Finally. It’s official. The poor in Arizona get screwed on taxes and the rich make out like bandits. Howie Fischer says so, mainly citing a piece on WalletHub. Fischer is right. WalletHub is right. Arizona is a tax haven for the rich and a tax hell for the poor. That means every Republican legislator who complains about high Arizona taxes—in other words, every Republican legislator (If any of you is an exception, please let me know and I’ll apologize publicly)—is a liar. They don’t give a damn about high taxes on the poor, because, if you’re too poor to contribute to campaigns, who the hell cares what happens to you? They just want lower taxes for people who can afford to pay the piper.
In general, WalletHub is a font of half-baked statistics (I mean, it declared Tucson the fifth best city in “Efficient Spending on Education” because we spend so little on schools). But in this case, they got it right, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which Fischer also cited, got it even more right in its Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States. Skip down to page 33 for the Arizona information. Arizona is “#8 of the Terrible 10” when it comes to tax inequality. By its calculations, the top 1 percent pays 4.6 percent of its income on state and local taxes. The bottom 20 percent pays 12.5 percent. (They exclude elderly taxpayers from the study). Here’s the graph breaking it down.
If the top 1 percent paid 9.2 percent like the middle fifth pays—I guess it would be too cruel to make them pay as much as the poorest Arizonans, right? — that would bring in another $1.2 billion a year. If the entire top 20 percent paid 9.2 percent, that would generate more like $2.7 billion, which would add almost a third to our current $9.1 billion budget. The state could put back that $99 million it took away from our universities, pay the $317 million the court says it owes to K-12 schools and still have $2.3 billion left over to bring funding for education and social services up to reasonable levels, pave our roads, fix the rest of our infrastructure — you name it. We could even lower the tax burden on the poorest Arizonans and still have money left in the coffers.
The current tax system wages war on the poor. It’s time the rich paid their fair share in this state which has been so good to them.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2015.
The more subsidies you use the more you get taxed. So don’t use them. Nothing is free.
EITC gives the poor a windfall from our federal taxes. Cut the crap!
It seems to me that if the poor received a “windfall,” they’d be rich now. Instead, Tucson is now the fifth poorest city in the U.S. And twenty five percent of Tucson’s children live in poverty.
When it comes to taxes, the poor do pay more. And as a result of extreme tax cuts for the rich and the resulting budget cuts, the poor will have even less access to quality education in our local public schools, Pima Community College and the U of A.
It’s not just one party both are to blame. But since the democrats have been in charge the taxes have gone up. Here in Tucson and Pima county they can only blame the democrats for the problems since they are the ones in charge and have been for quite a while.
The fact is this nation has many problems, it starts with a Failed Public Educational System, Where millions drop out of School and no one is held accountable for said failure, for they are are public servants, and they are also members of the various Teachers Unions.
Now there are kids out there with no Diploma and now you have kids raising kids, than you have idiot shows on television like Jerry Springer , or some crap called Sex-Bot. Than we wonder why we have a poor problem here ? Than these drop outs are not held accountable for there actions, they drive ,they get cars, , most not all become free loaders, they think its free its for me, for example the Obama Phone, only one problem, those of us who have hard wired house phones pay for that Obama Phone. They usually wind up in some fast food job, that’s supposed to be a starter job, and they make it there life’s work. Now it’s everybody else’s fault where they are at.
Also do not get me wrong there are schools out there where you have kids who are out of control and the teachers I either lost or have never had control of the class rooms, drastic action needs to betaken in these schools by the governors of the respective states, call out the national guard to restore order.
You want to fix the poor problem, Make this retro active by the way. No#1 You have no rights and no privileges until you have obtained a high school diploma, Driving and work privileges must be tied in. first no driver’s will be issued to any kid until they have obtained a High school diploma, They will be allowed a Permit to drive, as long as they stay in school, if they drop out the permit is hereby revoked and all driving privileges are suspended, until they either return to school and obtain that high school diploma, Also if they have a Motor vehicle f some type that will be impounded, when and they return to school and obtain the Diploma, They will get there drivers permit back and the motor vehicle will be returned. They will then be allowed to apply for a drivers license . if the subject decides to go and obtain a (GED) that is great, but they should face a penalty that is after acquiring a (GED), they will have to wait three additional months for the return of the drivers permit, if they did not have a driver’s permit they would have to wait three months before they could apply for the permit and one year after before they could take the test for a drivers license. As per working and dropping out, those who drop out will only be allowed to work 20 hours per week. No voters privileges until they have obtained a High School Diploma or a Ged. Furthermore , we need to enact President Reagan’s Voucher system and get the kids out of poorly performing schools.
Dear Arizona,
If you’re not rich, we don’t care.
Sincerely,
The Arizona State Legislature
I would think a retired teacher would have the time and background to do a better job validating a story. As an example, here is a link giving comparisons of state tax rates:
http://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/income-…
From the same site comes a tabulator, an accurate one I might add for the Az tax rates:
http://www.tax-rates.org/arizona/income-ta…
Follow the easy to use instructions to see what is ACTUALLY paid by any bracket you choose. The results might be enlightening and saddening. Saddening because people will actually believe ANYTHING on the Internet, even obvious deceit……or hateful envy cloaked as liberalism.
Yes but top few are bank rolling our Republican party and making them millionaires too. Being in state or federal government guarantees you will get paid well and become a millionaire with your votes.