[quote=spdrun]What if everyone donates to school districts in San Francisco but very few donate to districts in Stockton?[/quote]
That’s why the credits would need to be limited to some dollar amount like Arizona does. Obviously the state still needs to receive money and allocate to various programs and services throughout the state. It could never function if everyone were allowed to dictate what their tax dollars are used for. At best maybe you could convert 10% of the states income tax revenue into charitable contributions for federal tax purposes before you start running into problems.
I just don’t really see the path that high cost of living/high tax state can take to to relieve the sting of this tax bill. It you were itemizing your taxes because of high state tax and mortgage interest deduction and you weren’t already in AMT land you’re getting monkey hammered by this. If you weren’t then it’s marginally better.
In summary upper middle income tax payers in the West and Northeast are getting hosed to give the average middle income american $50-100 extra per month. The corporate tax breaks are going to add $150 billion a year in deficits.
The reality was that upper income tax payers are where the money is so any tax reform was going to hit them the hardest. Under a Clinton presidency maybe the truly wealthy wouldn’t have gotten as much of a break and the middle class american might has gotten more, but there’ no way upper middle income taxpayers weren’t going to pay for it in the end.
