Philadelphia Soda Tax Forces Local University To Hike Student Costs By $400,000

Students at Temple University in Philadelphia, or perhaps their parents, are getting a great lesson today on the real life economic consequences of liberal political policies run amok.  Courtesy of Philly"s new 1.5 cent per ounce "soda tax", Temple has been forced to hike it"s 2017-2018 boarding costs by $400,000, or roughly 4.8%.  Per Philly.com, Temple"s CFO said they will roll back the planned $400,000 meal plan hike if the soda tax is repealed.

Board rates will rise an additional 4.8 percent for 2017-18 solely because of the 1.5-cent-per-ounce sweetened-beverage tax, which went into effect this year, the university said. The tax was enacted to help fund parks, recreation centers, and early childhood education. Heated debate over it continues, with PepsiCo having announced planned layoffs and retailers reporting steep losses.

The total impact of the new tax is estimated to be $400,000 per semester, said Ken Kaiser, Temple"s chief financial officer. The university will roll back the board increase if the tax is repealed, he said.

"This is another example of the damaging impact this tax is having on Philadelphia families," said Anthony Campisi, a spokesman for Ax the Philly Bev Tax Coalition, made up of a number of Philadelphia businesses and residents, many of them involved in the soda industry. "It’s ironic that a tax the mayor sold on the basis of expanding educational access is now going to be making higher ed less affordable for students."

Of course, Philadelphia"s Mayor, who has come under fairly constant attack for the controversial tax, said that Temple is simply using his legislation as a scapegoat to "pay for their ever-growing administrative salaries and new, expensive buildings and amenities."

"The beverage tax is becoming a popular scapegoat for unpopular decisions," said spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. "Universities across the country have been raising meal-plan fees because families are increasingly chafing at tuition increases, and universities still want to pay for their ever-growing administrative salaries and new, expensive buildings and amenities."

"Temple"s own administration staff has grown by 40 percent in recent years; they are planning to build a multimillion-dollar stadium; their new 24-story dorm includes flat screen TVs; and, sure enough, they have a history of raising their meal-plan fees to cover those costs - by 2.5 percent in 2015 and 4.3 percent in 2014."

As we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, when Philadelphia became the first US city to pass a soda tax last summer, city officials were eagerly looking forward to the surplus-tax funded windfall to plug gaping budget deficits (and, since this is Philadelphia, the occasional embezzlement scheme). Then, after the tax went into effect on January 1st we showed the tax applied in practice: a receipt for a 10 pack of flavored water carried a 51% beverage tax. And since  PA has a sales tax of 6% and Philly already charges another 2%, the total sales tax was 8%. In other words, a purchase which until last year came to $6.47 had overnight become $9.75.

Then came the layoffs as soda sales slumped as much as 40% forcing Pepsi to lay off 80 to 100 workers at three distribution plants that serve Philly. And since Pepsi only employed 423 people in the city, it meant that as much as 20% of its employees were suddenly out of a job due to a disastrous ordnance that was meant to provide additional municipal funding and instead will now lead to an increase in unemployment, coupled with a general decline in consumption, not to mention tax revenues for the city of Philadelphia.

A spokesman for Pepsi said "The layoffs come in response to the  beverage tax, which has cut sales by 40 percent in the city...Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the economic realities created by the recently enacted beverage tax, we have been forced to give notice that we intend to eliminate 80 to 100 positions, including frontline and supervisory roles."

But not to worry, we"re sure Philly students can just take out more student loans to cover these increased costs...we certainly wouldn"t want them to have to divert any portion of their student loans that they"ve already set aside for Cancun.

Mass Exodus From High-Taxes - Which States Did Americans Leave In 2016?

Submitted by Johnny Kampis via The Foundation for Economic Education,

Migration patterns for 2016 show that Americans tended to move away from high-tax states and into states where residents keep more of what they earn.

United Van Lines, the nation’s largest moving company, recently released its annual movers study report showing that South Dakota overtook Oregon as the top inbound destination. Generally, more people moved toward the West, and states in the Northeast saw the largest exodus of residents. The top four outbound states in 2016, in order, were New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and Connecticut.

(Photo: Tax Foundation)

The Tax Foundation pointed out in a recent blog post that those results are similar to the organization’s annual state business tax climate index.

In fact, New Jersey, which saw an outbound rate of 63 percent—meaning nearly two people moved out of the Garden State for every person who moved in, also finished last in that index. New York had the second-worst business tax climate, according to the Tax Foundation. Connecticut was eighth-worst while Illinois was more middle of the pack.

The Tax Foundation said the absence of a major tax such as the corporate income tax, individual income tax, or sales tax is a common factor among most of the states that rank in the top 10 on the business climate tax index.

Nicole Kaeding, author of the migration post, noted that taxes are sometimes overcited as a primary reason why people move out of states, but they certainly can play a significant role, as is evidenced by the similar results in the Tax Foundation and United Van Lines studies.

“Tax rates and structure affect a state’s economy,” she wrote.

“States with less burdensome tax structures and lower rates tend to have better economic growth. Increased job opportunities can result from the better economic growth.”

She noted, for example, a person moving to Chicago for a job might decide to commute from nearby Indiana where the individual income tax rate is 3.3 percent, rather than live in Illinois, where the same rate is 3.75 percent.

The 'Soda Police' Just Learned A Valuable Lesson About Taxes

Submitted by Daniel Mitchell via The Foundation for Economic Education,

I don’t like tax increases, but I like having additional evidence that higher tax rates change behavior. So when my leftist friends “win” by imposing tax hikes, I try to make lemonade out of lemons by pointing out “supply-side” effects.

I’m hoping that if leftists see how tax hikes are “successful” in discouraging things that they think are bad (such as consumers buying sugary soda or foreigners buying property), then maybe they’ll realize it’s not such a good idea to tax – and therefore discourage – things that everyone presumably agrees are desirable (such as work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship).

Though I sometimes worry that they actually do understand that taxes impact pro-growth behavior and simply don’t care.

But one thing that clearly is true is that they get very worried if tax increases threaten their political viability.

This is why Becket Adams, in a column for the Washington Examiner, is rather amused that Mayor Kenney of Philadelphia has been caught with his hand in the tax cookie jar.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney fought hard to pass a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks. He won, and the 1.5-cents-per-ounce tax is now in place, affecting both merchants and consumers, because that’s how taxes work. Businesses pay the levies, and they offset the cost by charging higher prices. That is as basic as it gets. The only person who doesn’t seem to understand this is Kenney, who is now accusing business owners of extortion. “They’re gouging their own customers,” the mayor said.

Yes, consumers are being extorted and gouged, but the Mayor isn’t actually upset about that.

He’s irked because people are learning that it’s his fault.

Philadelphians are obviously outraged by the skyrocketing cost of things as simple as a soda, which has prompted some businesses to post signs explaining why the drinks are now so damned expensive. Kenney said that this effort by businesses to explain the rising cost is “wrong” and “misleading.” The mayor apparently thought the city council could impose a major new tax on businesses, and that customers somehow wouldn’t be affected.

In other words, it’s probably safe to say that Mayor Kenney has no regrets about the soda tax. He’s just not pleased that he can’t blame merchants for the price increase.

Even the IMF is Skeptical of High Taxes

The International Monetary Fund, by contrast, may actually have learned a real lesson that higher taxes aren’t always a good idea. That bureaucracy is infamous for blindly supporting tax increases, but if we can believe this story from the Wall Street Journal, even those bureaucrats don’t think additional tax hikes in Greece would be a good idea.

IMF officials have said Greece’s economy is already overtaxed. New taxes that came into affect on Jan. 1 are squeezing household incomes further. Economists say even-higher income taxes—in the form of lower tax-free income allowances—could add to a mountain of unpaid taxes. Greeks currently owe the state €94 billion ($99 billion), equivalent to 54% of gross domestic product, and rising, in taxes that they can’t pay.

Here are some stories to illustrate the onerous tax system in Greece, starting with a retired couple that will probably lose their house because of a new property tax.

…the 87-year-old former economist and his 81-year-old wife are unable to repay the property tax imposed on their 70-year old house, a family inheritance. The annual tax is around ‎€33,000, but Mr. Kokkalis’s pension—already cut by half—is €28,000 a year. The couple borrowed money when the tax was imposed, initially as a temporary austerity measure in 2011. But they are already behind on nearly €200,000 of tax payments and can’t borrow more. Mr. Kokkalis says the state is calculating tax based on outdated property prices that have since collapsed, and that if he tried to sell the house now, nobody would be interested. “They impose taxes on an imaginary value,” Mr. Kokkalis says. “This is confiscation.”

I’ve already written about this punitive property tax. The good news is that property taxes generally are transparent, so people know how much they’re paying.

The bad news is that the tax in Greece is far too onerous.

And I’ve also noted that small businesses are being wiped out in Greece as well. The WSJ has a new example.

Tax increases under previous rounds of austerity have put a middle-class lifestyle beyond reach for many. “Our only goal now is survival,” says arts teacher Mimi Bonanou. Until recent years she also made a living as a practicing artist, selling her works in Greece and abroad. But increasingly heavy taxes that self-employed Greeks must pay at the start of each year, based on the state’s often-ambitious forecast of their incomes, have forced her to rely on teaching alone.

All things considered, Greece is a painful example that a country can’t tax its way to prosperity (though some politicians never learned that lesson).

Moreover, it’s nice to have further evidence that even the IMF recognizes that Greece is on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve.

And if a left-leaning bureaucracy is now willing to admit that excessive taxation can lead to less revenue, maybe eventually the Republicans on Capitol Hill will install people at the Joint Committee on Taxation who also understand this elementary insight.

When Assets (Such As Real Estate) Become Liabilities

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It will be the middle class that accepted the notion that "real estate is the foundation of family wealth" that will be stripmined by higher taxes on immobile assets such as real estate.

Correspondent Joel M. submitted an article that struck me as a harbinger of the future: In Greece, Property Is Debt:

"At law courts throughout Greece, people are lining up to file papers renouncing their inheritance. Not necessarily because some feckless uncle left them with a pile of debt at the end of his revels; they are turning their backs on what used to be a pillar of Greece’s economy and society: real estate.

Growing personal debt, declining incomes and ever higher taxes as Greece’s depression grinds on have turned property and the dream of easy money into dread of a catastrophic burden.

After many years in which only very valuable properties were taxed, many Greeks went from paying almost no taxes on real estate to not having enough money to pay.

In 2010, property taxes accounted for 0.26 percent of gross domestic product, while this year they are around 2 percent, according to state budget figures. "Suddenly, the state treated the Greeks as if they were rich, at the precise moment that they ceased to be rich."

Among the many disruptions of the past few years, this one shows how traditional conceptions — and a sense of security — can be shattered. With a history full of wars, bankruptcies and rampant inflation, Greeks had always seen land as a haven.

But it is private debt — at 222 billion euros last year — that may prove an even greater danger. This shows in government revenues. With the unified tax, ownership of every kind of property is now subject to taxation.

It will be very difficult for the Greeks to get out from under this mountain of debt. Delinquent loans, which at the end of June made up 31.7 percent of all housing loans, were a mere 5.3 percent of the total in 2008."

The self-reinforcing dynamics in this narrative profoundly reverse time-honored concepts of value: assets that once held or gained value now carry high costs of ownership and lose value.

1. Governments desperate for tax revenues raise property taxes, which add costs that eventually depress sales and future price appreciation.

2. High debt levels and high property taxes trigger foreclosures and forced sales that further depress the market with high inventories of unsold/unrented homes.

3. As sales decline, appreciation can no longer be counted on to enrich owners. Instead, owners fear declines in value and higher taxes. This further depresses sales.

4.  High debt levels become even more burdensome as property values fall.

5. Rather than offer a means of building and protecting wealth, real estate becomes a liability that destroys wealth via payment of taxes and declines in value.

While it can be argued that Greece is a unique situation--a cumbersome, costly bureaucracy of land transfer coupled with soaring taxes--perhaps Greece is simply early to the party.

Governments everywhere are facing fast-rising pension and healthcare costs, and the need for more tax revenues will skyrocket once the global recession trims income, payroll, business and sales taxes.

Additional taxes on assets that can"t flee the country--i.e. real estate--become extremely attractive.

Once an asset class shifts from being a means of wealth preservation and appreciation to a financial risk and burden, a self-reinforcing feedback loop reduces demand and increases supply, pushing prices lower--a decline that then causes more people to sell before prices drop further.

The nightmare scenario for recent buyers is a sharp tax increase that crushes the market value of their home, putting them underwater, i.e. their mortgage is greater than the value of their home. Faced with ever-increasing property taxes and further erosion of value, what"s the advantage of holding onto the property?

Anecdotally, stories of owners destroying buildings to lower their property tax appraisal emerged in America"s Great Depression, as owners desperate to lower their property taxes destroyed their assets (buildings on the land) as the only available means of keeping their property.

Which asset class attracts new taxes will be different from nation to nation, but we can anticipate that governments will go after assets that are currently considered safe and that can"t flee to low-tax havens.

Mobile capital can flee to safer, lower tax climes, and the super-wealthy can buy legislative tax breaks on their wealth. It will be the middle class that accepted the notion that "real estate is the foundation of family wealth" that will be stripmined by higher taxes on immobile assets such as real estate.

This essay was drawn from Musings Report 45. The Musings Reports are sent exclusively to major patrons and contributors ($5/month or $50 annually) every weekend.