If you could add another tax - what would it be?

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: Engineer
War tax. You want war, EVERYONE pays their EQUAL share to support it including rebuilding funds and any other fund associated with the war. No borrowing for the war, completely funded by EXTRA taxation 100%.

By your own criteria, this nation would never have been founded.

I guess if enough people want it, they'll pay for it.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
I would Tax illegals

At east get some money out them since we're not sending them back home.

They send all the illegal money they get back home, time to get a piece of the pie.

That's a neat trick Dave, evading taxes. Care to explain that one? Illegals fill out the same W4s and I9's as anybody else and are subject to employer withholding. Also when they buy stuff are subject to sales. Where they own or rent they are subject to property taxes. When they fill thier tanks they pay excise taxes. etc etc etc

 

[Zebo]

No one bears a greater taxation burden than the middle middle/upper middle. Your Doctor, your middle manager engineer etc. They're getting ripped and they know it. They see someone like Kerry/Bush/Gates pulling in millions sometimes billions and paying as little as 0% while they pay 25-50% depending how you count. They get nothing back. The problem is they fall for the "entitlement" and "welfare queen" rhetoric. They think their taxes go to "Lazy people" and they resent the hell out of it. Who wouldn't?

If anyone hammered on where your taxes really go, a real populist message and promised BIG cuts to the middle while going after the ultra rich, we'd have a winner. That's going to have to come from the bottom up though, no current politician is going to cut the umbilical to that corporate cash.

My plan would be no taxes till you hit 50K. Flat 20% income tax after that. All income is treated as income... to include cap gains..inheritance or any other exchange from one party to another. No deductions. No exclusions. no exemptions.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'd start just by enforcing the tax code we already have- over $300B/yr is siphoned off by well heeled tax cheats-

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9505

I guess that would be a "new" tax for some of these folks- some were practically raised on screwing the IRS, and the rest of us in the process...

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: zendari
We already have too many taxes and too many types of taxes. But if I had to add one it would be a fast food/obesity tax.

Holy Hay-Zues in Heaven! something I actually agree with dollarsign man on

 

[Future Shock]

Originally posted by: dirtboy

Originally posted by: kleinwl
BTW: No one has commented on the oversea tax shelter taxes. I think that's a great idea! The average corporation pays almost no tax in the US. It is so easy to avoid corporate tax by sending your profits overseas that no foreign held company based in the US ever makes a profit. They end up paying for "services" from the parent company that somehow is exactly the same as their expected profit. hmmm.

I don't think it's sending money overseas, as much as it's not bring back foreign profits to the U.S. If a corp has domesitc revenue, they will pay taxes. They can't send that money away to avoid it. However, if they earn money outside the U.S., they aren't required to bring it back.

Uhh, yes, they CAN and DO send that money overseas. It's called "transfer pricing", and all they need to do is set up a subidiary in a forgien country (like Bermuda, where they pay no corporate tax), and have that subsidiary "sell" them things, like supplied, consulting services, etc. at greatly inflated prices. All the forgein auto manufacturers do this to escape paying US taxes - they buy their engines and such from Japan for more than they make in profit on each car, guaranteeing that they show no profit on cars sold in the US - and hence no US taxes. US companies do it as well, by establishing "central supply warehouses" that sell the US branch goods at greatly inflated prices - so again, they show no US profits, and hence no US taxes.

As I wrote on the first page of this thread, there are companies that can set this up for your small business in 30 days or less - giving you a corporate structure, an office address, a forgein bank account, and an ATM card to use to withdraw that money untraceably. All perfectly "legal" - until you actually use that ATM card to re-patriate that money to the US. But, again, that's hard to trace or stop...

Future Shock

 

[judasmachine]

greed tax, a tax where the more you earn the more you pay. on top of the present scale.

and

philanthropist tax, a tax where if you can prove you've improved the living standard of a group or individuals you pay less tax. again on top of the charity or IRS thingy.

 

[ChaoZ]

National healthcare tax.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: dirtboy

I can see that would hurt alot of businesses that need vehicles over that weight. Why not just raise the tax on gas for everyone and then have the motor vehicle departments rebate money back on people who have cars that are registered that are under that weight.

So if your license fees are $250 this year, maybe you get a $25 credit.

edit: i don't like that idea... maybe take that money and forget it, taxing isn't an efficient means of achieving any goal.

The weight of a vehicle should be irrelevant. There is no need for a rebate.

It should be a lot simpler IMO. You have a highway budget of X needed to maintained the roads. X is made up of Y dollars of gasoline taxes and Z dollars of tolls and other revenue. Y comes from total gasoline consumption * a tax rate per gallon of gas.

There should be a lot more user fees whenever possible. You use a service, you pay for it. You don't use a service, you don't pay for it. One of the few positives of social security is that its internally funded; that should be true for a lot more governmental programs.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
National healthcare tax.

:thumbsup:

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: zendari
That $40 billion was taxed when it was first earned. You want to continuously tax the same money year after year?

Yes, that is the plan.

Of course as we gradually roll in the wealth tax, the income tax could be rolled out (eliminating your first complaint). But, yes the same money will be taxed over and over again until (a) it is spent into the economy, (b) donated to charity, or (c) taxed away. That is why this particular tax plan has a cutoff. Below that cutoff, the money is yours to do as you please.

So why the cutoff? If you want to tax wealth (which is rather difficult to determine), tax all of it.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
Technically most of Bill Gates' money is 'spent' into the economy. Most of his money is put into investments which help foster growth of companies. It's not like he has $39.5 billion in cash lying around. Should rich people just stop investing money over $500 million?

Their investements should return on average 6-7% long term. My wealth tax is 1%. It is not enough tax to stop them from investing.

 

[Tom]

I would tax religious and "non-profit" entities, but give them 100% write-offs to the extent they can show they use their income for charitable work, not to pay salaries or build fancy churches,etc.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: zendari
So why the cutoff? If you want to tax wealth (which is rather difficult to determine), tax all of it.

Like I said in my very first post, you could tax it all. In fact, you could replace all other forms of taxation with this. However, I interpret the theme of this thread as just adding one more tax to the taxes which are already here. So I kept my plan small and simple.

So in my small and simple tax, a cutoff eases many of the problems that would arise. It doesn't involve more than 500 people or so in total. Thus, the whole process can be set up and the kinks worked out before the cutoff is changed to affect a large number of people. The cutoff also eliminates a lot of trivial fighting that can occur with a wealth tax. The "my car is a lemon it is worth $2000 less than blue book" argument is meaningless on a $500 million cutoff.

Clearly there are details that I have left out. Stocks/bonds would have to be valued at a specified date, probably Jan 1st of the tax year. The value of property is always disputed, but it is taxed sucessfully in just about every region of the country. Thus a method of submitting the state/local numbers would have to the federal government would need to be created. Value of privately owned businesses is probably the most difficult to determine. A formula would have to be created to determine this. Or if corporate tax is cleaned up (eliminating the multitude of loopholes), maybe we just exempt privately owned businesses to avoid double taxation. Etc.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Tom
I would tax religious and "non-profit" entities, but give them 100% write-offs to the extent they can show they use their income for charitable work, not to pay salaries or build fancy churches,etc.

Both religous and non-profit entities have to pay salaries, and have to have buildings for operation - it isn't volunteer work. So the write-off only applies to the charitable part?

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Future Shock

Originally posted by: dirtboy

Originally posted by: kleinwl
BTW: No one has commented on the oversea tax shelter taxes. I think that's a great idea! The average corporation pays almost no tax in the US. It is so easy to avoid corporate tax by sending your profits overseas that no foreign held company based in the US ever makes a profit. They end up paying for "services" from the parent company that somehow is exactly the same as their expected profit. hmmm.

I don't think it's sending money overseas, as much as it's not bring back foreign profits to the U.S. If a corp has domesitc revenue, they will pay taxes. They can't send that money away to avoid it. However, if they earn money outside the U.S., they aren't required to bring it back.

Uhh, yes, they CAN and DO send that money overseas. It's called "transfer pricing", and all they need to do is set up a subidiary in a forgien country (like Bermuda, where they pay no corporate tax), and have that subsidiary "sell" them things, like supplied, consulting services, etc. at greatly inflated prices. All the forgein auto manufacturers do this to escape paying US taxes - they buy their engines and such from Japan for more than they make in profit on each car, guaranteeing that they show no profit on cars sold in the US - and hence no US taxes. US companies do it as well, by establishing "central supply warehouses" that sell the US branch goods at greatly inflated prices - so again, they show no US profits, and hence no US taxes.

As I wrote on the first page of this thread, there are companies that can set this up for your small business in 30 days or less - giving you a corporate structure, an office address, a forgein bank account, and an ATM card to use to withdraw that money untraceably. All perfectly "legal" - until you actually use that ATM card to re-patriate that money to the US. But, again, that's hard to trace or stop...

Future Shock

Good set of posts there Future shock. I'd just like to add you can re-patriate those monies quite easily for large purchases too tax free, legal. What they do is have a foriegn company under your control of course buy the house you live in as an investment. Even pay you a nominal salary, below any real tax bracket, to keep up the place while living there of course.

Personally I've always been scared away from such endevors not because out of some duty to pay taxes nessessarly but a) I have enough legal deductions and simply don't make enough to make it worth my while. b) I don't think I could withstand a full IRS probe up my ass like the big boys can with thier wall street firms to defend them. I mean if they want to convict a middle class guy of evasion it's gonna happen sine you'll scream chicken first.

 

[SagaLore]

I would have a Celebrity tax (that includes professional sports).

All the money would go to fighting illegal drug us. Oh the irony...

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Future Shock
Uhh, yes, they CAN and DO send that money overseas. It's called "transfer pricing", and all they need to do is set up a subidiary in a forgien country (like Bermuda, where they pay no corporate tax), and have that subsidiary "sell" them things, like supplied, consulting services, etc. at greatly inflated prices. All the forgein auto manufacturers do this to escape paying US taxes - they buy their engines and such from Japan for more than they make in profit on each car, guaranteeing that they show no profit on cars sold in the US - and hence no US taxes. US companies do it as well, by establishing "central supply warehouses" that sell the US branch goods at greatly inflated prices - so again, they show no US profits, and hence no US taxes

Yep. Corporate taxes were 32% of all taxes the federal governement collected in 1952. In 2003, that number stood at 7.4%.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Tom
I would tax religious and "non-profit" entities, but give them 100% write-offs to the extent they can show they use their income for charitable work, not to pay salaries or build fancy churches,etc.

Both religous and non-profit entities have to pay salaries, and have to have buildings for operation - it isn't volunteer work. So the write-off only applies to the charitable part?

Pretty much. Buildings like a homeless shelter or food pantry would be deductible, buildings like meeting halls and churchs whose primary purpose is for the enjoyment/use of the membership would not.

And they can pay salaries, they just don't get to deduct it as an expense on their taxes. In fact using the word expense is a misnomer, since they aren't engaged in a profit venture, the concept of expenses and income are different than a for profit enterprise where expenses offset profits.

In a non-profit, the charitable work is akin to the profit in a for profit enterprise, so expenses that are used for charitable work would be deductible.

 

[tommywishbone]

I would add a tax for mens hair dye. All politicians would go broke. My current favorite is Tom Delay.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: dullard

Corporate taxes were 32% of all taxes the federal governement collected in 1952.

In 2003, that number stood at 7.4%.

Of course you won't get any Republicans to admit to this.

Lie and deception

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
I would Tax illegals

At east get some money out them since we're not sending them back home.

They send all the illegal money they get back home, time to get a piece of the pie.

How? They're illegal, so they're not "in the system", i.e. we can't track them.

If they were a tax on illegals we could track them.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: dullard

Corporate taxes were 32% of all taxes the federal governement collected in 1952.

In 2003, that number stood at 7.4%.

Of course you won't get any Republicans to admit to this.

Lie and deception

I'm not exactly a conservative but I think corporate taxes, at least for domestically based corporations, are a bad idea. I'd like income taxes to apply to individuals. Taxing corporate income does two things that I don't think are right. Fisrt it taxes all shareholders at the same rate regardless of personal income level. Second it further entrenchs that terrible idea that corporations aught to be treated as individuals.

 

[Cooler]

Child Tax
Giving people a tax break because they have a child is ridiculous if anything it put more stress on the system.

$5000 a year per child.

 

[Future Shock]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: dullard

Corporate taxes were 32% of all taxes the federal governement collected in 1952.

In 2003, that number stood at 7.4%.

Of course you won't get any Republicans to admit to this.

Lie and deception

I'm not exactly a conservative but I think corporate taxes, at least for domestically based corporations, are a bad idea. I'd like income taxes to apply to individuals. Taxing corporate income does two things that I don't think are right. Fisrt it taxes all shareholders at the same rate regardless of personal income level. Second it further entrenchs that terrible idea that corporations aught to be treated as individuals.

The problem with that is the huge number of individuals that can declare THEMSELVES corporations (I know this, I own my own consulting company). I write off everything that is legal...and if it were not for the corporate tax, I could almost end up paying no tax at all personally - I would just take all my "expenses" as business expenses. While I DO keep it legal, I know lots of others with small businesses that frankly do not - nearly EVERYTHING they make is corporate income, and almost none of it gets passed to their personal tax forms. 42" plasma TVs for their living rooms suddenly become "computer monitors for work" and BMW M5s are "business transportation". They pay their children "modelling fees" for supposedly appearing in "business promotions"...knowing that children don't pay taxes. Etc, etc, etc. If you read the famous book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", it's basically advice on how to push that as far as you can and feel good about yourself for escaping taxes.

Without a corporate tax, there is just no way to avoid this. Right now, it's just onerous enough so that not too many people do it...but if there were zero corporate taxes (rather than just a reduced rate), then nearly everyone that could get away with it would do so...and therefore everyone left with a W2 would end up paying the taxes for the entire country...while the rest skate on by tax free. Eminently not fair, and a terrible idea economically - it would introduce horrendous wrinkles in the employment market, and larger businesses wouldn't be able to hire any talented people on W2.

And, to your point on tax rates - corporate taxes are a tax on shareholders - based upon the number of outstanding shares they own (not differentiating between common and preffered here). That is at least a tax based upon the value of an assett, much like property tax - and can thus be considered proportional and relatively fair.

Future Shock