"Fair Share"

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Taxation is a legitimate mechanism for getting funds for essential service that are an expense for everyone. Not just an expense for some of the people - the ones who don't get the money.

Like most rational people, I am for the minimization of taxation - which of course corresponds to the maximization of my own discretion over my own money. This also results in the maximization of my personal freedom.

Petitioning your government when 49.5% of the people don't pay any income tax is pointless. This is not a democracy - never was. It is a constitutionally federated republic. "Mob rule" doesn't work out too well. Why should the recipient have as much say as the provider in an election? Of course he or she will vote to keep the checks coming, the math, budget, and impending implosion of the dollar be damned. So votes by the soon to be minority of income earners are meaningless.

It is socialism - clearly. And, since we didn't start out in a socialist country, it is part of a divide and conquer strategy to get us as far socialist as possible.

When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's vote.

and on top of not paying a cent, the earned income tax 'credit' is a huge expenditure, which gives money to those who don't pay. it's not a refund or rebate. that's why tax credits are so much better than deductions-they're dollar for dollar. some of us pay and pay, others don't pay and receive on top of it. now that's ridiculous. one of the reasons for my latest signature. the fed is a caricature of its former self.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Taxation is a legitimate mechanism for getting funds for essential service that are an expense for everyone. Not just an expense for some of the people - the ones who don't get the money.

What use, specifically, are you referencing?

Petitioning your government when 49.5% of the people don't pay any income tax is pointless.

Most of the people that don't pay any income tax are deemed way too poor by our society to have to pay federal income tax (although they all pay state and local taxes).

Many others who pay no tax are rich corporations and individuals that use current legal exemptions.

Yes, the tax code could be redone to eliminate exemptions.

Why should the recipient have as much say as the provider in an election? Of course he or she will vote to keep the checks coming, the math, budget, and impending implosion of the dollar be damned. So votes by the soon to be minority of income earners are meaningless.

Ah - you don't believe that all Americans are created equal. You are clearly in favor of, and defining, a plutocracy.

It is socialism - clearly.

No. We do not have "socialism". That's absurd. The government doesn't own your means of production, nor does it take your production. That's simply false. It's a dog whistle.

We also are fighting the private corporate ownership of government, the plutocracy of the "haves" over the "have nots", that you clearly desire.

You are doing exactly what the wealthy desire: you are complaining that "the poor", or "welfare queens" (note to jms, that is not a direct quote) have ruined this country. Wrong. Our country is owned by the wealthy, and we are barely hanging on to any semblance of "representative democracy" left in the face of massive attempts to profitize and privatize what's left of our earned benefits programs by the Republican Party (the Ryan budget, which throws this country into massive new trillions of deficit while removing all social safety nets and privatizing for profit all our earned benefits programs)

[Riot]

7/27/2011 Forbes Magazine
Why Do Some People Pay No Federal Income Tax?
Roberton Williams Roberton Williams, Contributor

Much has been made of the Tax Policy Center’s estimate that fully 46 percent of Americans will pay no federal individual income tax this year. Commentators have often misinterpreted that percentage as indicating that nearly half of Americans pay no taxes. In fact, however, many of those who don’t pay income tax do pay other taxes—federal payroll and excise taxes as well as state and local income, sales, and property taxes.

The large percentage of people not paying income tax is often blamed on tax breaks that zero out many households’ income tax bills and can even result in net payments from the government. While that’s the case for many households, a new TPC paper shows that about half of people who don’t owe income tax are off the rolls not because they take advantage of tax breaks but rather because they have low incomes.

For example, a couple with two children earning less than $26,400 will pay no federal income tax this year because their $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700 each reduce their taxable income to zero. The basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.

What about the rest of the untaxed households, the 23 percent of households who don’t pay income tax because of particular tax breaks? We divided tax expenditures (special provisions in the tax code that benefit particular taxpayers or activities) into eight categories and asked which ones made the most people nontaxable.

The conclusion: Three-fourths of those households pay no income tax because of provisions that benefit senior citizens and low-income working families with children.Those provisions include the exclusion of some Social Security benefits from taxable income,the tax credit and extra standard deduction for the elderly, and the child, earned income, and childcare tax credits that primarily help low-income workers with children (see graph).

Extending the example offered above, the couple could earn an additional $19,375 without paying income tax because their pre-credit tax liability of $2,056 would be wiped out by a $2,000 child tax credit and $57 of EITC.



Those provisions matter most for households with income under $50,000, who make up nearly 90 percent of those made nontaxable by tax expenditures. Higher-income households pay no tax because of other provisions. Itemized deductions and credits for children and education are a bigger factor for households with income between $50,000 and $100,000. The relatively few nontaxable households with income over $100,000 benefit most from above-the-line and itemized deductions and reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

Policymakers can argue about whether specific tax expenditures serve their intended purposes, whether restructuring them might improve them, and even whether we should have them at all. But they cannot argue that pruning them back or eliminating them all would result in every American paying income tax.

It’s also important to recognize that while tax expenditures push many people off the income tax rolls, they provide much larger benefits to higher-income households than to others, measured both in dollar value and as a share of income (see these TPC studies). Rather than focusing on how relatively modest tax breaks make many of the elderly and low-income workers with children nontaxable, we should keep in mind that high-income households pay a lot less tax than they would without tax expenditures.

[joeydb]

Flat Tax: no deductions, one rate for everybody, first "x" dollars (pick a number) in earnings exempt for everybody.

In future years, adjust "x" for inflation in accordance with some official statistic (CPI, inflation %, etc), but make it AUTOMATIC. No further intervention by Congress necessary except the compilation of the figure itself. And we must pick a number with good pedigree as a predictor.

The goal as I see it is to get to a simple equation rather than tens of millions of lines of tax code.

Everybody pays is as close to fairness as you will get.

Oh, and when you're out of money (this means the government), you're done spending. Period.

[joeydb]

Check out the article in National Journal:

Our poll numbers are very close to what was observed in theirs (as of Tuesday morning)

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2...-on-the-me.php

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Flat Tax: no deductions, one rate for everybody, first "x" dollars (pick a number) in earnings exempt for everybody.

In future years, adjust "x" for inflation in accordance with some official statistic (CPI, inflation %, etc), but make it AUTOMATIC. No further intervention by Congress necessary except the compilation of the figure itself. And we must pick a number with good pedigree as a predictor.

The goal as I see it is to get to a simple equation rather than tens of millions of lines of tax code.

Everybody pays is as close to fairness as you will get.

Oh, and when you're out of money (this means the government), you're done spending. Period.

Joey: please tell me what flat tax rate we would need to assess everyone, to pay for what we have today, with no increase in government services - you can exclude the wars.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

Joey: please tell me what flat tax rate we would need to assess everyone, to pay for what we have today, with no increase in government services - you can exclude the wars.

Define 'fair' regarding taxes. Please include in your description; work and travel schedules, money earned annually, education received, years of service, and total employed (yup, I pay taxes on them too).
At what point in the year should taxes be paid in full assuming keeping nothing for oneself, utilizing the factors above.
How much is enough?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Define 'fair' regarding taxes. Please include in your description; work and travel schedules, money earned annually, education received, years of service, and total employed (yup, I pay taxes on them too).
At what point in the year should taxes be paid in full assuming keeping nothing for oneself, utilizing the factors above.
How much is enough?

What do you think about your taxes being pretty near or at historic lows right now?

I'm not against a flat tax. I want to know what flat federal tax rate would have to be charged, on top of our state and local taxes, to maintain what we as a nation want to continue to provide us (excepting wars)?

Joey? What is that projected rate?

See, we have a major problem: our last president increased our expenditures massively, while decreasing our income massively at the same time.

Wow, how stupid, right? Now we're in severe financial trouble.

Cutting expenditures alone can't fix it. That's simply physically impossible. We need our "part-time" income level to go back up to "full time", where it was before the previous administration took a growing surplus and threw us under the financial burden of total fiscal irresponsibility and massive debt.

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Riot

Joey: please tell me what flat tax rate we would need to assess everyone, to pay for what we have today, with no increase in government services - you can exclude the wars.

I don't know - that remains for the equation. I can tell you that your rate will be the same as everybody elses - EVERYBODY. No more 49.5% not paying. You, me, and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates will all owe the same percentage.

We can't afford what we have today, and the moronic congresses and administrations of the past 100+ years made it that way.

You owe 1/300,000,000th of the debt, just like me. Time to pay up and quit whining.

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Riot

What do you think about your taxes being pretty near or at historic lows right now?

I'm not against a flat tax. I want to know what flat federal tax rate would have to be charged, on top of our state and local taxes, to maintain what we as a nation want to continue to provide us (excepting wars)?

Joey? What is that projected rate?

See, we have a major problem: our last president increased our expenditures massively, while decreasing our income massively at the same time.

Wow, how stupid, right? Now we're in severe financial trouble.

Cutting expenditures alone can't fix it. That's simply physically impossible. We need our "part-time" income level to go back up to "full time", where it was before the previous administration took a growing surplus and threw us under the financial burden of total fiscal irresponsibility and massive debt.

It's NOT impossible to cut expenditures to fix it. That's going to happen anyway. WE ARE OUT OF MONEY! We're about to have our credit card cut up and go out of business. You ought to be very scared of what it means when a country goes out of business.

It's impossible NOT to cut SPENDING.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

It's NOT impossible to cut expenditures to fix it. That's going to happen anyway. WE ARE OUT OF MONEY! We're about to have our credit card cut up and go out of business. You ought to be very scared of what it means when a country goes out of business.

It's impossible NOT to cut SPENDING.

What I said was that ONLY cutting spending cannot fix our debt problem.

And Joey, there exists multiple estimates of what a flat tax rate would have to be for this country. Please google that and get back to us with the figures. Because that is the essence of your argument: either we have the current tax code, we keep the code and eliminate loopholes, or we go to flat tax. Well, what rate would that flat tax have to be? How much would you pay under your own flat tax proposal?

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Riot

What I said was that ONLY cutting spending cannot fix our debt problem.

Well the taxes are too high already, so the spending being lowered (to the point of not borrowing any more in lieu of taxes) is what has to happen. There hasn't even been a budget for 3 years. In many ways that's the most honest Congress has ever been. They have no intention of keeping ANY limit on spending.

The party is over, especially for the dead beats and leeches.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Well the taxes are too high already,

Taxes are at historic lows.

so the spending being lowered (to the point of not borrowing any more in lieu of taxes) is what has to happen.

Okay: Say it costs $1000 a month to pay your mortgage. If you quit your job that pays you $2000 a month, and take a job that only pays $1100 a month (i.e. "the Bush tax cuts"), "cutting spending" isn't your problem, nor will it help you survive.

The party is over, especially for the dead beats and leeches.

Who are you referring to as "dead beats" and "leeches"?

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Riot

Taxes are at historic lows.



Okay: Say it costs $1000 a month to pay your mortgage. If you quit your job that pays you $2000 a month, and take a job that only pays $1100 a month (i.e. "the Bush tax cuts"), "cutting spending" isn't your problem, nor will it help you survive.



Who are you referring to as "dead beats" and "leeches"?

Historic lows? Compared to whom? Carter??

Your mortgage example is not a good fit. IF ONLY it was a fixed rate percentage on a bounded sum that is actually being repaid. That is not what the national debt is and you know it. The deficit each year is the difference between the tax revenue and the Fantasyland budgets of Washington DC. They haven't paid back dime ONE. It just keeps accumulating. When was the last year that the actual amount OWED went DOWN? Not a reduction in the deficit of a given year versus the deficit of the year before - I mean actual repayment of part of the principal of the loan. I believe it was 1969. Even Clinton's "surplus" did not count Social Security, though even I will admit that compared to what we have seen since in both Obama and Bush, Clinton's spending for those years would be a welcome step in the right direction.

Dead beats, or leeches, are exactly what they sound like: those who consume "the goodies" without contributing in the form of income tax. 49.5% of the population of adults of working age fall into this category. They file a return - but when all the math is added up, they owe $0 or even get money "back" from taxes they didn't pay in the first place.

[Rupert Pupkin]

I'd like to see a two-pronged approach. First I would like there to be a national sales tax of somewhere around 5%. If we had that, then we could lower everybody's income tax.

When it comes to income tax, I think it should be some type of progressive system. Maybe if you make under $40,000 a year, then you would pay no income tax. For anything a person makes over $40,000 up to $250,000, they would pay 10% in income taxes. For anything a person makes over $250,000 up to $1 million, they would pay 20% in income tax. For anything a person makes over $1 million, they would pay 30% in income taxes. Something like that seems reasonable.

In addition, I would like to see most of the loopholes and write-offs eliminated. It is ridiculous for some of these people making millions to pay no taxes. We need to get rid of the loopholes and tax shelters that allow people who make millions to pay no taxes.

I don't know if my system would work (because I have no idea how much money it would bring in), but assuming it would work, I think it is reasonable. If you make more money, you would pay a little more in taxes but nobody would be getting taxed to death.

In addition to wanting them to change the tax system, I obviously think the government needs to cut way back on their spending.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Historic lows? Compared to whom? Carter??

Since 1950, actually.

Your mortgage example is not a good fit. IF ONLY it was a fixed rate percentage on a bounded sum that is actually being repaid.

Okay, you missed the point completely.

If you make a certain income, and have certain expenses (like our country does), cutting your income massively does NOT mean you suddenly have a spending problem. It means you're making less money and can no longer pay your bills. NOT that your spending is too high. You can try and cut that spending, but you can't get past a certain minimum point of necessary spending. Thus, you also have to increase your income back up to what it was.

That is not what the national debt is and you know it.

That wasn't referring to the national debt. It was indeed referring to the massive unfunded tax cuts and unfunded spending that put us here courtesy of George W. Bush.

When was the last year that the actual amount OWED went DOWN? Not a reduction in the deficit of a given year versus the deficit of the year before - I mean actual repayment of part of the principal of the loan. I believe it was 1969. Even Clinton's "surplus" did not count Social Security, though even I will admit that compared to what we have seen since in both Obama and Bush, Clinton's spending for those years would be a welcome step in the right direction.

What's with the false accusations of spending under Obama? He's spending far, FAR less than Bush, and has made actual inroads into cutting our deficit.

Dead beats, or leeches, are exactly what they sound like: those who consume "the goodies" without contributing in the form of income tax. 49.5% of the population of adults of working age fall into this category. They file a return - but when all the math is added up, they owe $0 or even get money "back" from taxes they didn't pay in the first place.

From the FORBES post above, on this very subject. Which parts apply to what you just said? You call them "leeches and dead beats", but they are mostly very poor with children - living at sustenance levels of existence - and elderly. God says help the poor and elderly, and those without. Your moral system of attacking them is against the Christian values of this country. Your calling them names and wanting to harm them financially is very offensive to the morality of this nation, as we've always lived.

You can be for a "you're on your own" "every man for himself" country - but you go first. Try Somalia. No nasty overbearing government there. The rest of us patriotic Americans, we'll continue to help our fellow poor and elderly American citizens, thanks.

Much has been made of the Tax Policy Center’s estimate that fully 46 percent of Americans will pay no federal individual income tax this year.

Commentators have often misinterpreted that percentage as indicating that nearly half of Americans pay no taxes.

In fact, however, many of those who don’t pay income tax do pay other taxes—federal payroll and excise taxes as well as state and local income, sales, and property taxes.

The large percentage of people not paying income tax is often blamed on tax breaks that zero out many households’ income tax bills and can even result in net payments from the government.

While that’s the case for many households, a new TPC paper shows that about half of people who don’t owe income tax are off the rolls not because they take advantage of tax breaks but rather because they have low incomes.


For example, a couple with two children earning less than $26,400 will pay no federal income tax this year because their $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700 each reduce their taxable income to zero. The basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.

What about the rest of the untaxed households, the 23 percent of households who don’t pay income tax because of particular tax breaks? We divided tax expenditures (special provisions in the tax code that benefit particular taxpayers or activities) into eight categories and asked which ones made the most people nontaxable.

The conclusion: Three-fourths of those households pay no income tax because of provisions that benefit senior citizens and low-income working families with children.Those provisions include the exclusion of some Social Security benefits from taxable income,the tax credit and extra standard deduction for the elderly, and the child, earned income, and childcare tax credits that primarily help low-income workers with children (see graph).

Those provisions matter most for households with income under $50,000, who make up nearly 90 percent of those made nontaxable by tax expenditures. Higher-income households pay no tax because of other provisions. Itemized deductions and credits for children and education are a bigger factor for households with income between $50,000 and $100,000. The relatively few nontaxable households with income over $100,000 benefit most from above-the-line and itemized deductions and reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I'd like to see a two-pronged approach. First I would like there to be a national sales tax of somewhere around 5%. If we had that, then we could lower everybody's income tax.

When it comes to income tax, I think it should be some type of progressive system. Maybe if you make under $40,000 a year, then you would pay no income tax. For anything a person makes over $40,000 up to $250,000, they would pay 10% in income taxes. For anything a person makes over $250,000 up to $1 million, they would pay 20% in income tax. For anything a person makes over $1 million, they would pay 30% in income taxes. Something like that seems reasonable.

In addition, I would like to see most of the loopholes and write-offs eliminated. It is ridiculous for some of these people making millions to pay no taxes. We need to get rid of the loopholes and tax shelters that allow people who make millions to pay no taxes.

I don't know if my system would work (because I have no idea how much money it would bring in), but assuming it would work, I think it is reasonable. If you make more money, you would pay a little more in taxes but nobody would be getting taxed to death.

In addition to wanting them to change the tax system, I obviously think the government needs to cut way back on their spending.

Adding a national sales tax would financially kill people making less than $50,000 a year, just decimate them financially, worse for those making less than $25,000.

I agree that a progressive system in federal taxes is good, especially when you have regressive state and local taxes that hit the poor the hardest.

You can't get Congress to even consider eliminating a tax break, loophole or subsidy. See what just happened with oil company subsidies. I remember Bush laughing when they picked the expiration date for his unfunded tax cuts. We knew it was coming, and so did the GOP. And they calculated right: they wouldn't be the ones in office when they expired.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Adding a national sales tax would financially kill people making less than $50,000 a year, just decimate them financially, worse for those making less than $25,000.

I agree that a progressive system in federal taxes is good, especially when you have regressive state and local taxes that hit the poor the hardest.

You can't get Congress to even consider eliminating a tax break, loophole or subsidy. See what just happened with oil company subsidies. I remember Bush laughing when they picked the expiration date for his unfunded tax cuts. We knew it was coming, and so did the GOP. And they calculated right: they wouldn't be the ones in office when they expired.

I think it is an exaggeration to say that a national sales tax would "kill people that make less than $25k a year". If a person makes $25k a year, I assume they are paying rent. There would be no national sales tax on rent. Let's say their rent is $500 a month. That means they would be left with $19k to spend. There would be no national sales tax on health insurance or car insurance or any of those things. After all those things were paid, how much would the person have left to spend, maybe $15k? If they spent every dime of that on things that had a national sales tax, they means they would have spent $750 total for the year on taxes. If you make $25k a year and your total tax bill is $750 for the entire year, that isn't so bad.

If you think that is too much I guess there could be an exemption on the sales tax for people who make under a certain amount.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I think it is an exaggeration to say that a national sales tax would "kill people that make less than $25k a year". If a person makes $25k a year, I assume they are paying rent. There would be no national sales tax on rent. Let's say their rent is $500 a month. That means they would be left with $19k to spend. There would be no national sales tax on health insurance or car insurance or any of those things. After all those things were paid, how much would the person have left to spend, maybe $15k? If they spent every dime of that on things that had a national sales tax, they means they would have spent $750 total for the year on taxes. If you make $25k a year and your total tax bill is $750 for the entire year, that isn't so bad.

If you think that is too much I guess there could be an exemption on the sales tax for people who make under a certain amount.

Adding another 5% tax on groceries, Wal Mart, gasoline, etc. us tough when you're poor, and don't forget the flat federal income tax on their entire income, too (I thought you said a national sales tax and a flat tax too?)

We'd have to exempt certain poverty-level incomes. The middle class, heck, those making less than $300,000 or so a year, hasn't had an effective "raise" in their real income in four decades. Flatline. Stagnant. They can't afford any additional taxes.

Can we just start eliminating loopholes for those that can best afford it first? The very wealthy?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Adding another 5% tax on groceries, Wal Mart, gasoline, etc. us tough when you're poor, and don't forget the flat federal income tax on their entire income, too (I thought you said a national sales tax and a flat tax too?)

We'd have to exempt certain poverty-level incomes. The middle class, heck, those making less than $300,000 or so a year, hasn't had an effective "raise" in their real income in four decades. Flatline. Stagnant. They can't afford any additional taxes.

Can we just start eliminating loopholes for those that can best afford it first? The very wealthy?

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.