A quick and dirty way to figure out if you would pay more or less with a city income tax is to compare 1% of taxable income (line 16) on the 2007 Michigan return with 14% of the total property tax paid in 2008.

One, the majority here, is composed of people who believe in city government, want to give it more resources, and want it to work more effectively and humanely to provide various desirable services; a lot of those services are to some extent “new” as in they are accorded moderate priority (or, if you will, lip service) under the status quo, e.g higher degrees of environmental sustainability, 100% sidewalk snow removal.

The second group, the minority, is fundamentally skeptical of city government and is operating with a different set of goals, more focused on efficiency and economic growth.

In Ann Arbor, it’s not as simple as saying group #1 is Democrats, group #2 is Republicans.

To answer your question, “who are these people,” I believe there is a sampling problem because group #1 likes these venues more than group #2. I’ll stipulate that group #1 is probably in the majority in AA, but I believe the degree of the majority is exaggerated in this environment. (For various psychodynamic reasons of my own not fully understood by me I have been waging a lonely battle to make up the difference by posting a huge volume of #2 posts.)

With the potential for the city to almost double its revenue (at least that is what this report was says) it is certainly easy to see why this is being entertained. However at one point money is money and regardless of how you take it, you have to take it from someone and then they don’t have it. Is this the time to be doubling taxes? The report counseled, “Moving to an income tax increases a community’s dependence on the health of the general economy.” That’s not a concept that should change with an updating of this report.

Of course, the city need not adopt an income tax system and also double its revenues, it could apt for a lower rate to simply redistribute the tax base. But will they?

I was also struck that more than 20 Michigan cities already had city income taxes (including one I have never heard of) adopted as long ago as the 60’s and as recent as the 90’s. With this number of examples in the state I am sorry that the report doesn’t seem to offer some insight into the transition between the two systems (did I miss this?). I am wondering if the corporations raise salaries as their tax burden gets lighter? Does the working population suddenly adjust after adopting a new structure? Do business trends change over time?

Last thought, if commuters’ salaries are to be taxed could they then serve on city boards that right now are only offered to residents?

Whether residents and corporations pay (proportionately or absolutely) more depends on the amount of income exempted from the tax. The 56/22/22 split comes from the model with the lowest exemption ($600). With an $8000 exemption, the ratio is 47/17/36. Councilperson Greden has stated that he favored a high exemption.

For me, asking non-residents to pay at all is more objectionable than the fact that businesses might pay less. All of the arguments about Ann Arbor’s contributions to the greater community strike me as high-handed arrogance that only reinforces negative images of Ann Arbor. For the record, I live and work in AA.