Am I wrong, or is this a simple concept? (Taxation)

[XMan]

I posted in the thread about conservatives and the economy.

I said -



<< You know, it's not about the effect on the economy. It's about taking away from those who have worked hard to support themselves. >>



Makes sense to me. If you work hard and make more money, why should the government get more of your dough?

'Course, Dabanshee, our resident pinko, replies,



<< The simple fact is Xero man, that on average wealthy people are no more productive than anyone else. >>

(Just for your info, it's spelled &quot;Xerox&quot;, dude. Guess those public schools in Australia aren't up to snuff, huh?&quot;)

Now here's where I don't figure something. Last year, I made about $22K US. I worked pretty hard. Evidently my hard work paid off because I got a promotion recently, and a 63% raise. By rights, my paycheck should increase by 63% right? Nope. I got maybe 45% after the higher tax bracket kicked in. In a flat tax system, my taxes still would have been increased, but I would kept more of my money. And maybe keeping more of my money would give me incentive to work harder and get more promotions. As it stands right now, I don't want to get an extremely high-paying job, because the returns diminish substantially.

We will never be able to fix the dichotomy between the taxes that those who are more well off pay over those who are not. But why not institute a flat tax, eliminate the personal tax return (and as a result, a lot of the IRS' budget and payroll - payroll because the government should not be a jobs program.) Everyone pays a fair share of there earnings, and there's no more class envy, because there won't be any special deductions. Where do those special deductions come from? Rich people who don't think they should have to give up 50% of their salary in taxes (and by God, they shouldn't! They've earned that money. Bank robbers don't pay taxes.) so they end up hiring lobbyists and special interest groups to lobby lawmakers into adding loopholes into the tax code so they can keep a little of their money.

I really fail to see why this is such a hard concept for some people.

 

[Aceman]

Xerox Man,
Here's a solution that worked quite well for me. Get your promotion, immediately get married and have 3 kids. And Wham! More money in the paycheck, less in taxes!

(Of course, it all goes to a moneysucking wife and three kids. But it's better than Uncle Sam getting it!)

 

[compuwiz1]

<< Makes sense to me. If you work hard and make more money, why should the government get more of your dough? >>



Apparently, to subsidize those who don't. Now draw the picture in your mind of the gal at the supermarket with 5 kids and one in the oven, paying with foodstamps, or the guy who goes to cash his welfare check and drives up in a new Cadillac. :Q

 

[XMan]

Aceman,

If I had a family I'd be more than happy to be supporting them!

Compuwiz,

Yeah, I know. Welfare should not be a dole; it should be a crutch to be used for people down on their luck to get back on their feet or reestablished. There's no shame in needing help; the shame is being lazy and leeching off of your countrymen.

 

[thebestMAX]

Man, where is my Nomex suit? I think Im going to need it when the big guns get here. I see a very long thread with many of the same old responses.

Of course, I agree with XEROX and would even if he wasnt using a quote from one of my threadstarters as a signature.

ACEMAN-

LMAO, now I know why you work at BB.

 

[Shazam]

I've said it once, I'll say it again....


TAKE A MACROECONOMICS COURSE BEFORE YOU SPOUT STUFF OUT OF YOUR A$$.



My God...

First off, if you don't know who Keynes is (and I don't care if you agree or disagree with him), go shove off and play with your processor some more...

If you don't know what &quot;ELASTICITY&quot; is and how it affects personal economic behaviour, go shove off and play with your processor....

If you don't know what &quot;ZERO-SUM GAME&quot; means, go shove off and play with your processor....

If you still believe that comparing the prices of Big Macs in different countries is actually a good way to see how strong your currency is compared to the rest of the world, go jump off a bridge.

 

[Double Trouble]

Xerox man, thou speaketh the truth. The simple fact is, your statement makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, there will always be liberals that want the government to assume the role of 'wealth redistributor', the role of deciding that some people 'deserve' the money more than others. Those people will always fight to take more money from the 'rich' than from everyone else. The more money they can take away, the more money the Government can redistribute in a way the liberals deem more 'fair' (in other words, it goes to losers on the dole).

I disagree with a flat tax though, because in a flat tax system the people at the lower end of the scale end up paying a disproportionate amount of their incomes in taxes and fees etc. Even as a conservative, I'm for a progressive tax system -- but it needs to be made more simple, with fewer loopholes.

Liberals love using the term &quot;tax the rich&quot; because they can use class envy -- make the 'average' people think they somehow 'have a right' to more, and that those making more don't deserve it and should be taxed more. That's why Gore keeps saying &quot;tax break for the wealthiest 1% ... blah blah blah&quot;, even though it's about as true as his inventing the internet.

 

[thebestMAX]

Somebody Please tell me ShaZams post is in the wrong thread. Either its that or Ive missed something.

Was this from a previous thread?

Please dont say flat tax. Could have worked from day 1 but not now.

The retired person paid taxes on his money when he earned it and to go to a flat tax would tax it again when he spends it. I know the Dems would love that.

Lots of ways around this I know but as RR said, there you go again, complicating the simple.

 

[Napalm381]

I'm curious to hear your take on these issues, Shazam. You chastise others in the thread, yet offer no insight of your own.

 

[XMan]

Shazam,

What exactly did I say that was incorrect?

FACT - Those wealthy enough to afford good accountants make use of all available tax loopholes to save money.

FACT - Those loopholes were placed by lawmakers acting on the request of lobbyists, most acting as special interest groups for the wealthy.

FACT - The upper class will always pay the majority of the taxes due to simple math.

FACT - Eliminating tax loopholes and simplifying the tax code so that a return doesn't require a collegiate math degree makes good business sense - for the taxpayer and the government.

FACT - Simplifying the tax code allows the government to reduce the budget of the IRS, shift workers to other departments, or let them go.

EDIT - theBestMAX - The flat tax as it has been proposed would be a national sales tax? Ugh. I see your point about taxed money being retaxed . . . I'd always thought that &quot;flat tax&quot; indicated the government saying, &quot;I will take 10% of each individual's salary,&quot; or something of the nature. Done properly, such a move could be revenue neutral or even positive, especially when IRS reduction-in-force is considered.

 

[thebestMAX]

There have been a lot of ways proposed for a flat tax but the National Sales Tax seemed to be the most popular. Again a lot of schemes aimed to take tax simplification and turn it around yet again.

You qualified your statement with &quot;done properly&quot; so I guess you get it.

 

[Double Trouble]

And lets not forget, the government that actually wants to collect less money from it's citizens and truly reduce it's own size has yet to be seen in history......

 

[etech]

I like the flat tax concept, but I would give every wage earner one deduction of say, $15K. That way a family at or near the poverty level would pay little to no tax. The numbers may need to be adjusted but I think the idea deserves some attention.

 

[Viper GTS]

I dunno why people have such a hard time imagining how a flat tax works. The poor people pay more than the rich?

Let's say I make $250,000 a year, &amp; the other 10 people on my street each make $25,000. If the flat tax is 20%, I pay $50,000 in taxes, &amp; each of my neighbors pay $5,000. I make ten times as much as they do, I pay 10 times the taxes... So what's the big freakin' deal? Together, on the whole street, we'd pay $100,000 in taxes... And I paid 1/2 that myself. So quit yer bitchin'.

Viper GTS

 

[jaydee]

Xerox Man, great observation, but wrong conclusion I'm afraid. Can we take this a little farther, and eliminate income tax altogether? I'm sure many of you are sick of Libertarian ideals but Xerox Man doesn't know yet.

[copy&amp;paste] Overview
If we eliminate all the current powers and programs of the federal government that aren't &quot;delegated to the United States by the Constitution,&quot; then the remaining constitutional functions, such as national defense and the federal courts, can be performed for about $100 billion dollars a year. This means the federal government will be so small, there will be no need for a federal income tax . The excise taxes and tariffs that are already being collected (bringing in over $100 billion a year) are more than sufficient to cover these costs.

A constitutionally limited government would have no need for a personal income tax, estate tax, gift tax, capital gains tax, or corporate income tax. And there would be no need to replace these taxes with a flat tax or a sales tax. We could repeal the income tax and replace it with nothing.


The Quotable Harry Browne: on the Income Tax
&quot;The federal government has destroyed American education, is in the process of decimating our health-care system, and has put millions of Americans into permanent welfare. Reducing the federal government to just its constitutional functions will not only allow us to repeal the income tax, it also will stop the systematic destruction of America.&quot;
&quot;It's easy to see how someone has been helped by money taken from someone else, especially when we can't see the people whose lives have been hurt by taking that money away. We can't see the family who now can't afford braces for their child's teeth, or who must move into a smaller home, or who can't afford a college education for their children, or the businessman who has been driven bankrupt by government regulations and taxes. As long as you ignore the people who have been hurt, any government program might seem worthy.&quot;

&quot;The income tax has destroyed the concept of financial privacy. It has demolished the idea that a man's home is his castle. It has provided unlimited funding for politicians to wreck lives and property. It has forced one-earner families to become two-earner households -- leading to decreased parental supervision of children; loss of family values; and increased crime, promiscuity and drug use. So long as the government has the power to invade our lives, rummage through our records, and take what it wants from our income, we will have only as much freedom and take-home pay as the politicians condescend to let us have.&quot;

&quot;We shouldn't be talking about what government should do or what we wish it could do. We should recognize what government can do. And the government has proven that it makes a mess of virtually everything it touches. So whatever it is we may want government to do, we have to look for better ways to achieve it.&quot;


Free from the Income Tax
The income tax is the biggest government intrusion into the lives of the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes time and money. The income tax creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy.
But in order to get rid of the income tax we must also get rid of hundreds of unconstitutional federal programs. However, history has proven that we can't remove them one at a time, because each program has beneficiaries and supporters who will fight for it -- while the average American is too busy paying his taxes and running his own life to lobby for the elimination of any government program.

We can rally the American people to our cause only by combining all the spending cuts into a single package that includes the total repeal of the federal income tax. That way most people can see that they'll save far more in taxes than they lose in subsidies.

By combining the reduction of government with the repeal of the income tax, every voter will know that the price for keeping today's federal programs is to continue paying the income tax. Every voter will know exactly how much he can gain by eliminating the complete package of unconstitutional programs.

This is the basis of The Great Libertarian Offer:

Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you'd never have to pay income tax again?

This is in marked contrast to what the leaders of the two old parties want. By promising you &quot;tax cuts&quot; without reducing the size of government, they are only rearranging the cost of big government. One way or another, you'll have to pay for it; the Russians certainly are not going to do it for us.

In the same way, proposals for a flat tax or a sales tax are merely attempts to rearrange the tax burden. And because they don't reduce government itself or force the government to live by the Constitution, they leave the door wide open for government to continue growing and the tax burden to continue to worsen.

I want to end the income tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing. By reducing the federal government to its constitutional functions we can do away with all direct taxes -- and finance national defense and the federal judiciary with the level of tariffs and excise taxes already being collected.

Are tariffs and excises good taxes? Of course not. The only good tax is a dead tax. But so long as we have a government, it will require taxes to pay for it. The question for now isn't what a perfect system would be, but what we can do to restore the American system of truly limited government, very low taxes, and maximum personal liberty.

If yours is an average family, when the income and Social Security taxes are repealed, your take-home pay will increase by $10,000 or more a year. Think of the additional liberty this will provide -- the liberty to spend more time with your children and assure that they learn the values you cherish, the liberty to pursue your dreams unhindered by a government that prevents you from accumulating capital, the liberty to do good works with your own money.

Republican and Democratic politicians believe that money belongs to them. Yes, they argue about tiny tax cuts and posture as your friends. But the burden of proof is always put on us to justify keeping some of the money we've earned.

So long as we keep voting for Republicans and Democrats, they will continue to take almost half the national income and squander most of it on programs to please their political allies.

Only when we have a Libertarian President will you have a real friend in Washington.[/copy&amp;paste]

 

[Buddha Bart]

The simple logic (or lack thereof) is that Liberals want to help people.
They think that everyone should want to help people
If you don't, you will be forced to because your money will be taken from you.

Wealth Re-Distribution.....

/me vomits

bart

 

[XMan]

Jaydee, I guess your point of view depends on whether or not you're a strict constitutionalist or not; I'm not. I feel that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution knowing that it would not cover all applicable scenarios and thus added the amendment possiblity.

 

[jaydee]

To requote your thread title: Am I wrong, or is this a simple concept? Strict construction has little to do with the matter. Democrates want to spend lots of your money for you. Republicans want to spend less but still quite a bit. Libertarians want to spend none. The decision is yours, but if you want the most money that you actually earn (all of it to be exact), the choice is so very obvious.

 

[Aceman]

You guys keep arguing over tax cuts and hike! Just as long as Uncle Sam doesn't take away my tax credits. I told you what the solution was......Get join the Army where they only tax 1/3 of my actual pay, get married to a housewife and have three kids! I get back damn near all my income tax withheld.

 

[XMan]

Good point, Aceman. Unfortunately you are paid far too little for the service you give to your country.

 

[FuzzyBee]

My question is this - what do the wealthy Hollywood-types think about Gore's &quot;redistribution of wealth&quot;? Is anybody really stupid enough to believe that they *want* more money taken from them in taxes?

[Edit] Stupid misspelling keyboard [/Edit]

 

[Aceman]

And that's why I work at Best Buy part time

 

[Spoooon]

<< I dunno why people have such a hard time imagining how a flat tax works. The poor people pay more than the rich? >>



If you do the math, yeah everyone pays the same percent. However, that percent hurts a poor person more than a wealthy person. I make a $100 and give up 10 dollars to tax. You make 100,000 and give up 10,000 to tax. Now, I only have 90 bucks to spend, whereas you have 90,000. Taken to extremes, you see the inequities inherent in a flat tax. You would probably have to be poor to really understand how bad a flat tax would be. There's nothing wrong with a progressive tax. It helps out the poor and doesn't hurt the rich. Nothing wrong with that is there?

 

[JellyBaby]

Some neat information about pending changes to tax policy among the states:

<< Issue 9 ? Taxes: Tax reform has been an issue on the ballot since the initiative process was first established but its dominance has grown since 1978?s Proposition 13 in California. The difference this election cycle is the sheer magnitude of what the passage of these measures will do. Coloradans will phase out utility and occupational taxes, vehicle sales taxes, use and ownership taxes and income and property taxes; Governor Cellucci of Massachusetts is pushing an initiative that reduces the state income tax; Oregonians are voting to make federal income taxes fully deductible on their state tax returns; and Washington state voters will vote on whether to declare null and void certain tax or fee increases adopted without voter approval by state and local governments. Many argue that if these reforms pass, the fiscal impact could be devastating, but the proponents see that in an era of huge state surpluses the citizens should get something back. >>

Source: http://ballotwatch.org/2000ballots.htm#intro.

To this day I wonder how WA managed that with M$, who benefits greatly from state taxes, throwing huge $$$ monies into blocking that grass roots effort.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

You see, we need to quit thinking about how things will benefit us personally and think of how it will help us as a whole. Once you do that, you'll begin to understand why things are the way it is.