Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to break down the new proposed tax brackets for millionaires in New York as an example of the disincentivizing Democrat thought process.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by the original All-Star panelist Crom Carmichael. Crom, during the break we were talking about disincentive policies that other states are establishing that make it unnecessary for Tennessee to establish any incentives to bring anybody here because they’re being pushed our way.
Carmichael: Well, we’re going to use New York as the latest example of a state that is poorly run that is determined to be more poorly run. And here’s what they are doing in New York. New York is as of right now, the second-highest tax state in the country. California is the top. But here’s what they want to do. They want to increase the taxes on millionaires up to 11.
Now, this is just the state. The city itself has taxes of almost four percent. Three-point eight three percent on millionaires, but they want to raise it to 11.85 percent by raising taxes on filers earning 2.2 million to raise it to 8.82. Oh, excuse me. From that bracket to 9.85. Then earnings over 5 million would hit 10.85. Earnings over 25 million would hit 11.85. That’s on earnings. And they want to increase the tax on capital gains.
They want a surtax of one percent. Now they tax capital gains at income tax rates. So for people who are making over 25 million and they have capital gains, they’re not only going to see their capital gains taxes for the state go up to 11.85, the city would then be 3.88. And now there’s a surtax of one percent more. And I’m not done yet. (Leahy chuckles)
Leahy: I’m getting tired just listening to these taxes.
Carmichael: This is amazing. They want to raise the top rate on estate taxes too. Now, in Tennessee, for example, we don’t have a tax on estates like we used to. But because of Dr. Lauffler and his arguments, we did away with it. And Tennessee, as he predicted, benefited mightily from that. He also, by the way, and Beth Harwell were the driving force behind eliminating the Hall tax, which has also helped Tennessee. But I digress.
Leahy: The Hall tax was interest on income.
Carmichael: Then you have that they’re going to have a state-level on high-value second homes in New York City. So now they’re trying to destroy their real estate market by raising the tax from point three percent to four percent on homes value of over five million dollars. By the way, there’s been a letter signed by the leaders of Bank of America, Pfizer, Viacom, CBS, JP Morgan Chase, Jet Blue, Mastercard, Goldman, Sachs, Revlon, all saying to Andrew Cuomo, these are very very dumb ideas.
Has the press reported on these very very bad ideas versus these very, very dumb ideas versus Georgia’s very, very good ideas? Apparently, these woke CEOs who are saying that high taxes will destroy our state they don’t even merit news coverage. And now, in addition to that, the quality of life in New York and other big Democrat-run states is falling. The nine biggest cities are run by Democrats. Of the defund the police crowd, homicides are up in those nine cities by 68 percent. 68 percent.
And so the quality of life is falling. In Portland, the number of murders has gone from one to 20. In Austin, Texas, up 25 percent. In Philadelphia, up 25 percent. And so in other cities, it’s obviously up even more. And so you have the quality of life in New York going down the tubes and the cost of living in New York due to taxes going up. If you’re making more than $25 million, you can easily decide to move. That’s not hard.
Leahy: And these people are going to be moving to states like Tennessee, Texas, and Florida.
Carmichael: But when somebody making $25 million moves from the state, I’m just guessing off the top of my head this is a pure guess that for the average person in Tennessee, that requires 5,000 taxpayers to make up what that one person was paying. I’ll bet you at that high. In income taxes.
Leahy: In New York?
Carmichael: Yes, in New York. In other words, when one person making 25 million because they’re talking about taxing that person now, between the city and the state, they’re talking about taxing them 16 percent. And that doesn’t count their capital gains.
Leahy: Why Crom would any sane person who’s making a lot of money choose to live in New York State and pay all those increasing taxes? Well, when they could just call up U-Haul and point it South.
Carmichael: Yeah, well, that’s what they’re doing. And they’re doing that, and they’ll do it in even larger numbers. But then the question is, why do the politicians in those states do things that are essentially suicidal for their own state?
Leahy: Well, I’m fine with them doing these things, because that means it’s going to make Tennessee better.
Carmichael: But why do they do it?
Leahy: For conformity.
Carmichael: Yes. And their constituency is government employees.
Leahy: Not the residents.
Carmichael: Not the people who pay the taxes, but the people who consume the taxes.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Background Photo “New York State Capitol” by Shaunfrombrooklyn. CC BY-SA 4.0.
