Comment on Texas Attracted California Techies. Now It’s Losing Thousands of Them.
locuester@lemmy.zip 5 months agoThis isn’t comparing taxes. It’s comparing what section of the population shares more of the total burden.
This isn’t saying the people in Texas pay more, just that the distribution is different across income groups. Which makes sense because there is no income tax. Overall, everyone in Texas is paying less than they would in Cali.
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 5 months ago
You realize that the percentage of your income that is taxed is a fixed number regardless of state, right? That 1% of 60k in California is the same as 1% of 60k in Texas?
It very directly shows that poorer people in Texas pay more than poorer people in California over the wide range of taxes in each state. They fully take into account land ownership or not, which you can confirm by reading the linked article in the comment.
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Youre talking about the total dollar amount of taxes paid, which is irrelevant as a metric compared to percentage of income, which is a metric that you can compare across states regardless of total dollar wages.
Poor Texans pay a higher percentage of their total income than poor Californians. Almost all Texans pay more taxes than almost all Californians.
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
locuester@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Ugh I’m sorry. I started trying to make sense of it and then somehow confused myself into thinking it was a % share of total - as if each side added to 100%. Nevermind, I was wrong.
Anyhow, back to the chart - it simply makes no sense in that case. I would need to take a look at the underlying to tell me how the bottom 20% pay 13% of income to taxes in a state with 0% income and 6.25% sales tax. Only thing left is property tax (according to chart it’s those 3).
Yes I realize small local sales taxes may apply, but is a max of 2%.
How much property does this bottom 20% own?!