Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/86698
4A Daily News – Tuesday, October 9, 2012 SAN JOSE (MCT) — Some of us might love to hate 'em, but states with a high proportion of mil- lionaires need them to stay — or they would lose tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue that pays for things like education and public safety. So should Californians be freaking out that rich people will flee if the state's residents vote to raise their taxes in November? Maybe not. An analysis by the San Jose Mercury News of IRS tax-return data shows that states that charge high income taxes — from California to New York to New Jersey — are home to the high- est number of rich people per capita. And two- thirds of the states that don't charge any income taxes actually have fewer numbers of millionaire residents per capita, the analysis shows. Texas, which are often cited as havens for rich movie stars, CEOs and athletes because they are income-tax free. Califor- nia, on the other hand, has the nation's second- highest income tax rate. So in those three states, how many people earn at least $1 million a year for every 100,000 taxpayers? Consider Florida and The issue of where millionaires live, always a fun one to gossip about, is also increasingly criti- cal to the state's financial health as California tries to stave off cuts to class- rooms and the poor. The wealthiest 1 percent of Californians — those Bentley-driving, man- sion-living people who make about 50 times as much as us average folk — provide more than $20 billion in income taxes each year. That's about one-fourth of the state's general-fund budget, and it could soon grow. Proposition 30, spon- sored by California Gov. Jerry Brown, would increase the state sales tax by a quarter of a cent, nificant number of Cali- fornians moving because of this tax change," said Carl Davis, senior policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington. Super-rich stay put in high-tax states costing the average per- son less than $100 a year. The bulk of the new rev- enue would come from raising the income tax on joint filers earning above $500,000 — and single filers who earn at least $250,000 — from 10.3 percent to as high as 13.3 percent. The extra tax would be in effect for seven years. Civil rights attorney Molly Munger's Proposi- tion 38 would hit almost all income groups — but tax the rich the most. If both initiatives pass, the one with the most votes will take effect. Polls show Proposi- tion 30 is favored by slightly more than half of likely voters while Proposition 38 is strug- gling to gain majority support, though there are plenty of voters undecid- ed on both measures. Each is designed to increase the amount of money California spends on education while help- WHERE THE RICH LIVE: The San Jose Mercury News review of tax return Florida: 202. Texas: 217. California: 252. In the past 15 years, California has main- tained the same share of the nation's ultrarich, even after voters passed the state's first "million- aires' tax" in 2004. That echoes the experience documented in studies of other states that have raised taxes on the wealthy. persuasive evidence out there to make you think that there would be a sig- "There just isn't any data for 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, found no link between the state income tax rate and the number of people who reported adjusted gross income of at least $1 million. Consider: • The states with the most and fewest rich people per capita are Connecticut and West Virginia, respectively. In Connecticut, one of 190 taxpayers earns at least $1 million in adjusted gross income. In West Virginia, just one out of every 1,400 filers make that much.Yet both states tax rich people about the same. • Out West: Nevada is income-tax free; Oregon has one of the nation's highest income taxes on the rich; and Arizona is about average.Yet all three have a below-average number of rich people per capita. • In the Midwest: Illinois and Ohio charge about the same income-tax rates and have similar popula- tions.Yet Illinois has 233 millionaires per 100,000 tax- payers, while Ohio has 107 per 100,000 taxpayers. • In the Northeast: Massachusetts has more than double the millionaires per capita than neighboring New Hampshire, which is income-tax free. ing to balance the gener- al-fund budget. More than two-thirds of the Bay Area Council's executive committee — which includes dozens of rich people who would pay the higher tax, rang- ing from pro sports own- ers to corporate CEOs — voted to endorse Proposi- tion 30. and Princeton University Ph.D. candidate Charles Varner found that a 2004 tax increase on New Jer- sey's wealthy had zero impact on the number of rich people in the state. "They place substan- "No one I spoke to said if this passes they're going to up and leave the state," said Jim Wunder- man, the council's CEO. "California is the place to be if you want to be at the top of the game. There's a price to be paid for that." Last year, Stanford University sociology pro- fessor Cristobal Young tial investments in build- ing businesses and social networks in these com- munities and a small, couple-percentage points of extra tax just isn't in any way enough to prompt them to move out of state," Varner said. Opponents of the pro- posed higher taxes in California, however, point to anecdotal evi- dence of millionaires fleeing California and note that more workers overall have been moving out of the Golden State than into it over the past several years. and regulatory burden starts driving the deci- sion" to move, said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and co-chair- man of a campaign against the tax increases. "I hear every day from people who say if Propo- sition 30 passes, it's the last straw." "At some point the tax San Francisco Bay Area native David Fried- man, president of Wealth-X, a global Sin- gapore-based consulting firm focused on the ultra- rich, said it depends on what profession the mil- lionaire is in. "Think about the ven- ture capitalist who lives in Woodside (Calif.): He's not moving," Friedman said. "But the person launching a new company will at least consider it." Rich people pay a fed- eral income-tax rate of as high as 35 percent but a much lower rate, usually less than 10 percent, on state returns. like GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney have avoided high federal taxes by earning most of their money through cap- ital gains, which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent. But in Cal- ifornia capital gains are taxed at the same rate as wages. Like other states, though, California has discovered that steep tax bills don't seem to scare off the rich. Some wealthy people evidence that top income earners change states in response to tax increases of small magnitude like the one they're talking about in California," said Varner, the Princeton researcher. "There's just an economic theory." "There's no empirical Obama: 'Today we celebrate Cesar Chavez' KEENE (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday designated the home of Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez as a national monument, calling Chavez a hero who brought hope to millions of poor, disen- franchised farm workers who otherwise might have remained ''invisi- ble'' to much of the nation. ''"Today, we cele- brate Cesar Chavez,'' Obama said at a ceremo- ny at La Paz, the Cali- fornia farmhouse where Chavez lived and worked for more than two decades. ''Our world is a better place because Cesar Chavez decided to change it.'' Chavez, who died in 1993 at age 66, is buried on the site where the monument was dedicat- ed. His widow, Helen, still lives there. known as Nuestra Seno- ra Reina de la Paz (Our Lady Queen of Peace), or simply La Paz, was the union's planning and coordination center starting in 1971. Chavez and many organizers lived, trained and strate- gized there. The 187-acre site, this process. The RBFD appreciates the public's patience with this process that helps us to ensure a reliable water source during emergencies. The Red Bluff Fire Department will be testing fire hydrants throughout the City during the months of October and November. The testing will begin in the northern part of town (Forward Addition) and progress from there, and will be conducted during weekdays. Water customers may experience temporary pressure fluctuations during Obama's action des- ignates 105 acres at the site near Bakersfield, Calif., as a national monument, the fourth monument he has desig- nated under the Antiqui- ties Act. The action could shore up support from some Hispanic and pro- gressive voters for Obama, whose 2008 ''yes we can'' slogan borrowed from Chavez's motto, ''Si, se puede.'' When the Arizona- born Chavez began working as an organizer after World War II, ''no one seemed to care about the invisible farm workers who picked the nation's food,'' Obama said. ''Cesar cared. And in his own peaceful, elo- quent way he made other people care, too. Where there had once been despair, Cesar gave workers a reason to hope.'' no farmworkers. He was credited with inspiring millions of other Latinos in their fight for more educational opportuni- ties, better housing and more political power. Obama seemed to tie Farm Workers of Ameri- ca, Chavez staged a massive grape boycott and countless field strikes, and forced grow- ers to sign contracts pro- viding better pay and working conditions to the predominantly Lati- As head of the United Paul Chavez were among those attending the ceremony. Dolores Chavez to his own re- election campaign, say- ing: ''Even though we have a difficult road ahead, I know we can keep moving forward together. '' Obama's 2012 campaign motto is ''Forward.'' Helen Chavez and son Huerta, co-founder with Chavez of the UFW, and current union president Arturo S. Rodriguez also were present, as were Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, California Gov. 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