Remote work is here to stay: Manhattan may never be the same

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I don't think the defense of the wealthy is really "wannabeism." I think some people are just very comfortable living in a hierarchy, thinking it's the natural order of the world for there to be "big fish" and "little fish." They don't even have to the biggest fish themselves - so long as they aren't at the bottom of the pyramid.

Definitely.

In fact, I am very comfortable with the fact that hierarchies exist. I applaud the so-called winners in a lot of categories of human endeavor, but in political terms, I deplore motions that reduce the potential of the lower classes while improving the higher ones.

[jtown,man]

As usual, a point I made was warped to a point where my original point was completely lost on most.

Race, percentage of wealth the rich pay, Trump, and everything under the sun has been discussed, which had zero to do with what I was saying.


My point had nothing to do with the point that the wealthy pay 99% of their income in taxes or .05%. Thats besides the point. My *POINT* was that the rich pay for the majority of taxes within the city. That is true. That's it.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

As usual, a point I made was warped to a point where my original point was completely lost on most.

Race, percentage of wealth the rich pay, Trump, and everything under the sun has been discussed, which had zero to do with what I was saying.


My point had nothing to do with the point that the wealthy pay 99% of their income in taxes or .05%. Thats besides the point. My *POINT* was that the rich pay for the majority of taxes within the city. That is true. That's it.

Based on what data? Or is this another anecdote you heard from your mothers neighbors cousin in Mississippi?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Handro

Based on what data? Or is this another anecdote you heard from your mothers neighbors cousin in Mississippi?

You're a douche, but you already knew that.

Less than 40,000 New Yorkers paid over 42% of all city income taxes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-if-they-leave

[Crawford]

NYC isn't the U.S. And city income taxes aren't a significant portion of overall tax liability, even in NYC.

Yes, if you're wealthy, and living in NYC, your earned income is taxed at a very high level for U.S. standards. But you chose the biggest outlier in the U.S. to make a general point about U.S. taxation. The distribution of U.S. tax burden is pretty much the opposite of how it's done in NYC.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NYC isn't the U.S. And city income taxes aren't a significant portion of overall tax liability, even in NYC.

Yes, if you're wealthy, and living in NYC, your earned income is taxed at a very high level for U.S. standards. But you chose the biggest outlier in the U.S. to make a general point about U.S. taxation. The distribution of U.S. tax burden is pretty much the opposite of how it's done in NYC.

What sparked this conversation about who pays taxes was based on NYC.

The wealthy in NYC fund the city. Period. If they leave the city is fucked.

I don't understand how that isn't just accepted as an obvious situation.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

What sparked this conversation about who pays taxes was based on NYC.

The wealthy in NYC fund the city. Period. If they leave the city is fucked.

I don't understand how that isn't just accepted as an obvious situation.

Why didn't they leave already?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

What sparked this conversation about who pays taxes was based on NYC.

The wealthy in NYC fund the city. Period. If they leave the city is fucked.

I don't understand how that isn't just accepted as an obvious situation.

I don't think anyone disputes this assertion, but I don't understand the point.

NYC has had crazy high (relative to the rest of the nation) taxes on the wealthy since the 1920's. That's basically how Greenwich, CT got started. A Rockefeller got pissed about NY income taxes so built his estate literally right on the state border and then others followed. Within a few decades, coastal Connecticut was associated with extreme wealth.

So the extreme wealthy in NYC have been "overtaxed" relative to the wealthy everywhere else, for a century, more or less. But NYC has a higher share of the extreme wealthy than anywhere, basically. And yeah, if there were no wealthy, and you had a tax system where the wealthy were paying the taxes, any municipality would eventually look like Gary, IN. But there's no evidence of this occurring in high tax places, in part because they all have multiple homes, and it's pretty easy to establish domicile in a low-tax jurisdiction while actually living in a high tax jurisdiction. And not many people are gonna permanently uproot their families in order to pay 2-3% less in taxes.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why didn't they leave already?

For probably a million reasons. NYC has a draw that most cities in this country can't compete with, zero arguing with that.

But once we have higher NYS taxes, it is going to make NYC increasingly unattractive to high-wealth people. What percentage of households moving, making over 400k, does it take until the city starts seeing massive issues? I am thinking it is a relatively small amount of people.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think anyone disputes this assertion, but I don't understand the point.

NYC has had crazy high (relative to the rest of the nation) taxes on the wealthy since the 1920's. That's basically how Greenwich, CT got started. A Rockefeller got pissed about NY income taxes so built his estate literally right on the state border and then others followed. Within a few decades, coastal Connecticut was associated with extreme wealth.

So the extreme wealthy in NYC have been "overtaxed" relative to the wealthy everywhere else, for a century, more or less. But NYC has a higher share of the extreme wealthy than anywhere, basically. And yeah, if there were no wealthy, and you had a tax system where the wealthy were paying the taxes, any municipality would eventually look like Gary, IN. But there's no evidence of this occurring in high tax places, in part because they all have multiple homes, and it's pretty easy to establish domicile in a low-tax jurisdiction while actually living in a high tax jurisdiction. And not many people are gonna permanently uproot their families in order to pay 2-3% less in taxes.

We aren't talking 2-3%. What is the top income tax in NYS? What is the rate in NYC?

Add those together and then you'll have the number people would save by moving to states with zero income tax.


I looked, its currently 8.82% for NYS's top rate and could be bumped to 9.65%. NYC tax rate goes up to 3.8% (people, correct me please if I am wrong).

So like 12-13% in savings for a high-income family. That's a ton of money.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

Not saying I agree with but the ridiculous salaries are corporate America's way of securing and retaining C-level talent in a very competitive field. If a company has a good CEO who is responsible for record profits and growth, are they not worth the pay? I don't know. What I do oppose are golden parachutes where a CEO is essentially rewarded for running their company into the ground or forced out for dubious activity.

I think a very small percentage of CEOs are so special they are worth 8 figures annually. And the record shows that some of the least "special" are the highest paid. The correlation between truly outstanding performance and relative pay is weak.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why didn't they leave already?

Maybe they did.

I've tried to make this point before but I will again. Most wealthy people own multiple homes and it's not so much where they live but how much time they spend at each home and where they vote, register cars, have professional or business licenses and so forth. State tax authorities can be very picky about contesting residencies but ultimately if somebody has a house in NYC, a house in Florida or the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands, maybe a ranch out west somewhere, all they may have to do to cease being a New Yorker is spend a few days or weeks less time there and maybe switch voting registration or a business license. It certainly doesn't mean they can't spend any time living in New York.

I spend about half my time in California and half in Arizona, own property in both and almost none of my income is "earned" in either state ("earned" income--wages or pay for some business activity, is taxed where it is earned) so I can be a resident of either state I choose if I do certain simple things like register to vote, designate one or the other as my tax home for the IRS and so on.

If somebody like I described above decides not to be a New Yorker any more, they can probably expect the NY tax authority to contest them and, if the amount of money is large enough, take them to court. But the very wealthy can get good lawyers to advise them and usually win these cases without abandoning a place like NY completely. And the good news is that you can only be a "resident" of one state at a time so sometimes the states will fight over you while you stand aside a watch.

[bernie mac]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

You're a douche, but you already knew that.

Less than 40,000 New Yorkers paid over 42% of all city income taxes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-if-they-leave

42% is a majority?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Maybe they did.

I've tried to make this point before but I will again. Most wealthy people own multiple homes and it's not so much where they live but how much time they spend at each home and where they vote, register cars, have professional or business licenses and so forth. State tax authorities can be very picky about contesting residencies but ultimately if somebody has a house in NYC, a house in Florida or the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands, maybe a ranch out west somewhere, all they may have to do to cease being a New Yorker is spend a few days or weeks less time there and maybe switch voting registration or a business license. It certainly doesn't mean they can't spend any time living in New York.

I spend about half my time in California and half in Arizona, own property in both and almost none of my income is "earned" in either state ("earned" income--wages or pay for some business activity, is taxed where it is earned) so I can be a resident of either state I choose if I do certain simple things like register to vote, designate one or the other as my tax home for the IRS and so on.

If somebody like I described above decides not to be a New Yorker any more, they can probably expect the NY tax authority to contest them and, if the amount of money is large enough, take them to court. But the very wealthy can get good lawyers to advise them and usually win these cases without abandoning a place like NY completely. And the good news is that you can only be a "resident" of one state at a time so sometimes the states will fight over you while you stand aside a watch.

I mean, why didn't they leave before this tax increase? Most people could substantially cut their tax burden by just moving across the river. It's not like NY's taxes were cheap last year. And the rate increases aren't exactly mind-boggling, either.

NY's tax department is pretty aggressive, though. Next to the IRS, it is probably the second worst tax authority's attention that a person could capture. I'm hearing that they are particularly aggressive this year due to the pandemic, and changing residency to out-of-state this year is automatically triggering an audit.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

We aren't talking 2-3%. What is the top income tax in NYS? What is the rate in NYC?

Add those together and then you'll have the number people would save by moving to states with zero income tax.

What states? The only states where you could work in NYC and live nearby are NJ and CT, and they have essentially the same income tax rate. The only state nationally where "coastal elite" New Yorkers would live/work is CA and they have essentially the same income tax rate.

Florida is the only no-tax state where wealthy New Yorkers reside in large numbers, and NY will never compete on taxes with FL. And it's overwhelmingly old folks. Boomers love the sun.

Again, NYC has had the highest income taxes on the superrich for 100 years. People who choose where to live based in income taxes wouldn't be in NY in the first place. Yet the biggest concentrations of superrich in the U.S. are in the NYC area and CA, the areas with the highest income taxes, indicating that high income taxes on the wealthy doesn't seem to guide their domicile.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by bernie mac

42% is a majority?

Bernie, stick with me bro...

40,000 people out of 8,000,000+ pay 42%.

You can figure out the rest.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Crawford

What states? The only states where you could work in NYC and live nearby are NJ and CT, and they have essentially the same income tax rate. The only state nationally where "coastal elite" New Yorkers would live/work is CA and they have essentially the same income tax rate.

Florida is the only no-tax state where wealthy New Yorkers reside in large numbers, and NY will never compete on taxes with FL. And it's overwhelmingly old folks. Boomers love the sun.

Again, NYC has had the highest income taxes on the superrich for 100 years. People who choose where to live based in income taxes wouldn't be in NY in the first place. Yet the biggest concentrations of superrich in the U.S. are in the NYC area and CA, the areas with the highest income taxes, indicating that high income taxes on the wealthy doesn't seem to guide their domicile.

Businesses may move out of NYC, remote workers may move out of NYC.

A family making 400k MIGHT NOT think Florida is a cesspool of disgustingness like you imagine. Or Texas, some people like places like that, even wealthy people (shocker).

[bernie mac]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Bernie, stick with me bro...

40,000 people out of 8,000,000+ pay 42%.

You can figure out the rest.

The top 1% — about 38,700 taxpayers — earned almost as much as the bottom 90% of New Yorkers.

They seem quite undertaxed for how much they are making.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by bernie mac

The top 1% — about 38,700 taxpayers — earned almost as much as the bottom 90% of New Yorkers.

They seem quite undertaxed for how much they are making.

Again, stick in there.


My point was that they pay the majority of taxes.

Your political complaint has nothing to do with that fact.

Move on.

[bernie mac]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Again, stick in there.


My point was that they pay the majority of taxes.

Your political complaint has nothing to do with that fact.

Move on.

Your point is pointless since they make the VAST majority of the money.