Sunday Poll: St. Louis’ Earnings Taxes…
Our federal, state, and for some of us, St. Louis City, tax returns must be postmarked no later than Wednesday. For today’s poll I thought Id ask about the St. Louis earnings tax. If you live OR work in the city you must pay 1%. Live in another state and play baseball, hockey, or football for opposing teams that play the Cardinals. Blues, Rams? You must pay 1% of the income earned in St. Louis.
Taxes are never popular — few are as controversial as our local earnings tax. So take the poll in the right sidebar — you can pick one or two answers — you can provide your own if you don’t like the choices offered.
— Steve Patterson
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It’s “controversial” only if you have to pay it. For a growing number of people, the decision is simple, to neither work nor live in the city – problem solved! The city’s choice to impose a tax that none of the neighboring jurisdictions imposes just gives both businesses and individuals another reason to avoid locating in, or remaining in, the city. It’s not much different than the predatory policing model in the county – stick it to non-residents to pay for services residents want, but don’t want to pay for through property taxes. We’re a mobile society, and choices have consequences.
Another consequence that I’ve witnessed is that workers in the city are being given the option of telecommuting, at least part time. A good many who live outside the City enjoy coming into the office vs. working from their homes, but often choose the “automatic 1% raise” (their words) above all else The effects of that? No more lunches in the city. No more shopping. Employers consolidating buildings because fewer workers are coming in. Fewer monthly Metro passes.
It’s happening by the thousands, and a big part of it is the earnings tax, sorry to say.
Double the earnings tax and build a great city.
Increase property tax and reduce the earnings tax. The current situation seems to punish those who choose to live and work in the city despite the crime stat etc. Higher property tax could make if harder to be an absentee landlord. Heck, even eliminate the earnings tax so employers cannot use it as a convenient excuse to locate elsewhere.
Spitballing here, but maybe couple the reside/work tax so that if a person does one or the other, it’s a full 1%, but if they do both it’s somewhere between .5% and .75% — some way to incentivize people to live and work in the city while still collecting needed revenue via the earnings tax.
I’m imagining this “discount” comes back in the form of a mid-year credit or check, after taxes have been filed, paid and processed.
The problem isn’t so much the tax, but rather the lack of return on the tax, or taxes. The Post Dispatch has an article today about the Altanta Journal-Constitution who ask their readers whether they want to boom like Chicago or be a bust like St. Louis. The poor decisions over the years, including poor urban planning were cited in the failure of St. Louis. The Atlanta Journal gave special mention to Steve’s object of criticism also , Harland Bartholomew.
The bottom line is the people of St Louis are generally not getting good value for their money, whether it be transit, the courts, MSD, the schools or you name it.
The problem, that has been mentioned often on Urban Review, is it seems always to be business as usual, nothing really changes. There is a big show in St. Louis about sustainability studies, transit apps and anything that does not require real change. The evidence does not lie, it is so bad the rest of the country notices now.