Anyone Inconvenienced by the Suspension of Amtrak Service to Vermont? (Brattleboro: house, bankrupt)
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With means testing on Act 68 property taxes and a steeply graduated state income tax, most Vermonters don’t have all that big a tax burden.
You mentioned this in another VT thread, stating that people that complain of high taxes are "squealing". I don't know what VT you live in but the people that live in the real state of VT are struggling to make ends meet because it is one of the highest taxed states in the nation. I only hope reality sinks in when you see how high your property taxes are next year. This gov't is determined to keep people living below the poverty level so they have to depend on the gov't to help them. It is not right.
You mentioned this in another VT thread, stating that people that complain of high taxes are "squealing". I don't know what VT you live in but the people that live in the real state of VT are struggling to make ends meet because it is one of the highest taxed states in the nation. I only hope reality sinks in when you see how high your property taxes are next year. This gov't is determined to keep people living below the poverty level so they have to depend on the gov't to help them. It is not right.
I ran the numbers in another thread for state school tax and state income tax. The median Vermont household is not heavily taxed by regional standards. The 3.35% bracket for a married couple extends up to north of $85k after deductions. $66k plus a $12k+ standard deduction plus $4,140 exemption per person plus any other tax write offs. A family of four making $100k doesn’t have much income taxed above that 3.35% bracket.
The state school tax turns into a 2-ish percent income tax unless you’re high income.
Your rhetoric doesn’t align with the facts. If you’re below the 80th percentile at about $100k, Vermont isn’t a big tax burden state compared to the rest of the Northeast, ignoring New Hampshire.
I ran the numbers in another thread for state school tax and state income tax. The median Vermont household is not heavily taxed by regional standards. The 3.35% bracket for a married couple extends up to north of $85k after deductions. $66k plus a $12k+ standard deduction plus $4,140 exemption per person plus any other tax write offs. A family of four making $100k doesn’t have much income taxed above that 3.35% bracket.
The state school tax turns into a 2-ish percent income tax unless you’re high income.
Your rhetoric doesn’t align with the facts. If you’re below the 80th percentile at about $100k, Vermont isn’t a big tax burden state compared to the rest of the Northeast, ignoring New Hampshire.
So you are stating that all the data and statistics that show VT as one of the highest taxed states in the nation is giving misinformation? It isn't true that there is only one state paying higher per pupil education taxes in this nation? You are also saying that the Governor was giving misinformation when he stated in the letter he wrote to the Education Dept. (it is open for all to read on the Dept of Education) that with the decline in students and test scores, the Education system should not be putting unnecessary tax burdens on the homeowners?
I wish all the families that moved away because they couldn't afford the high taxes would have read your post first. Maybe they would have believed your rhetoric and we wouldn't have lost so many students.
So you are stating that all the data and statistics that show VT as one of the highest taxed states in the nation is giving misinformation? It isn't true that there is only one state paying higher per pupil education taxes in this nation? You are also saying that the Governor was giving misinformation when he stated in the letter he wrote to the Education Dept. (it is open for all to read on the Dept of Education) that with the decline in students and test scores, the Education system should not be putting unnecessary tax burdens on the homeowners?
I wish all the families that moved away because they couldn't afford the high taxes would have read your post first. Maybe they would have believed your rhetoric and we wouldn't have lost so many students.
I provided real numbers. You provided unsubstantiated rhetoric. I’ll let everyone else form their own opinions based on that. By regional standards, the state tax burden for a family of four in the 80th percentile making $100k isn’t particularly high. It’s almost all 3.35% bracket money and Act 68 is means tested.
I provided real numbers. You provided unsubstantiated rhetoric. I’ll let everyone else form their own opinions based on that. By regional standards, the state tax burden for a family of four in the 80th percentile making $100k isn’t particularly high. It’s almost all 3.35% bracket money and Act 68 is means tested.
Where did you get those numbers from? People will do their own research and decide on their own. I would have appreciated my questions answered.
Where did you get those numbers from? People will do their own research and decide on their own. I would have appreciated my questions answered.
Pull up a Vermont tax return and run the numbers yourself. Act 68 tax law is freely available from the state. The census has all the income data. It’s obviously easier for you to spout unbased rhetoric since you’re lacking the capabilities to look this stuff up yourself.
Vermont is high tax burden for the top quintile. It’s absolutely not for the median household comparing it to any state in the region other than New Hampshire. In my life experience, most people who mouth off about taxes aren’t paying much. What is your effective Federal income tax rate? I calculate mine every year. Why don’t you share?
Pull up a Vermont tax return and run the numbers yourself. Act 68 tax law is freely available from the state. The census has all the income data. It’s obviously easier for you to spout unbased rhetoric since you’re lacking the capabilities to look this stuff up yourself.
Vermont is high tax burden for the top quintile. It’s absolutely not for the median household comparing it to any state in the region other than New Hampshire. In my life experience, most people who mouth off about taxes aren’t paying much. What is your effective Federal income tax rate? I calculate mine every year. Why don’t you share?
Like I said, people will do their own research and decide for themselves. People aren't moving out of this state because it is tax friendly. The only people I see pushing your rhetoric are politicians or the poor, both leaching off the hard working middle class taxpayers. Which are you?
I could follow in your footsteps, asking questions that are rude and none of my business, but I'm not a follower. You just keep pushing those numbers and calling them fact. All I have to do is look at my tax records and listen to 99% of Vermonters who are struggling to get by.
Your vile, unwarranted reply just shows your lack of respect for others that don't see you as the most colorful crayon in the box. Only a gentleman would respond with an apology so I won't hold my breath waiting.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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NYlier maybe you could create a thread and make it all about your grievances and all the doom and gloom in Vermont. In the meantime, what does your argument have to do with the thread topic? You still haven't presented anything to prove that Vermont has a higher tax burden compared to other NE states excluding NH or how the Amtrak subsidies negatively affect VT taxpayers. This has triggered you to use words such as vile in terms of what had been replied, yet still no substance. Just an emotional reply that has little if anything to do with the thread topic. Did you happen to survey the 99% that you stated whom are struggling to get by? Is this exclusive to Vermont alone or is it palpably felt everywhere right now?
Did you survey all the people leaving Vermont? Did they all answer strictly on the tax structure alone and did the Amtrak subsidy make a poignant example of why they are leaving? Or perhaps there was some nuance that escaped you (climate/relative COL/job opportunities/family)? America is a very transient country that moves around a lot for many various reasons and naturally in a rural area (like many not exclusive to Vermont) many will be inclined to leave for more job opportunities in more populated states and metro areas. Not dissimilar to lightly populated states like Wyoming whom are also rural, actually has a very low tax burden, and yet currently losing population. But this thread is about Amtrak service. Maybe you actually have a relevant point as it pertains to that?
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 05-22-2020 at 06:33 AM..
NYlier maybe you could create a thread and make it all about your grievances and all the doom and gloom in Vermont. In the meantime, what does your argument have to do with the thread topic? You still haven't presented anything to prove that Vermont has a higher tax burden compared to other NE states excluding NH or how the Amtrak subsidies negatively affect VT taxpayers. This has triggered you to use words such as vile in terms of what had been replied, yet still no substance. Just an emotional reply that has little if anything to do with the thread topic. Did you happen to survey the 99% that you stated whom are struggling to get by? Is this exclusive to Vermont alone or is it palpably felt everywhere right now?
Did you survey all the people leaving Vermont? Did they all answer strictly on the tax structure alone and did the Amtrak subsidy make a poignant example of why they are leaving? Or perhaps there was some nuance that escaped you (climate/relative COL/job opportunities/family)? America is a very transient country that moves around a lot for many various reasons and naturally in a rural area (like many not exclusive to Vermont) many will be inclined to leave for more job opportunities in more populated states and metro areas. Not dissimilar to lightly populated states like Wyoming whom are also rural, actually has a very low tax burden, and yet currently losing population. But this thread is about Amtrak service. Maybe you actually have a relevant point as it pertains to that?
Desert, there are threads started already, like "Vermont Property Taxes: Beyond Ridiculous!" and "DePopulation", why would I start a new one? I noticed in your post that you didn't direct the topic of taxes in a thread about Amtrak to Geoff. Any reason why you are defending a poster that personally insults other posters that have differing views, which is what he did?
So let me get this straight....You don't want me to post anything negative about Vermont, only positive posts? You don't think it is vital for readers to see both positive and negative issues of VT before they take the plunge and move their family here? What authority do you have to ask this of me?
Below is one article I read on TrueNorthReport.com, which warranted me questioning Geoffs posts. It has nothing to do with Amtrak, but it has everything to do with Geoff's switch to the topic of taxes. I know I'm not the only one worried about the future of VT.
The Vermont Legislature returns in January with a long list of daunting challenges, all with potentially astronomical price tags for Vermonters, who are already some of the most highly taxed people in the United States.
Among this list includes a projected 6% increase in property taxes to fund an education system already topping $2 billion to serve a declining population of less than 80,000 students. The system is so dysfunctional that former House Education Committee Chair Dave Sharpe, D-Bristol, recently claimed legislators were “hoodwinked” by special interests into supporting Act 46, the 2015 school district consolidation law that was supposed to lower costs by increasing efficiency. That has not worked out.
The Green Mountain Care Board recently authorized rate hikes of 12.4% (Blue Cross Blue Shield) and 10.1% (MVP) for people with Vermont Health Connect insurance plans, and approved a 59% increase to $1.42 billion for OneCare Vermont, the state’s latest health care cost-containment boondoggle. One suspects considerable hoodwinking here as well.
Also of concern is the state’s $4.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities for teachers and state workers. To put this cost in some perspective, every Vermonter — man, woman and child — is currently on the hook for over $7,000 (a number that is growing quickly) to pay for these benefits, and feeding this beast will consume 14% of the state’s general fund in 2020. (In 2018 that general fund expenditure was nearly $200 million, and this is an annual obligation over the next 20 years.) If this is not addressed, public employees risk losing some or, in an unlikely but not impossible scenario, all of their benefits.
Act 64, the water quality law passed in 2015, is about to hit businesses, municipalities, public schools and even some individual residences full force with stormwater regulations and fines with associated costs and taxes that will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years, and billions over the next decade. This has the very real potential of bankrupting many Vermont businesses.
These are costs already on the books. Here’s what we have to look forward to.
Leaders of the majority party seem poised to pass a minimum wage increase, which by last estimate, on top of the increased costs to employers and consumers, will require an estimated $86 million for Medicaid over five years either in tax increases or program cuts.
And, they seem resolved to pass a mandatory paid family leave program which will come with a new payroll tax taking an estimated $76 million per year out of working Vermonters’ pockets, just to start.
If this weren’t enough, in what one legislator described as what will be “our banner legislation” for 2020, many lawmakers want to entangle Vermonters in the latest carbon tax scheme called the Transportation Climate Initiative, or TCI. This multi-state collaborative would amount to a proposed 5, 9 or 17 cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel fuel, at a total cost to Vermonters of an estimated $20 million to $90 million, a number that will grow annually ad infinitum.
These are just some of the big ticket items, not mentioning the cost to maintain our neglected roads and bridges. Who knows what nickel-and-dime tax and fee increases they have in store, like plastic bag taxes, new and increased professional licensing fees, etc.
In all seriousness, how do our representatives expect us to pay for all of this? There are only about 320,000 taxpayers in Vermont. This ever-growing burden on so few shoulders is crushing. It has to stop. It would be one thing if we were getting our money’s worth out of all this, but the existing programs outlined above, apart from being wastefully expensive, are all examples of gross mismanagement. Can we realistically expect any better from the proposed programs?
A recent news story out of Rockingham, Vermont, described a community discussion billed as “Attracting and Retaining Young People,” in which one person described as an “older resident in work jeans and boots” summed things up very well. “Our taxes are absolutely nuts,” he said, “[but] there’s so much potential.”
There is so much potential in Vermont. This is a wonderful place. But these taxes and regulations are smothering the people who try to live here. As long as our taxes remain “absolutely nuts,” and the money is poured into programs that do not work as intended or promised, that potential, sadly, cannot and will not be realized.
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