Arkansas Politics Thread

I'm interested in what y'all are interested in. The newspapers in this state do a horrible job of reporting on what is happening down at the capitol.

I just got word about a bill passed in 2013 that abolished capital gains tax for super wealthy state citizens. It's basically a Walton tax escape bill. I read about this in all places, The Free Weekly, in an article about a some massage therapists that did a fund raiser (the story ran after the fundraiser) which raised $321 for 2 community health clinics that had their funding slashed because free community health clincs got cut from the loss of tax revenue on our super rich citizens. The free health clinic in Springdale lost almost $700K in state funding.

Citizens that earn more than $10 Million annually now do not have to pay capital gains tax to the state of Arkansas. The state slashed funding free community health clinics because of the loss of more than $10 Million in tax revenue as a result of this bill.

The Walton Family announced they were selling 6% of their holdings in WMT, which at market price in April, when announced was worth over $15Billion. If you take only the Walton Enterprises holding of 1,415,891,131 shares, multiply by 6%, then multiply that (by the April 15, closing price of $79.74 minus the IPO price of $16.50 = $63.24).

We get an estimate on the value of just a portion of the capital gains of that sale. $5,372,457,307.47.

Now the capital gains tax for a person that makes between $21,000 and $35,099 went down from 6% to 5% this year (Thanks Asa). Using the capital gains tax rate of an individual who earns $17,000 less than the median income in the United States the tax that the state of Arkansas is missing out on just from a portion of the sales of that stock is $268,622,865.37

Just imagine the things that could be built, the lives that could be improved, and the progress the state could have made (yeah right, it'd have been funneled into a handful of pockets) with $268 million dollars.

Of course the Waltons would have maneuvered to avoid the majority of taxes but we made it easy as frick for them to not even have to use tax shelters or do the foundation/501(c)3/family trust dance.

I don't recall reading anything about that bill before it was passed and really not anything about it at all.

Mike Duke just sold $30 Million in stock options on Jul. 31, the state won't see a penny in tax, but if I sold my small amount of WMT stock I'm forced to pay 5-6% to Arkansas.

Yeah, I'll be writing an article on this issue after some more research.



What else is going on around the state that grinds your gears?