MA: Mideast Budget 2012 (Debating)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Also is there any data we can get from the GM that shows the optimal marijuana tax where we will make the most revenue without users moving back to a black market and pay no taxes?

I don't know any reliable way to figure that that, but my guess is that if you add the 25% tax in this budget to the 10% national tax, you are coming pretty close to it.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

So now that we've decided to raise taxes on beer (we still need to figure out how much money this generates), are there more ideas as to how we can balance the budget?

You could get rid of some of those tax expenditures.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Would a pension tax have to be done in a separate bill?

I'm assuming you have a significant pension tax. I beleive that's what most of that "social insurance tax" revenue represents, and that Badger based the number for that on Ohio's RL programs.

I'm leaning towards supporting shua's idea and ask the members of the Assembly: Which specific tax expenditure(s) are you ready to sacrifice in return for a balanced budget?

Guys I'm telling as the conservative author of this bill we really can't afford to cut much from this budget at all. It already is as libertarian as you can get when compared to all the states in the region combined RL. It's easy to say "cut government" but this budget is already at that stage of enough to survive on, but enormously less expenditures than RL budgets. If you want to make this game like RL, then you have to look at the budget from the standpoint that we can't magically cut everything and expect great benefits due to incredible management and super people in every department. If you want to see the full fight, just go to the old thread where GM Badger and I endlessly debated this.

Your direct spending (i.e. government programs) is enormously less than RL budgets. Your tax expenditures are not. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

ZuWo, if you tax those "tax free bonds" at half rate,  they're no longer tax free

the same applies with "exclusion of net imputed rental income"

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Tmth asked me to look at this:

Halving the mortgage interest deduction: the effect will be mostly felt by people with more expensive homes.  Lower and middle income earners will pay additional $100 or less in taxes, but people at the higher incomes and more expensive homes could pay an additional thousand dollars or more. Upper middle and upper class homes may see a small decrease in home values. People in mid-to- high tax brackets tend to factor in the deduction when they decide whether to buy a home, so they made need to readjust their budgeting. This could contribute to a decision to move into a less expensive place, or rent instead of own, but the effect will not be very large because federal taxes will still have a full deduction.

Having the property tax deduction:  The effect will depend on local property tax rates, but the additional tax will be small for most people. Still, there may additional pressure on some localities to lower local property taxes due to this change.