This tax increase on all working families should be repealed.

I'm not sure how you can say this is a tax increase for ALL working families, it's certainly not for me and I work. The new rules would save me WAY more in income tax than I could ever spend on broader sales taxes, etc. This is the first good deal as far as taxes go that I've ever been eligible for and I find it pretty ironic that it's my fellow Conservatives who seem to want to snatch it away at the last minute.

Tourists aren't going to stay away from Maine because their vacation might cost them an extra $100 or so. Think about what their other options are, Mass (way more expensive, NH (tiny coastline and expensive), or Vermont (no coastline and also expensive). I think OUR politicians should think of even more ways to get tourists to pay more of the tax load, not less. They'll still come, especially the ones who do most of the tourist season spending here.

Repeal it, the citizens of Maine voted to allow the government to tax and spend with no voter approval, (rejection of TABOR), they also sat down and said don't decrease the excise tax, and they also voted to take out yet another Bond issue. Tax the citizens more come on, you wanted it all, tax some more!!!

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Why oh Why does all of these rags purporting to be newspapers keep reporting a decrease in the income tax rates. Don't they know that the lower brackets were increased? Have you recalculated your Maine tax return using the new rules?????? Try it, you may be surprised. Don't just read the headlines in the BDN and the PPH. Wake up people and take your state back.

The liberals in the state house , under the direction of John Baldacci , have tried to ruin this state and will continue to do so. Come on June election. They could be replaced by inmates from Warren and we'd be better off ! New taxes are new taxes no matter how you word it .

Show some patriotism. Part of living in Maine is paying one's fair share of taxes. It is upsetting to see how many wealthy flaunt their power and stick it to the working class. Have we forgotten last Tuesday's elections? The voice of the people will triumph and kill this repeal effort just as we did on TABOR and the Excise tax. This repeal effort looks an awful lot like TABOR!

all this tax is going to do is hurt Maine, the dems are not going to let it on the ballot and make it moot. because they dont what it to Dominate the june primary! The people of Maine have spoken AS-Ho__s! if they do this you folks better pack your up your offices because you will never get back in office.just a bunch of statehouse bullys

It will be interesting to see what kind of lies and scare tactics the Far Left try to use against campaign... it is indeed time for the concerned taxpayers to stand up and voice their frustrations with our so-called state leaders.

If you would like to become part of the solution, please visit Maine Taxpayers United at www.MaineTaxpayers.com

and on Facebook.

I pay quite a chunk in taxes to the state as it is, and when I calculate my taxes based on the proposed new formula, surprise surprise! I lose again, plus I inherit a bunch of new sales taxes. This shell game is a democrat sponsored joke!

Of course the media, and the state, haven't trumpeted everything that will now be taxed...they know what the reaction will be.

Check it out (do the cut & paste thing)

http://www.stillfedupwithtaxes.net/PDFs/2009%20Session%20-%20Tax%20Reform%20-%20Sales%20Tax.pdf

Basically, unless you stay home with no TV or internet, you will be subject to a variety of new taxes. But don't worry, your income taxes have been adjusted.

the fact that the democrats may repeal this new lift and shift tax plan is all any thinking person needs to know. Democrats having control of the governors office, and both the senate and the house should tell us all we need to know as well. if you are a life long resident of this state take a look around. its time for the party of the working people to take over~ vote republican, the dems had their chance...for the last 38 years. enough is enough. we are number 2 nationwide for food stamps. Even the green party helped in this petition drive, these taxes are bad for maines economy...whats left of it.

Interest on home mortgages for all working families is not deductible anymore.

This equates to thousands in new taxes for each of those families, which will more than offset the benefit from "lowered" income tax rates.

It's like getting a bonus at work of $2000 dollars and being subjected to a $2100 new bonus tax going to the State.

And then the local newspaper reports what a great deal you got on that $2000 bonus.

"Berry acknowledged there are a lot of Democrats who are “not enthusiastic” about the issue appearing on the June ballot."

Why?

"Sticking it" to visitors in order to cover Augusta's gluttonous spending appetite is immoral.

It shows how entrenched the welfare entitlement mentality is (Jeffrey) and how parasitic our state government has become.

Maine Democrats are determined to emulate the bankrupt California "model".

can someone please outline exactly what this bill says in a somewhat non-partisan manner, or at least show me where I can read a copy of it. I'd love to find out exactly what changes in the tax structure it entails before I decide to support or oppose any changes to it. Sorry...I've heard lots of partisan bickering from both sides on this one but nothing that I can really base an opinion on..............

Captainandy, if you only knew....LOL! I'm as far from the welfare entitlement mentality as anyone could possibly get and I'm not sure how you could fail to understand that if you read BDN online at all regularly. I haven't voted for ANY bond issue in decades and I was for Tabor(s) and the excise tax referendum. I'm always for lower taxes and smaller government, and for my situation, I'd save a lot of money if this tax change is not repealed. For people with low incomes, the increase in sales taxed items will be a lot bigger share of their income, so I can understand why they're against it. But isn't it about time that real working people who make a good living caught a break by lowering the income tax rate?

It seems to me that you have a rather unique value system if you think it's somehow more "moral" tor the government to take more money from working Mainers like myself, than to transfer some of that tax load to out of staters.

Drinky: You can go here http://www.state.me.us/revenue/incomeestate/1040/taxreformindividual.htm and click on 'informational calculator' in the middle of the page to download an Excel spreadsheet to see the effects of the tax reform package on your taxes. You'll need last years state tax form. While saving taxes myself I have problems with this tax bill. I am supportive of raisng the meals and lodging taxes and lowering rates in general. But this law RAISES the lower income rates and contains a major flaw in that it is not automatically adjusted for inflation which means higher taxes for some in later years.

Here's the direct link to the tax calculator: http://www.state.me.us/revenue/incomeestate/taxcalculator.xls

OrringtonResident – How true! I wonder at times if we feel overtaxed because we’ve lost sight of all the social/welfare programs that we insist that Augusta provide for the residents – everything from laptops for the kids through to free rides for the poor, elderly, and down-trodden; all of which are very worthwhile. However, they cannot be furnished without a substantial tax base. We as residents have created the current situation and have compounded the problem by not wanting industry and businesses to move into the state; so what happens, we (who earn money) must foot the bills.

OMG! chicky, your too funny!

The party of the working people are the Republicans? Really? Hahaha!

And the reference to food stamps? Would you rather have Maine familes going hungry?

Too bad Maine cant be more like Colorado, where they have passed TABOR.

And ironically enough,

Colorado is leading the nation in rising child povety rates since the year 2000.

LD 1495 is a tax cut of $55,000,000 for mainely working class Mainers. What we have here is a discusting misuse of the petition process by a Republican Party that can't win elections so it tries to waste our money in partisan petition drives. 87% of Mainers will get a significant tax cut. Maine revnues will be stablilzed allowing for future tax cuts. Businesses will move to Maine that now will not. Anyone in that 87% that votes for repeal is cuttng their own throat.

blueskiesaboveme,

Colorado passed TABOR 16 years ago and then suspended it because it was destroying public services specifically education. Colorado benefitted from the out-migration from California after Prop 13 destroyed that states education system. So its not surprising that child poverty is on the rise in Colorado.

what you save in personal income tax you will pay to get your hair cut, go to the movies, get your car repaired, have someone mow your lawn, plow your driveway, clean your house. Persoanl deductions will go away, such as your mortgage interest, because of the the effective tax rate for the middle class will be 8%. the tax rate for someone over $100,000 6%. the legislators did not read this bill before they voted on it. it will NOT save you money...in the long run it will cost you more...

The one amazing thing is this repeal effort cnfirms the Republican Party's bankrupt policy approah. Their economic theories which have nothing to do with fact have ruined the national economy and here they come having lost yet aother election to say just trust us this will mess up Maine. Does that come from their experience messing up the nation. Well they barely got enough signatures and probably a good number of those were from people they lied to. Still it was only 56K+. 650,000 voted in the last election. Has the Republican Party of Maine become a cult of faiure? A marginalized joke? Appears that they have.

jcarrme,

is misstating the facts. Personal deductions are replaced by tax credits which reduce the effective tax rate for middle class wage earners more than the former deductons did. His calcultions are therefore completely wrong.

"The overhaul reduces the income tax rate to 6.5 percent ."

Not true. There are four income tax brackets (2.0%, 4.5%, 7.0% and 8.5%) all of which were changed to 6.5%, the bottom two being raised. The new rate is also applied to income that was not previously taxed. The 8.5% tax bracket did does not start until $53,700 of income in 2008. The first $14,800 which was not taxed will be taxed at 6.5% for an increase of $962. The changes in the bottom three brackets result in an increase of $531 for a total increase of $1,493 at an income of $53,700. The increase is even higher if you itemize. This increase is partially offset with tax credits. This couple would receive a tax credit of $1,700 for an income tax cut of $207 in 2008 dollars. Due to the elimination of indexing most of this cut will be eliminated by 2012. You would think that this couple would received a 2.0% cut of every dollar they earned over $53,700 (8.5% - 6.5%) However, the tax credit is phased by $1.50 for every $100 of income so this couple would only receive a .5% cut until their income reaches $168,000. Then they would receive a cut of 2.0% of every dolloar they receive over that. This bill is a tax cut for the wealthy with little for the middle class.

"On 11/10/09 at 10:15 AM, JonAlbrecht wrote:

jcarrme,

is misstating the facts. Personal deductions are replaced by tax credits which reduce the effective tax rate for middle class wage earners more than the former deductons did. His calcultions are therefore completely wrong. "

He/she is not completely wrong. Personal deductions are replaced with an alternate tax credit which is capped and phased out. Between the cap and the phase out the taxpayers will not get the same benefit from the dedutions resulting in income tax increases for many middle class taxpayers. If you are a middle class elderly couple which high medical dedutions (ie nursing home) you could be looking at a several thousand or more increase in income tax under this bill.

The tax calculator on the Maine Revenue Services website does not give you the impact of the law beyond 2010. Because the new law does not have inflation adjustments until 2014, while old law had inflation adjustments every year, the tax savings in 2010 for most taxpayers will disappear by 2013. For the impact to taxpayers for all years 2010 to 2013 go to www.mainedemocratstaxreform.org and clink on the tax calculator. Also at that website is the Maine revenue Services estimate of the tax impact on Mainers for the year 2013. The report shows that taxpayers earning less than $35,970 will have an average tax cut of $39, but taxpayers earning $35,970 to $350,810 will have an average tax increase of $22. Finally a group of 4,638 taxpayers earning over $350,810 will get a tax cut of $34.8 million or $7,509 each. The Maine Revenue Services report for 2013 also estimates that the total net tax decrease for all Mainers will be $31.3 million, so the 4,638 taxpayers at the top will get a tax cut of $34.8 million, while all other taxpayers (99.3% of Mainers) will get a net tax increase of $3.5 million.

no blueskies i would rather have maine families able to find WORK. wouldnt you??? look around, you want to talk about failed policy you do not need to look on a national scale just look in your own backyard. Maine is number two in food stamps, that says more about democrats 38 year power trip than anything else. but I am glad you can chuckle at other peoples expense. Welfare robs people of their dignity, becomes generational and having worked in social services for 20 years i can tell you I only met a handful of people who would prefer a welfare life to one of working for a living.

I'd agree that Health and Human services is not perfect,

But neither is Capitalism.

I dont buy the argument, that if we cut social services and cut taxes,

That jobs would then somehow become overflowing, and the Free Market will provide for us all.

Of course I want Maine families to be able find work, and even be able start their own businesses and compete on eqaul footing of competitors.

Im not chuckling about people being on welfare,

Im chuckling at your supposed sollutions for the poor and working class.

Cutting Social Services and cutting taxes wont bring in any more jobs.

What upsets me most (and there's PLENTY about this "tax reform" bill that upsets me) is the way members of the Legislature directly tried to stop people from signing the petitions to put Question on the ballot. Of course the BDN never does any investigative reporting that puts members of the Maine Democratic Party is a bad light but thankfully the Machias Valley News Observer is a real newspaper.

The September 16, 2009 edition carried a column by Prof. John Frary which states in part, "Representatives Seth Berry (Bowdoinham, etc.) James Martin (Bangor, Orono, Veazie) and Jon Hink (Portland) made every effort to interfere with people trying to sign (the petitions). Rep. Berry, Democratic majority whip, made himself especially obnoxious at Windsor Fair; to the extent that he put himself in danger of being smacked upsode the ear hole by Vickie Webster, normally a peaceable woman who takes a dispassionate view of politics. There's been talk of an ethics charge against this pest."

Frary went on to write, "One petition worker in Protland had his car windows smashed and 1200 certified petitions stolen. Another, working the Windsor Fair had 600 unceretified petitions stolen. Rep. Cebra (Naples, Casco, part of Portland) had his car keyed. Someone let the air of the tires of the GOP state party executive director's SUV. There is no actual proof that any of this was the work of the Democratic activists. Perhaps it was simply a trail of coincidences or an operation or ganized by the Illuminati, Zoroastrians, or Al Qaeda. I will be collecting details for a further column."

Seems to me, if members of the illustrious Maine state Legislature would stoop to such tactics, they have plenty of reasons for not wanting Mr. Dunlap to let this come before the people for a vote. Maybe we should just vote out members of the Legislature and start over. Can't get much worse. Of course we already know that, don't we.

99.3 % of Mainers will see a tax increase over the long haul because of this bill.

www.mainedemocratstaxreform.org