Are we overtaxed???

[censusdata]

Heck yes. Part of it is because he have some very impoverished areas and taxes form a way to redistribute wealth from the rich areas in the Golden Triangle & Western KY to those areas.

We also have WAY too many 'pet projects' which eat up our budget. I-66 is an excellent example of this. The millions of dollars used on this project which will never be built could have been used for 'enterprise zones' to bring in jobs to Eastern KY. Instead 99% of the money went to out of state groups to study a road which will never be built.

Maybe Beshear's casino plan could help. Having a Renosboro and Lou-evil would bring a lot of money in, sure is closer than going to Nevada or Atlantic City. Maybe we should legalize prostitution and marijuana as well

[EclecticEars]

Originally Posted by JMT

I'm sorry for popping in here. Unlike some people, I don't normally jump to other states' forums to make negative posts about those states. But I happened to be browsing the Kentucky forum, this topic caught my eye, and in today's paper there's an article about this topic.

The American Legislative Exchange Council just released a study of the economic health of the 50 states that reveals Kentucky is ranked 46th (1st being best, 50th being worst). Kentucky was chided for "its high personal, business and estate taxes, high workers compensation costs and its forced unionism."

The 16 components used to create the rankings:
• Highest marginal personal income tax rate
• Highest marginal corporate income tax rate
• Progressivity of the personal income tax system
• Property tax burden
• Sales tax burden
• Tax burden from all remaining taxes
• Estate tax/Inheritance tax (Yes or No)
• Recent Tax Policy Changes 2005-06
• Debt service as share of tax revenue
• Public employees per 10,000 residents
• Quality of state legal system
• State minimum wage
• Workers’ Compensation Costs
• Right-to-work state (Yes or No)
• Tax/Expenditure Limit
• Education Freedom Index

The bottom 5:
50. Vermont
49. New York
48. Rhode Island
47. Ohio
46. Kentucky
45. Hawaii

The top 5:
1. Utah
2. Arizona
3. South Dakota
4. Wyoming
5. Tennessee

The study can be found here:
http://www.alec.org/fileadmin/newPDF/ALEC_Competitiveness_Index.pdf (broken link)

I'm afraid he's right.

Kentucky has a large increase in the population of retiring baby boomers who are coming back to their "homeland" to, well, retire. The tax burden here is not overwhelming for retirees. But, for the younger generations who HAVE to work, well, I'm afraid A.L.E.C. is right on in its conclusions. It's bad when Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana, and Arkansas are much more successful in landing high salary, corporate- or industrial-based individuals with academic degrees.

Three of the top 5 states--Utah, Arizona, and Tennessee--are experience phenomenal growth right now. Kentucky has the diverse climate, intellectual capital, urban charm, low crime rate, and low personal income tax rates. It does not have the business-friendly tax rates or political savvy or willpower to make Ky. the next economic frontier.

That said, Louisville, Northern Kentucky, and to some extent Bowling Green and Lexington are not doing too bad by themselves and can essentially be thanked for the state's population growth.

[boomslang]

yes we are in every state!!! 35% of our income plus the inflation that comes with the federal reserve that makes things cost allot more than their worth so we end up losing 50% of our hard earned money!!!

vote for Ron Paul he believes in less big government and less taxes

[EarthBound?]

Every state in the city data forum has this question/ post. And the answer is "YES" everywhwere you go we are all over Taxed. And the politicians don't care if we like it or not, or if we complain about it or not. Because they know that as long as we pay the taxes, they're going to squander it away.

Just my two cents worth ,.