. Obviates the need for long commutes to get to cheap land to live on. When we tax land value, we motivate the private sector to act in desirable ways. When we tax land value, we do not reduce the supply of anything, because no one can produce an additional building lot. Taxing land value does not reduce the land value by a penny, but it does bring down the selling price, just the way an increase in interest rates reduces the amount that buyers who rely on borrowed funds can pay to sellers. When we tax land value, we calibrate things so that those who get the benefit of the effects of public spending -- the landholders -- get to pay for that spending in direct proportion to the benefits they receive! Pretty good! And better yet, their tenants now pay once -- by paying rent to the landlord, who in turn passes it to the public treasury through the land value tax, instead of the tenant paying both the landlord AND a sales tax (as in Alabama or Chicago) and a wage tax (as in Alabama). The traditional property tax yokes together these two taxes. The incentive effects are something like the effect on a train of having engines at both ends pulling in different directions. Every time the community needs more revenue, it raises both the good tax -- the tax on land value -- and the bad one -- the tax on buildings. And doing so penalizes those who have already developed their prime sites to their highest and best use -- which usually means that many people are employed in them, and much commerce is occurring -- and rewards with low taxes those whose adjoining land has only a chainlink -- or wrought-iron -- fence and queen anne's lace and chichory flowers, or a well-mowed lawn -- employing only a guard and maybe a landscape mower. What do we want? Empty lots downtown and lots of sprawl and few jobs, so workers chase jobs, or well-used downtown lots, compact development, lots of jobs, and jobs chasing workers, driving wages upwards. The only possible loser under land value taxation is the fellow whose idea of a business plan is being a land speculator. He contributes nothing to the community, and is due nothing from it. We can adjust our tax code to achieve that, and to create the kind of society we want. Land value taxation. For more on these ideas, look at http://www.answersanswers.com, http://www.wealthandwant.com/ and http://lvtfan.typepad.com LVTFan is a reference to the only tax I know of that deserves a fan club: LAND VALUE TAXATION. It can solve many of our most serious social, economic and environmental problems. Poster: Nada Comment: Thanks again for a great show. Poster: Vincenzo C. Comment: I live in St. Johns County Florida, which includes St. Augustine, Fl., the nation's oldest city. The county is governed by a board of five commissioners, who in the past have given massive tax breaks to developers, who have been given license to build massive development projects. They first passed impact fees to pay for infrastructure costs, and then larded up their projects with tax credits which effectively wiped out the impact fees. The result: a billion dollar unfunded infrastructure liability for the public at large. Needless to say the State is now mandating budget cuts and local needs such as schools, medical care, etc, are beimg slashed. A giant Ponzi scheme which cuts essential services when they are most needed. Poster: Roni Sionakides Comment: I watched your program last night and have to agree with what you presented. I work in property tax programs. You featured exactly what we are seeing and even hearing about in our own state as we try to examine how to attract jobs and keep employers from leaving. The weight of the issue is skewed unfairly to large corporations who get significant tax breaks for a number of years then pull up stakes at the end of the abatement period and move elsewhere. We are noticing this particularly with foreign corporations who are milking our lack of a federal system and playing the states against each other for all its worth. The poor do experience the worst end of this issue in not only paying higher taxes (sales tax) than the rich but they also see the results of cities and other jurisdictional units lack of adequate income to support schools, neighborhoods, libraries etc., the very things that would help them get a better education and possibly a better life. I checked your tax comparison and reports. Unfortunately in concentrating on the poor and the rich, you have overlooked the huge group of people who are between the rich and the first group of middle class. We are the ones who earn just over the poverty line and just under the median income - 17000 to 45000. We are a group that is just as heavily hit by taxes as the poorest. We don't qualify for any programs that help out the poor and have not the adequate income to purchase a house or give a better life to our children. A few years ago in a long conversation with a friend, we offered up a new classification system - the Haves and Have Nots. We split the groups at the median imcome. The Haves are in two groups - the Lower or Adequate Income Haves and the Filthy Rich Haves. The Have Nots are the Lower Have Nots who are unemployed or employed inadequately under the poverty line and the Upper Have Nots who fall into the area between the poverty line and the medium income. Keep up the good work and expose more of the issues of unfair taxation. It is the only way that we will be able to get a grip on finding resolutions that will give all people a say in taxation and a fairer taxation overall. Poster: Amanda Bell Comment: What an eye-opening piece! I live in South Carolina but was raised in Alabama. After my divorce a couple of years ago I wanted to move back to Alabama but my sister living there explained to me that I would not get the same government benefits that I use to sustain me here in SC. I couldn't move back without flirting with homelessness. This year in SC I received the Earned Income tax credit. It paid off mounting bills and bought new clothes for my son which I would not have been able to afford otherwise. In short, it helped us take one step back from crippiling debt. It was mentioned on the program that food stamp benefits last about 3 weeks of the month. I know that from experience and live in fear that I will have to buy poor quality food and sacrifice real nutrition in the choices I make at the store in order to stretch dollars to fill our bellies. Thank you for your voice! Poster: Patrick Clark Comment: I tend to be progressive and one that is sympathetic and caring towards the poor but I think that the argument for an earned income tax credit to be distributed based not only on income but on the number of kids to be counter productive. World population growth is one of our biggest challenges. EITC based on the number of kids reinforces having more children in poor families. If anything, we need to reinforce sustainable population growth; meaning lowering our population slowly or we are doomed in time as resources deminish. What I am saying here flies in the face of much of what I do in my charitable efforts such as feeding the poor around the world. I'm in a morale dilemma. Poster: Patrick Clark Comment: I live in NH where there is no sales or income tax. Schools are the biggest expense for local taxpayers and it is paid for by property taxes. The State makes a very small contribution towards schools. The net result is that there is a vast disparity between rich and poor schools soley based on the local property tax base. The State's constitution requires that the State pay for each students adequate education. This has us in a long term suit against the State by a coalition of poor communities. What does NOW find to be the most equitable way to pay for adequate education in terms of a tax solution? Poster: Joan Bartos Comment: Yes, Callie! You are so inspiring! As a native of Alabama, I am so ashamed of how my homestate treats it's poorest citizens. In 1936,in Marion Alabama my white grandparents were kept alive by the African-American family who shared their meager food supplies with them. They would have starved otherwise. (Thank you to the African-American decendants of the Heard family of Perry county.) If we Christians can't fulfill Jesus' directive and example of feeding the poor, we have no right to call ourselves Christians. Joan Bartos Napa, CA Poster: CJ Floyd Comment: There are 50 states in the current union, not the 49 illustrated in the map you used in this program, or the 48 that are illustrated in your opening and closing credits. If you can't provide us with an accurate map of the nation, how can we trust the rest of your fact? Yes, I'm a resident of the invisible state. the one that is twice the land mass of Texas. Poster: Ethan Perkins Comment: I am a self-employed contractor, very small business, no employees. The most evil tax I pay is the federal self-employment tax: 15.3% from dollar one. If I make 10000 dollars, I pay 1530 dollars, no exemptions, no deductions. Grrr!! Poster: Richard G Newton Comment: Regarding the segment with the Alabama couple: You extensively described how Alabama has spent a great deal of tax revenue attracting industry to Alabama with the implication that this was somehow wrong. Would it have made everybody happy if Alabama government had not spent the money and not given extensive tax breaks to these huge multi-national companies and not been successful in attracting the company to spend billions on new plants? I congratulate Alabama for landing these hundreds of good paying jobs. Poster: Ronnie Bergen Comment: I was keenly aware when mailing off my Arizona state taxes and Federal income taxes this week that while, as usual, my family owed taxes to the Federal government, the State of Arizona gave us a substantial refund. This highlighted the lunacy of our current tax structure: Federal taxes go straight to the three trillion dollar bottomless pit of the Iraq war, while our state--ranked almost last in the nation for funding of education--is estimated to be a billion dollars in debt. As a higher-earning family in Arizona, we felt that we could be doing more to improve the quality of life in this state, but, unlike our senior Senator, we resent the use of our tax dollars to fund militarism. Poster: Ann M. Bonney Comment: The federal and state lawmakers tax the Republic to keep the Republic a going concern under federal and state laws but then local Municipal Corporations under political sub-divisions of States tell the federal and state government -- we don't want your government data, standards and methods and tax money -- we want to borrow from private for profit investors under the nation's bond houses under the local property taxman -- backed by a few local property owners -- so the tax burden falls on a local few under the local Municipal Corporation under political sub-divisions of the States for the good of the many/the Republic. Poster: Bill Wald Comment: Situation is much worse because Social Security is a flat rate capped income tax (16%) that goes into the treasury and is used to pay for current budget needs. the SS fund is an accounting fiction. billwald@juno.com Poster: joyce daniel Comment: Thank you for doing such a great job reporting on NOW re:the Tax disparities in our country. I,m in the process of applying for tax relief in my hometown of New London, Ct. As a divorced,retired senior my pension of $21,000 is just barely making ends meet. I'll use your documentary to make a case for myself. My degree was obtained as a young mom with two children. My professional career was five years in a public library, 17 years in a public school. I bought an old house in Mass. planning on retiring there and fixing it up gradually as monies became available. Circumstances caused a Foreclosure even tho the deposit was Twenty thousand. Thinking I could buy it back at the auction a friend bid another $5,000 for me. It was still lost! I have such empathy for families, seniors facing this life altering tragedy. How can we bring Democracy to others and ignore the disenfranchised here in America? Poster: Situation is worse than pictured Comment: Situation is worse because Social Security Poster: Elizabeth Paulsen Comment: The heaviest burden of taxes is placed on the working poor and those who are just barely middle class. My husband and I struggled to complete our educations and bring ourselves out of poverty, only to find that our financial situation hadn't changed. We may make more now then we did before, but with the increase in fuel, food, and housing cost, it doesn't make a difference. We feel as though we are in a dark financial hole that will never improve. It is past time that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share for supporting this country in every state! Poster: Tony Comment: I live in TN, a State that also taxes food. In my county food is taxes as high as 9.75%. I know several people who work full-time and cannot afford the basics. Two families who are close friends only have cars because we give them our old ones when we buy new ones. They've had to resorted to hitchhiking to work at times. One of these families just got running water or the first time and they are in their 40's. It was kind of funny that when their son joined the Marine Corps, he'd write home telling them how great basic training was because you were never hungry, had running water and he had a bed to sleep on. Funny and sad both. Keep on telling the truth. Poster: LLO Comment: In tonight's episode, you suggested that Alabama doesn't spend enough on education. I wish you had asked the poor couple how their five children were doing in school. If this couple cannot get jobs that pay more than $7.50 per hour, surely it's because they lack education and training. And if they allow their children to drift into adulthood without availing themselves of educational opportunities (whatever the state of the schools), there will be another generation in poverty. Poster: Francine Comment: Hello I live in Cypress Texas I am a former Compaq and HP employee in the 90-2006 off an on.In those years I have seen tax abatement's given without the vote of the people.I should tell you I did not get hired by either companies , I worked temp services both times. The first time I worked at Compaq they had recruited overseas workers to come in and take the jobs away from us,they became employees of the company. When I came back to work again the same thing was going on except it was really bad, the Government servers, were being made by the same group.The same people were sabotaging the American employees projects and I viewed this several times and expressed what I had witnessed to the correct people. I was then told that I was Miss-taken and the other two women that were being sabotaged quite. The only constant employees were not from this country . Recently I worked at Fox Conn ,when starting there the other employees told me in there broken English that there was a raid on employees about a month ago or less,that would be the only English I ever got out of them. When I started there the production was very low I was so bored I had to do something, so I decided the line was going to go faster, so I told them let me at the front, so I could set the pace to go faster ,I did not tell them that ,but that was my plan.The production went from 450 to 975 in two days .At that time I did not know the company was owned by the country of China, I thought it was owned by Chinese Americans. One of the Mexican American ladies, that started when I did ,told me that she was quiting because the supervisor would not speak English to teach her ,so she was leaving I told her I was giving my notice after learning about it being a Chinese country owned company . Again I was not working for Fox Conn but a temp service. I received an e-mail asking me to go back to work for them making alot more money than I had ever been offered before, but I turned it down because of the way China treats there women and guess who used to make these mother boards, Compaq this is one of the jobs I learned in the line. I decided to try to do something about this by going to the caucus and got a resolution approved in my little area but when it was put down as a resolution, it was never put in and come to find out the committee members on the conference committee were the same people that past the abatement's for Compaq and HP. Is our country still by the people for the people ? Or are we being dictated to by those who have the loudest Wallet Thank you FDR Poster: Mary Cullen Comment: It is a shame that this country has forgotten it's own people. Everyday the news is dim. What Washington calls a slow down in the economy, I call deep recession, closing in on depression. It is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. It's not keeping up with the Jones' it's trying to keep up with the oil and gas companies. Prices are going up in double digit percentages while wages are going up in fractions. We need to fix the American dream. We need leaders who are not afraid of change, who will make the right and human choose. Poster: Carmela Feldmann Comment: I looked up my state (Iowa) but all I saw was information about the difference between the richest and the poorest Iowans. I wanted to know about the percentage of taxes the state imposes on the richest vs. the poorest Iowans. Like in Alabama where the poorest pay 11% and the wealthiest pay 4%. Here in Iowa we pay property taxes, sales tax and income tax so we get it from all three sides and I want to know how that affects each level. I personally think it seems very fair. And I think Alabama's system seems very unfair. Thank you for the program - we need this kind of information. Poster: LLO Comment: In this program, you interviewed a couple who said they both worked for $7.50 per hour, and their combined annual income was $21,000. In that case, they must both be working part-time because 52 weeks time 40 hours per week times $7.50 per hour is $15,600 each. They would increase their by almost 50% if they worked full time, and they could easily double their income if one or both of them worked over-time or took a second job. Too bad someone didn't think to tell them that. Poster: Billy Comment: The information you provided on the gap between rich and poor by the state is interesting but not surprising. We are a middle class family. Over the last 3 years the gap between my income and the cost of goods and service has been widening. I suspect in the next 3 years I will no long be able to say we are middle class. I recognize that our government supports capitalism and there is a price to pay for this. How ever I don't believe as a society we can continue funding capitalism with policies that cause the poor to become impoverish. Though the information you provided was probably easy to obtain how hard would it be to gain the information about the policies these state implemented to cause these gaps to happen. Also the state I live in is increasingly having problems maintaining their infrastructure all the while supporting corporations. Poster: Ann Filush Comment: I was shamed by my own complaints after I saw Mr. & Mrs. Ramsey. True, money doesn't buy happiness but, it's always the wealthy who espouse those trite words. Since none of us know what's on the other side, maybe we should show the basic of care to our fellow human beings. No one on this planet should be cold or hungry. That should be the goal. The rest is only greed. Thanks for your story. It was very sobering. My heart was opened. Poster: Sandy Swander Comment: We watched the Taxing the Poor show which was extremely informative. The couple Louise & Calvin Ramsey obviously need help as no Americans who work so hard should have so little especially a bathroom or enough food to eat. |
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