New Jersey doesn't change its Incorporation Laws

Prior to Wilson's Governorship, New Jersey had a reputation as "The Mother of Trusts" due to its friendly tax-laws towards corporations and liberal incorporation laws. Today Delaware is most famous for this sort of thing, but Delaware based its laws on New Jersey. This is why Standard Oil, among others, incorporated in the state.

By 1904, the nation's seven largest trusts were incorporated in New Jersey and 150 out of 298 lesser trusts were incorporated in New Jersey. The Republicans and Democrats in the state put antitrust tenants in their party platforms by 1912, but they really weren't interested in following through.

This all was pretty good for New Jersey, considering 30% of the state's income came from the abundance of trusts in the state.

What if this hadn't changed under Wilson? Wilson only took office in Trenton in January of 1911 and by mid-1912 he was campaigning for President, so let's just say other issues come up during his brief Governorship and he never gets around to this. He pushed for it in his final gubernatorial address in 1913, but maybe something stops him from doing so.
 
What if this hadn't changed under Wilson? Wilson only took office in Trenton in January of 1911 and by mid-1912 he was campaigning for President, so let's just say other issues come up during his brief Governorship and he never gets around to this. He pushed for it in his final gubernatorial address in 1913, but maybe something stops him from doing so.

The fact that Wilson was running for president was in fact an important reason he pushed for changing the laws. One of Wilson's main campaign themes was that TR's proposed toleration of trusts, as long as they were regulated, would subject the American people to corporate tyranny--the regulators would inevitably be captured by the trusts they were supposed to regulate. TR replied by taunting Wilson on New Jersey's notoriously lax corporation laws. This stung Wilson into pressing for reform of them before he left the governorship. https://books.google.com/books?id=9aNTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT88
 
The fact that Wilson was running for president was in fact an important reason he pushed for changing the laws. One of Wilson's main campaign themes was that TR's proposed toleration of trusts, as long as they were regulated, would subject the American people to corporate tyranny--the regulators would inevitably be captured by the trusts they were supposed to regulate. TR replied by taunting Wilson on New Jersey's notoriously lax corporation laws. This stung Wilson into pressing for reform of them before he left the governorship. https://books.google.com/books?id=9aNTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT88

What if Wilson either loses the gubernatorial race or isn't the nominee at all?

He was an outsider candidate who had to be drafted by the machine. It's not inconceivable that he'd be stopped.
 
For one thing, my property taxes likely would be vastly lower. Delaware relies primarily on corporate taxes and secondarily on income tax; there's no sales tax and property taxes are relatively low. When NJ reformed its corporation laws, that meant that property taxes were going up, especially since there are no unincorporated places in NJ: every place is either a city, borough, or part of an incorporated township.
 

kernals12

Banned
For one thing, my property taxes likely would be vastly lower. Delaware relies primarily on corporate taxes and secondarily on income tax; there's no sales tax and property taxes are relatively low. When NJ reformed its corporation laws, that meant that property taxes were going up, especially since there are no unincorporated places in NJ: every place is either a city, borough, or part of an incorporated township.
That's not true. The amount of revenue from incorporation fees would be the same whether or not it was New Jersey or Delaware that was the incorporation jurisdiction of choice. Delaware is a small state, meaning that the $1.3 billion it received in fees last year can go a long way towards covering the state's $4 billion budget. New Jersey is a much bigger state, and as such, has more highways, teachers, police, and welfare recipients. Its budget is over $37 billion. If it got Delaware levels of incorporation fees, your taxes could be reduced by a rather underwhelming 3%.
 
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