Occasionally I find nationwide comparisons interesting and this one provides a little break from the campaign season and high-cost rail which are both proving very appealing to Voice readers. (Readership has tripled in the last month like it usually does during election season.)
There are as many new tax plans floating around as there are presidential candidates. I have no intention of having the Voice go in that direction, but yesterday's Wall Street Journal had one of those interesting factoids included in an editorial about one such plan's idea to get rid of federal tax deductions for the state and local taxes one pays. The argument for removal is that high-tax states and localities are subsidized (by about 40 cents on the dollar) by low-tax locales from the deduction.
I guess I should not be surprised that San Mateo County made the list of the top 10 high-tax counties whose residents would be negatively affected by such a plan. Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties led the list with a 13.3% take; beating out some nice neighborhoods like Nassau and Westchester counties in New York, Fairfield County in Conn. (where I lived before coming back to B'game), and Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon counties in Jersey. C'est la vie. Anyone who says Prop. 13 needs to be repealed in its entirety should remember this.
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