For someone who’s never thrown his hat into the ring before now, Doug Hoffer, the Democratic nominee for state auditor, has come out swinging like a seasoned pro against… Brian Dubie?

 

That’s right. Hoffer hasn’t been elected auditor yet, but he’s already fact-checking the GOP gubernatorial candidate’s numbers and challenging his claim that Vermont’s income tax rate is higher than Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Hoffer called Dubie’s statement “terribly misleading”  and incorrect.

“It is disingenuous to talk about Vermont’s ‘income tax’ for the simple reason that Vermont does not have one income tax,” Hoffer wrote, in a press statement. “It has a progressive tax system so residents pay at very different rates depending on their income. I am certain Mr. Dubie knows this so it makes me wonder why he would use such language.”

Hoffer suggests that Mr. Dubie was referring to the “top marginal rate” which, he says, applies to less than 1 percent of all tax filers. Moreover, he says, because of differences between state tax systems, “the actual taxes paid by residents of different states is not at all what Mr. Dubie would have us believe.”

Hoffer offers the following numbers, which were put together by the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office in 2007:

 

 

Single homeowner  > 65

Single renter

Married homeowner   (2 kids)

Married homeowner   (2 kids)

Married homeowner   (3 kids)

Married homeowner   (2 kids)

Income

$19,429

$24,500

$80,743

$109,320

$357,934

$1,066,309

State
Maine

$385

$833

$3,004

$5,217

$23,417

$79,591
Massachusetts

$855

$852

$3,073

$5,261

$18,030

$56,023
Vermont

$358

$589

$1,406

$3,494

$20,872

$72,760
Source: Tax Study Vol. 2, Joint Fiscal Office 2007

“The discourse on economic development and tax policy are too important to be based on misinformation,” Hoffer concludes. “Sadly, that has been the case for much of the last eight years. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Dubie is picking up where Jim Douglas left off.  We deserve better.”

This article appears in Sep 1-7, 2010.

Staff Writer Ken Picard is a senior staff writer at Seven Days. A Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to Vermont from Missoula, Mont., he was hired in 2002 as Seven Days’ first staff writer, to help create a news department. Ken has since won numerous regional and national awards for his features, profiles and investigative stories and had his work picked up by international news outlets. He was the first journalist to shine a light on the thousands of undocumented workers in Vermont’s dairy...

34 replies on “Auditor Candidate Hoffer Calls Out Brian Dubie’s Tax Claims”

  1. Jason, it’s hard to know exactly which statement you’re asking me to defend since neither you nor anyone else has provided a link to anything specific, and Google knows nothing about your quote wrt Dubie. In any case, if a candidate for Auditor doesn’t have time to run recent numbers to support a statement formally attacking a candidate for Governor (?!?) then it stands to reason that I’m going to let Dubie’s campaign support his statements. I’m simply pointing out that throwing out 2005 numbers from a half-completed report to refute some unspecified statement having to do with current taxes probably doesn’t represent the type of honest, rigorous analysis required from a state Auditor. It also doesn’t inspire confidence that Hoffer won’t simply use the office as a platform from which he can launch into political diatribes that have nothing to do with his duties. I mean, abandoning a discussion of your qualifications for an attack on your opponent is always a questionable move, but an attack on someone else’s opponent, and such a half-baked one at that? Just bizarre.Did you actually read what I wrote re: pseudonyms? Here’s a clarification: a commenter’s identity only matters when you’re getting frustrated at your inability to respond to what they’re saying. Welcome to 1996.

  2. Jimmy, when you’re through criticizing Doug for his analysis, would you have time to tell me what “numbers” Brian Dubie used to assail Vermont’s current income tax rate as “the most heavily taxed in the nation”? I can’t tell whether they’re 1, 5, 10 years old or simply pulled out of the ether.And, if you’re going to engage in a discussion about psuedonyms you might consider attaching a last name to your Jimmy.

  3. I guess “Dubie Means Layoffs” is a much better name. Judge a post by its content, not a fake name the author probably took half a second to concoct. Lots of people voted for Obama and Douglas. You know how I know this? Math.BTW, Hoffer’s numbers used to make a point about Vermont’s current taxes above? FIVE YEARS OLD

  4. “ObamaSupporterForDubie”I’m not a big fan of anonymity or fake names, but fake names like this I’m especially skeptical of. It looks too much like astroturf.

  5. Having met Doug Hoffer in person, I wouldn’t trust him with my mother’s pocketbook, let alone the state finances. He’s a master at manipulating numbers to make his point. Whether they fly in the face of fact or not is entirely irrelevant to him.I think Tom Salmon has a lot of issues, but this stunt just sealed my vote for him.

  7. Doug Hoffer is just what we need in Montpelier. He simply calls it as he sees it. Go Doug Hoffer!! I will be out there trying to get votes for you.

  8. One other correction: Hoffer’s numbers are from FY 2005, not 2007. That’s right, five years ago. So the study was half done, and quotes five-year-old data. That’s some pretty rigorous analysis.

  9. “Keep calling names Jimmy.”What names did I call anyone, Linda and DML? Oh that’s right, none. You’re letting your anger get the best of you. It’s kind of ironic, actually, because the guy you’re defending is notorious for resorting to namecalling in otherwise civil discussions on local blogs.Why quote 2007 numbers, Hoffer? What would they be today? Maine’s income tax rate has changed at least a couple of times since 2007 (the 6.5% figure is a few months old, repealed and is being reconsidered, mea culpa). You may find Dubie’s off-the-cuff statement misleading, but it’s technically true. Your statement “the actual taxes paid by residents of different states is not at all what Mr. Dubie would have us believe,” on the other hand, is completely unsupported. “Taxes” include all taxes. What would that last family pay in total taxes in each state in the last year?Are you just running so you can keep trumpeting the incomplete study you worked on, even though the criticisms you’re leveling deal with decisions that are not even arguably within the scope of the job you’re applying for? Are you trying to tell us that as Auditor, you would do half a study, then use it to back up criticisms of the Governor for the next three years?

  10. “Keep calling names Jimmy. At the end of the day I prefer to have a Governor doesn’t blatantly misrepresent Vermont’s tax structure to suit his own ideologically driven tax breaks for millionaires when the state faces a $150 million revenue crisis.”I prefer to have a Governor who’s honest about how he or she is going to address the $120 million deficit for next year. It means: a) cutting government services and programs and personnel, or b) raising taxes, or c) some combination of both.Not ONE of the 5 Dem. gubernatorial wannabes (except, maybe, to a very limited extent Racine) was honest about the fact that they’re gonna raise taxes next year big time. If it’s fair to criticize Dubie on his numbers, it’s more than fair to call out all of the the Dem candidates for dishonesty-by-slience during the entire campaign in dealing with next year’s budget. For refusing to say the “layoff” or the “tax” word when they all absolutely, positively know it’s coming.

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