Chris Christie on His 'Confrontational Tone': 'You Should See Me When I'm P****d'

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Comment by Chris Rywalt on May 14, 2010 at 11:37pm

I can't help but notice that the average tax revenue collected per millionaire in Annapolis went up by 11 percent between 2007 and 2008. Since the tax increase was only 1.5% I have to figure that the remaining millionaires claimed quite a bit more taxable income in 2008 than 2007. If the millionaires who moved also made more money, I suppose we can say that Annapolis lost even more income than I calculated, but it's getting to be a lot of math.

Comment by Chris Rywalt on May 14, 2010 at 11:30pm

Here, I've done some scribbling. Someone tell me where I went wrong.

In 2007, 7898 Annapolis millionaires paid x amount of taxes. I don't see in either of Ron's sources where the actual number is cited, so I'm going to have to calculate it.

In 2008, 5529 Annapolis millionaires paid 0.78x taxes. That's how you calculate 78%, which is the 22% drop cited in Ron's source.

In Ron's Wonderland version of 2008, 5529 + 0.125(7898) (that last bit's the number of millionaires that didn't move because the taxes didn't go up in Ron's Wonderland, or 1 in 8 millionaires, or 12.5%) paid y taxes (again, we don't know how much). That's 6517 millionaire taxpayers (I'm going to round up and give Ron an extra whole millionaire).

Okay. We know that tax revenues from millionaires in Annapolis fell by $257,000,000 between 2007 and 2008 because Ron's source says so. Ron's source also says this was a 22% drop. So now we can calculate the actual taxes collected both years, where x (remember) is the tax revenue from 2007:

0.78x = x-257000000
0.78x - x = -257000000
x - 0.78x = 257000000
0.22x = 257000000
x = 1168181818.18

So let's drop the cents -- give it to the Salvation Army or something -- and find that Annapolis collected -- wow -- $1,168,181,818 from millionaires in 2007. Big bucks. And in 2008 they collected 78% of that, or $911,181,818.

Now we can calculate average tax paid by each of those millionaires. In 2007, 7898 paid $1,168,181,818 for an average tax bill of $147,908. In 2008, 5529 paid $911,181,818 for an average of $164,800.

Meanwhile, in Ron's Wonderland 2008, tax rates stayed the same as 2007, so the average tax bill remained $147,908. But now 6517 millionaires are paying it, so Ron's Wonderland 2008 collected $963,916,436.

Which means that our tax increase chased off a maximum of $52,734,618 in taxes. Or -- wait for it -- 5%.

This is a far cry from the 22% claimed in Ron's source.

Now let's imagine that only the 1 in 8 millionaires vanished, and not the rest. That's 988 (rounding up) millionaires who got itchy feet because the tax rate went up. That means our tax increase gives us 6910 millionaire taxpayers at $164,800 each for a total of $1,138,768,000. Total revenues lost: $29,413,818.

They'd hoped to raise an extra $106 million and would've ended up losing $30 million instead. Not a good deal certainly. But with only a drop of 2.5% of revenue, it's a long way away from the 22% being bandied about here.

And that 2.5% drop assumes that none of the millionaires remaining would have had increased income. I'm speculating here, but it seems to me a percentage that small could easily flip either way. As it happened it flipped in the bad direction -- all the way down to 5% if my math is right -- but a bump up in the economy might have broken the tax even or possibly increased revenue slightly. It's a slim margin.

The recession threw things off a lot and Annapolis clearly had bad timing, implementing their tax increase right as the Great Recession hit. But that's the nature of tax increases. When there's plenty of money you don't need money.

Comment by Chris Rywalt on May 14, 2010 at 10:57pm

You're so ignorant it's barely amusing. "Opportunity cost" is a term from economics used to compare investment choices. Since taxes aren't investments, the term doesn't even belong in this conversation. And it certainly doesn't have anything to do with unintended consequences, since, if you can calculate opportunity cost, the consequences are hardly unintended.

Does it even occur to you that my uses of the phrases "let's say" and "let's just say" were to make your argument as strong as possible? I could've simply said that, for the purposes of my analysis, all of the missing millionaires died after billboards reading "Obama: Yes We Can" fell on them. In which case 1 in 8 millionaires in Annapolis were unable to file taxes, not because you were right and they moved away in fear of punitive taxation, but because they were dead flat. In which case you were entirely wrong instead of mostly.

Instead I decided to run the numbers using a hypothesis as favorable to you as possible, that absolutely the entirety of the 12.5% of millionaires living in Annapolis filing income tax returns in 2007 but not in 2008 moved away to escape the 2008 tax increase. This is as good as your argument can get because the article you cited quoted statistics to that effect. I'm not even claiming their statistics are bogus. Heck, I'm not even doublechecking them. I'll just swallow that whole for you.

So, given your numbers -- not mine, yours -- 70% of millionaire Annapolis taxpayers from 2007 still paid in 2008. That 70% paid 78% of 2007's millionaire taxes in 2008, or 8% more taxes.

Since Annapolis only raised the tax rate by 1.5%, I guess the 70% remaining millionaires made more money in 2008 than they had in 2007.

I admit my math may be wrong. I've made some hilariously boneheaded math mistakes in the past and since I'm doing these calculations while the TV's on it's very possible I screwed up. If so, I'd appreciate your showing me where.

Comment by James Taylor on May 14, 2010 at 10:15pm

I love it, Greg Raymer goes off! The reporter MUST look like Mike "The Mouth" Matusow.

Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 14, 2010 at 9:19pm

'Let's say'
'Let's just say'

Just like Obama: Its true because Chris Rywalt says so. Typical Liberal.

I noticed you haven't had the courage to mention that maybe an analysis of the % increase/decrease of millionaires in each State might end this debate. Probably because it would show that the highest %decrease are in states run by Tax happy Liberals and Spend crazy Socialists. We already know Michigan has fared under their enlightened leadership.

I was going to do it, but seeing how behind you are in the facts column, I'll let you do it. (I'm a giver.)

I'm just going to file this for about a year, and then compare New Jersey's situation under Christie, to Maryland's.

That and post this link that should help to further open up the subject of unintended consequences. (It's called 'opportunity costs')

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/26/AR2...

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Northrop Grumman has chosen Northern Virginia as the new home for its global headquarters, ending a heated competition among Virginia, Maryland and the District for the prestige of playing host to the defense contracting giant.

Comment by Chris Rywalt on May 14, 2010 at 9:07pm

You don't get fined when you overpay by a relatively small percentage. You will get fined if you overpay by too much.

I can't find anything at all to back this up. Maybe my accountant was wrong. Apparently as of 1999 the IRS pays the same interest on overpayments as they charge on underpayments. That's news to me, too. Must've been a conservative Republican made that change since no Socialist Democrat would allow that kind of thing.

Comment by Chris Rywalt on May 14, 2010 at 8:56pm

Your source: "Some died, but the others presumably changed their state of residence."

Some. Presumably. How many? Where are your facts?

Let's go with 1 in 8, though. What the heck. Let's say none of them died or failed to file taxes in Maryland for some other reason. Let's just say they all moved to New Jersey because they love Chris Christie. 1 in 8 is 12.5%. So less than half of the missing millionaires moved. Taxes paid by wealthy filers, according to your source, dropped by 22%. If taxes paid dropped by 22% but the number of millionaires dropped by 30%, and 12.5% of those taxpayers evaporated, sounds to me as if the tax hike worked. Bottom line is, 70% of the previous year's taxpayers paid 78% of the previous year's taxes. Even if 12.5% hadn't moved, the increase wouldn't necessarily have taken Annapolis to 100% of the previous year's revenues.

Of course there's no note of whether there was an increase -- or less of a decrease -- of just-under-millionaire filings. In fact there are a bunch of numbers missing. Just because Joe Blow made over a million dollars in both 2007 and 2008 doesn't mean he made the same amount both years. The 22% revenue drop could be due in large part to that, also. Of the wealthy who fled, how much did they make? How much did they make wherever they fled to? There's nothing to say they made a million in their new home, or that they made the same amount, either. There's nothing to say they moved because of the tax, either.

So now that your argument has become a colander, feel free to link to more useless Web pages.

Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 14, 2010 at 8:51pm

You can be fined for overpaying your taxes?

Then why don't I get a fine every year when my return says I over paid and am due a refund?
Why do I get a letter telling me I have to pay taxes quarterly next year if I end up owing to much when I file a return?

So exactly what is the difference between voluntarily paying more taxes and being forced to pay a fine that you know you will be forced to pay when you overpay your taxes?

I think you may be confusing the tax laws in England with the US.

Furthermore, if any millionaire wants to overpay their taxes, I volunteer my tax bill for that purpose.

Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 14, 2010 at 8:36pm

This of course leads us into why Liberals (Socialists) won't show us all how wonderful things would be in a State where the money is redistributed by them as they see fit, and instead focus on the Federal Government.

Because they know it will be a disaster that no one would ever want to repeat, precisely because the people with wealth would leave their state for another.

By enforcing redistribution on a Federal level, no one can escape them.

Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 14, 2010 at 8:32pm

Ignoring that you have no facts does not make your argument factual.
I LOVE when Liberals (Socialists) try to argue. Especially when they dig holes they can't lie themselves out of.

Do you have a number that shows that the portion of the 30%? I don't think you do. Otherwise you would have mentioned it. No, you just imply that 'the majority' means 99% of the 30% is just because the millionaires aren't making millions anymore.

So I found some actual numbers. It's surprisingly easy, if you don't fear the results.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/03/12-of-rich-flee.html

Turns out that 1 in 8 millionaires did not file a return in 2008 that filed one in 2007.

And that's only after ONE year. Imagine what will happen as time goes on.

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