"Fair Share"

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I had said that people that make under $40k would pay no income tax. That means the only tax they pay would be the national sales tax. So a person that makes $25k a year would probably pay less than $750 total in taxes for the whole year.

For a person that makes $200,000 a year, I had suggested they would be in the 10% tax bracket, which would be on any income above $40,000. So that person would be taxed 10% of $160,000. So they would pay $16,000 in income taxes. If they spent an additional $70,000 a year on items that were part of the national sales tax, then they would have spent an additional $3,500 on the sales tax. That means the person's total federal taxes (income + sales tax) would be $19,500 for the year. I think that is reasonable for a person who clears $200,000 a year after expenses.

I agree with you that we should eliminate most of the loopholes that some of the very wealthy use.

Like all flat tax proposals, it sounds good. But now you have to figure out how much money that will bring in, and compare it to our current income level.

I've seen estimates that a flat tax would have to be at a rate of 23-25% to replace our current income. Rick Perry wanted 20%, and his budget busted immediately as there wasn't enough income to pay for what we need.

We can't figure income first or separately from our expenditures. We have certain fixed expenses as a country. We have to pay those. We use taxes to pay our group expenses. Bush gave massive tax cuts (cut our income markedly) without cutting spending, then added on unfunded wars on top of that. That's why we have a massive deficit. Obama worsened it by not allowing Bush tax cuts to expire. They must. Bush gave away our income, and we need it back. Especially as he added those unfunded wars on top of what he suddenly stopped paying for.