Taxation
Mary Beth Franklin of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has an article in today’s Washington Post entitled “Tax-Friendly Places for Retirement”. Because tax treatment of different retirement income sources, as well as real property, varies widely by state, the fifty states were not ranked best to worst. For those contemplating a move upon retirement, Kiplingers has this…
Pawtucket Mayor James Doyle‘s op-ed from Tuesday’s Projo provides a good occasion for revisiting the topic of the supposed regressiveness of Rhode Island’s property tax structure. Mayor Doyle would like to see more state aid and less “reliance” on the property tax for funding education in Rhode Island… The state has also shunned its responsibility…
One thing to remember: Every time you read about state tax revenue lagging expectations, the expectations have likely already been downgraded since the last time analysts were disappointed: Two reports issued Tuesday afternoon by the state Revenue Analysis Office showed total state revenue in July and August was down 4.2 percent from the same two…
Ocean State Policy Research Institue was good enough to invite me to its fundraising event at the Providence Marriott featuring famed tax hawk Grover Norquist. Some of Norquist’s speech was familiar from his last appearance in Rhode Island, but considering all that has happened — with the election, tea parties, legislative assaults, healthcare — there…
Don’t let this tidbit slip past our awareness: Emerging from a tough competition, four Rhode Island police forces have won money from the federal economic stimulus program to hire police officers, the White House has announced. The largest single sum, $3,529,812, goes to Providence, to hire 13 officers. The other beneficiaries are Pawtucket, to hire…
Oswald Krell is at it, again — proving, this time, that beating a strawman for long enough begins to resemble a pillow fight against one’s self: Low tax states are more violent, have higher rates of teen pregnancy, somewhat higher poverty rates, and lower median incomes. Do low taxes cause these problems? No. Correlation is…
We’d like to welcome, of course, Brian Hull to the RI blogscene in his new role as proprietor of RIFuture. I, for one, am hopeful for a return to the collegiality of the Matt Jerzyk years and am determined not to be the cause should that prove unworkable. That said, what better method of offering…
In a scene presumably also unfolding in other municipalities, the Woonsocket Education Department has applied for $2.4m of federal stimulus dollars so as to retain forty positions in the school system; more specifically, to prevent the closing of the [correction provided by MikeinRI] Davies technical school Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center. The goal of…
This progression was in plain view when Rhode Island began sidling toward transponder-based tolls: The authority has also begun planning what could lead to reinstituting tolls on the Mount Hope Bridge, which is now free, and eventually impose tolls on the new Sakonnet River Bridge, which is under construction. The authority has commissioned a study…
Former state representative Carol Mumford deserves a hear, hear for her op-ed in yesterday’s Providence Journal: Those who believe that Rhode Island is a poor state would be surprised to know that during most of my 10 years in office, the state’s revenue increased at the approximate rate of 3.5 percent a year. While our…