Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
^and residential population is basically irrelevant since after WWII many states stopped collecting state property tax, adjusted what states versus counties versus cities versus towns were responsible for, and enabled cities to levy their own municipal earnings taxes. This encouraged cities to replace residential areas with industrial areas and other types of employment. Low and no-income residents are a drain on municipal resources so there was every incentive to use federal funds to bulldoze poor areas with the hope that the residents would move into federally subsidized housing or move out of the city altogether.
|
That's a pretty terrible idea since every economy needs low wage workers, whether or not they directly show up in the bottom line of the tax coffers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
For whatever reason, the media and people who ought to know better focus on residential population and not how many people work within municipal boundaries as a marker of success.
|
Do other cities have income taxes on suburban commuters? I know Detroit does, but I think it's pretty rare nationally. And even in Detroit suburban commuters pay a lower income tax rate than city residents, so it is more lucrative from a revenue perspective to have residents inside the city than commuters (for the same job at least). NYC doesn't have an income tax at all for commuters so they derive a humongous amount of revenue from income tax on residents.
Threaded Mode