The Impact of Tax Incentives on Building Communities

Steve Adubato talks with Sue Altman, State Director, New Jersey Working Families, about the benefits of the millionaire’s tax for New Jersey residents and ways tax incentives would help build communities.

7/13/19 #315

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. We're coming to you from the Agnes Varis NJTV Studio in Newark. We're pleased to welcome Sue Altman, who is State Director of New Jersey Working Families, which is? Which is an awesome organization dedicated to progressive causes. You were ready for that. Yeah! [laughter] Okay. Let's get into... right into progressive causes. And if people want to find out more, we'll put up your website, Twitter handle, et cetera. Great. Progressive causes, defined as...? Okay, first on the list? Do you put the millionaire's tax hike on first...? Like, another millionaire's tax...? Top of the list? Another millionaire's tax? Okay. Beyond the one that's existing right now? At a higher level? So when you say on the top of the list, what do you mean? Of all the progressive items? Yes. Millionaire's tax increase? Well I think funding progressive issues is a priority, and having a budget that's a value statement that puts forth funding for progressive issues is a top priority for me. And so revenue needs to be part of that conversation. And a millionaire's tax, which is a tax over... on every dollar made over a million dollars, of just two cents, so it's not net worth of a million dollars, it's just people making over a million dollars, is a good way to raise revenue. You know we've had the Senate President here, we've had the Republican leader in the Assembly, Jon Bramnick, and others... Mm hmm. ...business leaders who said, "You know what? It sounds easy enough." A lot of people are supporting it, some question it but public polls, check 'em out what they say, there are a lot of folks who say this would work. Yeah. It's a huge... it's got a huge support. Okay. But what about if the practical problem which they raise is, you raise taxes on certain millionaires over a million dollars and they'll say, "Wait a minute? I'm going to Florida. There's not even an income tax there. I'm going to some other state with a lower income tax." Aren't you afraid of losing that revenue? Which then, de facto, you don't have the revenue to do the things, the progressive things you want to do? Well it just so happens that New Jersey Policy Perspective has done this research. This is a good question, right? Do you...? By the way, check out our New Jersey Policy Perspective... the interview... who is the executive director we just had on? Brandon McCoy. You can check that out... yeah, McCoy was on with us. Yeah. Go ahead. So they do great research on this. And they've shown that even when you raise taxes on the highest..."