Taxes, time to pay your fair share

[Guest]

torbs;191643 wrote:
we can thank hilary/the dems for the woodstock museum...

The Woodstock project's main backer, Alan Gerry, is a registered Republican

However, you are right, Hilary and Schumer proposed the bill that was shot down by Democrats & Republicans (52-42).

Not saying you were wrong torbs, just making sure you are presenting 100% of the truth.

[Guest]

the problem with both of the "fair" taxes presented (Daves & Torbs) is making it feasible.

In theory, Dave's works great IF we can cut gov't spending dramatically so that everyone isn't required to pay a large sum (Currently that would be $17127.80/person to keep up with last years spending.....EXTREMELY unrealistic...not to mention would it would take to get us out of debt to other countries) I'd come out ahead on this, but how many others would on here?

Torb's, the problem with your idea is that if everyone saves (as you are hoping they would) it would actually cause 2 major problems:

1. Businesses would fail horribly causing higher unemployment, etc...
2. The Gov't would need to increase the percentage rate that it taxes at to compensate for the lack of funding it would have due to all the spending....which would cause problem #1 to become even worse, causing #2 to become worse causing #1 to become worse, etc, etc, etc...

[StangerBanger96]

And you're a damned fool if you think 90% of Americans are smart enough to save in large quantities. Current CC debt figures are proof that we would have no lack of $$ rolling in if a 23% across the board sales tax was our governments only revenue source.

[Guest]

ahhh...you are right there Dustin....however the lowest of the classes would pay a hugely disproportionate share of the taxes (most people who earn less than $45,000 Household income spend a LARGE portion of their income whereas those who earn higher incomes often are more frugal, in relation to income/wealth, and would pay a much lower portion compared to their earnings). So, if you feel comfortable taxing the lowest income earners proportionally more then this is a great tax incentive.

[Guest]

The other side of this is that it would actually hurt larger businesses that are normally able to write off their large purchases on their federal taxes (Machinery, Mills, Presses, Security, Vehicles, etc...) They would no longer be able to write off their expenses which "could" lead to more risk to equipment operators and/or shoddier products.

[thrash]

Businesses are already exempt from many forms of sales taxation. Why would you assume that would no longer be the case? And why would you assume that business income tax would go away with personal income tax?

As I said elsewhere, only 1/3rd of the federal revenue comes from the personal income tax. We could eliminate it entirely if we could manage to spend 1/3rd less. The notion that changing the personal income tax would bankrupt the government immediately is plain fear-mongering. The 0maximum possible damage it could do would be to leave us with a 33% shortfall. Of course, think of all of the money we'd save by dismantling the IRS (which costs several hundred billion dollars to run, IIRC).

It's also possible to amend fair/flat tax schemes such that they have an income floor and a negative tax below that floor. That is, people making below a certain amt of money receive money from uncle sam. As the amount of money they actually earn increases, the amount of credit they receive decreases, but at rate such that they are always better off making more of their own money than they are trying to remain on tax credit.

I think it is reasonable to reconsider the mechanisms and "goals" of our personal income tax system. Putting money back in people's hands is good for lots of reasons.

[Guest]

Businesses are already exempt from many forms of sales taxation. Why would you assume that would no longer be the case? And why would you assume that business income tax would go away with personal income tax?

Because they are exempt from state taxes, not federal taxes. I guess I just assumed it would be the same for both business and personal income taxes.

As I said elsewhere, only 1/3rd of the federal revenue comes from the personal income tax. We could eliminate it entirely if we could manage to spend 1/3rd less. The notion that changing the personal income tax would bankrupt the government immediately is plain fear-mongering. The 0maximum possible damage it could do would be to leave us with a 33% shortfall. Of course, think of all of the money we'd save by dismantling the IRS (which costs several hundred billion dollars to run, IIRC).

Oh, I know that it wouldn't bankrupt the gov't, I know that the average person wouldn't stop spending...see post a few post up where I address this.

It's also possible to amend fair/flat tax schemes such that they have an income floor and a negative tax below that floor. That is, people making below a certain amt of money receive money from uncle sam. As the amount of money they actually earn increases, the amount of credit they receive decreases, but at rate such that they are always better off making more of their own money than they are trying to remain on tax credit.

But, how do you amend a sales tax? Make everyone carry a card that is digitally encrypted so they only pay based on what they've already purchased or based on a previous years income statement? Seems like a huge loophole either way.

I think it is reasonable to reconsider the mechanisms and "goals" of our personal income tax system. Putting money back in people's hands is good for lots of reasons.

I can agree with that statement whole heartedly. I just don't think that Dave's flat tax or Torbs fair tax will do that any better than what we currently have.

[DaveH]

torbs;191643 wrote:
Dave, are you saying that you don't think it's fair that you along with everybody else in Fargo now pays a 6.5% sales tax?...from the way I read what you just posted, it looks as though you don't think it's fair that everybody pays the same sales tax. (that's the whole idea behind the fair tax...everybody paying in the same sales tax)

Correct. Any tax should be paid equally between all the people. If you are taking more money from some people and less from other people based on how much money they make, or how much money they spend, I would not call that fair. It's wealth re-distribution.

[thrash]

Suppose somebody decides that you need to buy $10k worth of crap in a year to stay alive. (I'm making up a number).

Further suppose that the national sales tax rate is 20% (I'm making up a second number).

Great. At the beginning of the year, give everyone $2000. Now everybody buys stuff just like they always have.

The people least able to spend (presumably, the poorest people), who buy exactly the $10k in goods we think they need in order to make it, pay no effective tax.

(If someone figures out how to be more spendthrift than the government... well, they get free money!! woo woo!!)

The people that spend $20k on stuff ? They've paid an effective tax of $2k. That's an effective rate of 10%. The people who spend 100k? They've paid an $18k tax.

One person who spends $100k in a year (and thus pays $20k in gross taxes, or 18k net taxes), has provided the $2k credit for 9 people who manage to spend less than the $10k value that we figure is the lowest possible amount of money you could live on (or whatever we define as the tax-floor-threshhold)

I think the ratio of people who spend $100k / year to people who spend less than $10k a year is better than 1:9, honestly. And in reality, all of the spending segments above and below the $100k mark will be contributing tax revnues that go into paying the normal government business and this $2k tax credit.

In regards to how you'd collect a national sales tax, typically the suggestion is that you collect it the exact same way a state tax is collected -- at the register.

When you consider that tax is an efficiency penalty in performing a certain activity (an income tax is an efficiency penalty you pay when working.. a sales tax is an efficiency penalty you pay when buying...), one wonders if we want to punish people for "working" or for "buying" ?

I'm not espousing any particular plan, but I am attempting to convince you that plans other than the current one are workable.

You might be interested to know that Ron Paul introduced legislation to make tips tax-exempt (HR 3664), to try and help out the hard working people that depend on tips for their income. Someone on the local Ron Paul meetup group forwarded the Bill # to Coleman. Coleman, of course, says he is against it.

[thrash]

DaveH;191730 wrote:
Correct. Any tax should be paid equally between all the people. If you are taking more money from some people and less from other people based on how much money they make, or how much money they spend, I would not call that fair. It's wealth re-distribution.

To be fair, if person A spends 10x as person B, irrespective of taxes, you're already seeing wealth re-distribution.

I'm far from socialist, and I don't want you to think that I'm arguing against you, but I'd make the point that wealth and spending inequality is only really possible in a society.

Every man, no matter how rich or poor, basically needs the same amount of food, water, shelter, and clothing. The very wealthy can get grossly more of those things than they could ever use, or could require the quality of those things to be grossly higher than what a single man could realistically produce for himself in his lifetime (i.e. a tailor might make a garment of such quality that it takes them 10 years to produce, but a wealthy person can buy that garment in a matter of seconds).

What I am getting at is that, as a practical matter, it is impossible to live a grossly high standard of living without depending on and interacting with other members in a society. If you take the most productive man to have ever lived, he is not even 1000 times as productive as even the laziest or most disabled person to have ever lived. Yet it is common to find people who are at least 1000 times as wealthy as even the average man, and certainly the poorest man.

Generally, this is possible only with the tremendous division of labor that results from a large population.

Given all of this, one can make the argument that the wealthy man benefits from society tremendously more than the average man. The common farmer, who, if need be, can be mostly self sufficient, is impacted considerably less if the rest of the world stopped than the guy on wallstreet that doesn't know how to wipe his own ass, much less grow his own food, mend his clothes, and raise his own shelter.

If you're still following me (wealthy people benefit more from society than average people do), you can draw a dotted line to the conclusion "let's make wealthy people bear more of the burden of keeping a society running, since they benefit from a functioning society more than the average man does"

Warren Buffet says essentially this, actually. He's said something to the effect of, without all those people out there willing to pay him to do what he does.. he's nobody. In that sense, he's got a great debt to society.. to those people.

What I've attempted to provide is a rational argument that can be used to justify taxation in proportion to wealth. It's common to argue against conclusions but more interesting to argue for or against the line of reasoning that gets you to a given conclusion.

[DaveH]

thrash;191735 wrote:
To be fair, if person A spends 10x as person B, irrespective of taxes, you're already seeing wealth re-distribution.

I guess I should have been clearer and said government wealth distribution ie: socialism.

thrash;191735 wrote:
Given all of this, one can make the argument that the wealthy man benefits from society tremendously more than the average man.

This is where we differ, in general I would say the wealthy man contributes to, rather than benefits from society much more than the "average" man. How many moderate/poor people do you see starting businesses and creating jobs and products, how many moderate/poor people have come up with new inventions and improved ways of doing things? If a moderate/poor person did/does these things, then he shortly would no longer be in the moderate/poor category.

thrash;191735 wrote:
<snip> you can draw a dotted line to the conclusion "let's make wealthy people bear more of the burden of keeping a society running, since they benefit from a functioning society more than the average man does".

I think that suggesting that taxes keep our society running is, well funny. In general the ballooned government and taxes are what is holding our society down from being the best it could be.

[MisterCMK]

I make 3 peanuts a day working for NDSU. Fuckers took 1 of my peanuts.

[Guest]

DaveH;191778 wrote:
This is where we differ, in general I would say the wealthy man contributes to, rather than benefits from society much more than the "average" man.

I think it works both ways honestly. It is probably fairly balanced on the contributes/benefits for the wealthiest of Americans and their businesses.

How many moderate/poor people do you see starting businesses and creating jobs and products, how many moderate/poor people have come up with new inventions and improved ways of doing things?
**
How many have the capital needed to start a new business? If they do, how likely are they to be a large enough company to get tax incentives from cities/counties/states? How many can afford to put their guaranteed income from their present job on the line to start a new business venture that could end up costing them all of their possessions (house, car, etc....)? **

If a moderate/poor person did/does these things, then he shortly would no longer be in the moderate/poor category.

Agreed, but as stated above, the risk is great, more so than if you are upper-middle class to wealthy

All things said, in theory I agree with a lot of what Dave and thrash have stated.

[Guest]

MisterCMK;191781 wrote:
I make 3 peanuts a day working for NDSU. Fuckers took 1 of my peanuts.

But, if you made 30000 peanuts a day, would it bother you as much if they took 10000 of them?

[StangerBanger96]

tjamz;191784 wrote:
But, if you made 30000 peanuts a day, would it bother you as much if they took 10000 of them?

Yes, I worked for those peanuts and they feel they have the right to just take them from me?

[Guest]

At present, yes they do. Elected officials made those tax laws, therefore they have the right. You have the right to try to elect people who will attempt to change said laws, but until the laws have changed, they have the right.

[StangerBanger96]

tjamz;191786 wrote:
At present, yes they do. Elected officials made those tax laws, therefore they have the right. You have the right to try to elect people who will attempt to change said laws, but until the laws have changed, they have the right.

You get what I was saying though...Since you had to bring that up though your dream of "well vote them out of office then if you don't like their policies" doesn't work. Too many voters don't give a shit or know a damn thing and just blindly vote, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Congressional elections. Once you're voted into office (especially Senators) you have to screw up REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY bad to get voted out.

The Government's job isn't to redistribute wealth, make people prosperous, nor to make a profit. Taxes are insane because Congress is making taxpayers fund so much pork on every bill being passed and continues funding idiotic programs that we are paying out the nose for shit nobody cares about. We're FUBAR'd because all of Congress is part of the Old Boys club, democrats and rebpulicans are sucking each other off and wiping each others asses with $100 bills while the citizens of the country fund it.

One of my favorite government funded studies was several hundred thousand dollars, or was it millions, were given to study whether or not dogs dream. WHAT THE FUCK? They waste our tax money to see whether or not dogs dream??!?! Give me a break...

[thrash]

tjamz;191786 wrote:
At present, yes they do. Elected officials made those tax laws, therefore they have the right. You have the right to try to elect people who will attempt to change said laws, but until the laws have changed, they have the right.

What the people voted for is not the end-all be-all of government. We do not have direct democracy for a reason. 51% of the people can always agree to ride on the coattails of 49% of the people. Allegedly our constitution and several other mechansism exist to keep us from being a pure democracy (which is another name for mob rule).

Elected officials do not have the right to make any old law they plese. Marbury vs. Madison created the concept of judicial review, whereby the supreme court gets a say in wether the laws created by the electorate are constitutional or not, and the original separation of powers leaves it to the executive branch to actually do something about the laws created by the electorate.

In this case, all 3 branches are complicit with our odious taxation laws.

[Guest]

StangerBanger96;191787 wrote:
You get what I was saying though...Since you had to bring that up though your dream of "well vote them out of office then if you don't like their policies" doesn't work. Too many voters don't give a shit or know a damn thing and just blindly vote, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Congressional elections. Once you're voted into office (especially Senators) you have to screw up REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY bad to get voted out.

The Government's job isn't to redistribute wealth, make people prosperous, nor to make a profit. Taxes are insane because Congress is making taxpayers fund so much pork on every bill being passed and continues funding idiotic programs that we are paying out the nose for shit nobody cares about. We're FUBAR'd because all of Congress is part of the Old Boys club, democrats and rebpulicans are sucking each other off and wiping each others asses with $100 bills while the citizens of the country fund it.

One of my favorite government funded studies was several hundred thousand dollars, or was it millions, were given to study whether or not dogs dream. WHAT THE FUCK? They waste our tax money to see whether or not dogs dream??!?! Give me a break...

I agree with you Dustin as well. I know it is VERY difficult to remove someone from office via elections. Term limits, line item vetoes, etc... would be a good step in the right direction to cut the pork from politics and to break the good ol' boy club up a bit. BUT it needs to happen nationwide. While I'm on this subject, I may as well throw out the idea of splitting the electoral vote in states...say if one candidate gets 66% of the vote and another gets 33% and the state has 3 electoral votes....why can't 2 of them vote for the 66% candidate and 1 for the 33% candidate? Or better yet, do away with the electoral college entirely.

[StangerBanger96]

There seems to be increasingly serious talks about states splitting up their Electoral Votes. I know some states are already doing that IIRC. I say we get rid of the Electoral College completely as well...