Blue States are working hard to overcome many of the hits they took following the all-Republican Tax Law – a law that decidedly disadvantage Blue high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and California. Specifically, under the new tax law, state and local tax deductions were capped at $10,000, leaving everything above that figure subject for the first time to non-deductibility.
Worried about residents moving to lower tax states, Blue States are getting seriously creative about addressing these new burdens on their taxpayers. Specifically, they are quickly moving to identify and weigh a range of creative and legal strategies to lift the new tax burden unfairly levied on many of their most wealthy citizens. In this regard, they are looking seriously at a particularly creative strategy that would allow state and local taxes to be paid under the new tax law up to the new maximum limit of $10,000 per tax payer, and at the same time converting the remainder of taxpayer liability for state and local taxes into a tax-free “contribution” to the State. Such a strategy would effectively make the entire state tax obligation fully tax deductible, just as it had been prior to the new law. This is a highly imaginative solution and one being explored with great energy at this time.
The urgency and incentive behind the work of Blue States is not only to address unfair attacks on their taxpayers in the new all-Republican Tax Law. These states are also very concerned about losing essential funding for schools, mass transit, social programs and other services long embedded in the fabric of their infrastructure and social systems.
It is likely that the pressures they are facing in the near term will result in imaginative, even if short term, fixes addressing the new Law. As obvious will be efforts by all Blue States to win back majorities in Congress, and to seek to turn back this unfair all-Republican Tax Law there.
For many years, I have heard the constant refrain. “Why bother? I may be making 0.01 at Chase or Citibank or Wells Fargo or Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch, but it just isn’t worth my time.” I often hear this from people who have millions sitting in cash.
If you have $2 million spread across 8 or 9 online savings accounts and short-term CDs (to stay below FDIC and NCUA limits), you can easily earn $30,000 pre-tax in 2018 on this money - and more as rates go up from here. Even if you are lucky enough to be in a high tax bracket and to live in a blue state and be severely impacted by the Trumpian tax law, you are still likely to net $16,000 or $17,000 after tax on this money.
We think that there is a lot you can do with that $16,000 or $17,000 in “free” money in 2018. You can put it towards a new car, take your family on a trip to Hawaii or save for your kids’ education. You could also give it to any small charity that will also be severely impacted by the tax changes.
It will take you 30 minutes online to open the accounts and set up the transfers. Just don’t let the bank make (or take) the money for free for another year.
I am old enough to have lived through 1999 and 2000. Actually, I am old enough to say that it is part of my adult experience. I worked in the internet and telecom sector then. We were building real things and the world was being transformed by the internet and the new opportunities it was creating. Was pets.com’s stock worth what it at then? Or AOL? Or Akamai? Or Cisco? We learned later in 2000 and 2001 that these companies didn’t have the value that the markets ascribed. But, in many cases there was cash flow and these companies were transformational; they were changing our world.
In 2007 and 2008, the market again became dramatically overheated, largely due to over-lending on the part of the financial institutions. I personally was fortunate and managed to sidestep the financial damage that many suffered. I respect those who miscalculated though. There was cash flow and the prospect of moving our country from one of 62% home ownership to one of 75% home ownership seemed transformational.
Fast forward to today. With Bitcoin at $17,000 and all sorts “coins” and stocks geared to blockchain spiking in value, there is very little that appears transformational. There seems to be a whole lot of commotion and a whole lot of opportunity to move money around outside of governmental oversight (with perhaps Russian and North Korean involvement).
But, Bitcoin has brought back out all of the people whom I know and who created late stage businesses in 1999 and 2007, companies that had little economic merit but were designed to piggy-back off of what became a frenzy. They have again reappeared on CNBC, and by connecting with me on LinkedIn. This time they aren’t talking about cash flows and economic transformation. They are talking about Etherium and blockchain and the only thing they are saying is: “That’s OK. I didn’t really understand it at first either.”
I am not going to get into the credibility or motives of these people. They may manage to drive Bitcoin and all of its ancillaries a lot higher. But, I don’t buy it; I do not believe nor understand adequately the hype or the foundational elements underlying the Bitcoin phenomenon. And, I am not alone. Consider it safe to say that I am not going to be trying to make my fortune on Bitcoin.
