People should be forbidden to have tax money taken out of their paychecks

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Flat Tax. That was a lot of written rubbish. Flat Tax would work, people much smarter then us have crunched numbers on it.
Poor people will have much more incentive. Mid-Income salary raises will actually mean something.

Great, they have an incentive to do what? To invest their leftover money? To go to college to get a degree while working 2 full-time minimum wage jobs? What our government spends isn't going to decrease as a result of a change in the tax system. If you change the tax system such that the rich pay a much smaller amount of money, then the shortfall has to be made up somewhere. And, if the poor are making up the shortfall, they're going to be in an even worse situation, regardless of how much "incentive" they have. Incentive and 50cents won't buy you a cup of coffee anymore.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: KK

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: Specop 007

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
Flame elsewhere bitch, both the Palestinian people and African people in the poorer regions of Africa are in a gigantic humanitarian crisis ATM and it'd be stupid to just sit by and watch tons of people die. If you don't like it, go whine to your representative or senator.

Is that my fault? Why must I pay for every poor downtrodden Joe in the entire world. Not my problem.
And since we're getting off topic, why the hell do I want to give money to my enemies? Maybe, just MAYBE, some of these people would be a bit nicer if they realized how much we give them. Lets cut all our aid to say Palestine and see if maybe they dont stop to think for a minute that maybe blowing up the hand that feeds them aint such a hot idea.

Aid to Palestine's been cut big time since Hamas won the election, USAID stopped loads of projects that they were working on in the West Bank and Gaza. I saw this first hand, roads that were supposed to be repaved and were already remarked to have traffic flow only on one side as they worked on the other (this road hasn't been paved since the 1980s when Israel declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel) had all work stopped as soon as Hamas won. There goes one part of your issue, secondly, if you have such a problem with it, do something about it. Senators and representatives do exist for a reason...

On top of that, aid to Palestine, Africa, and anywhere else is the LEAST of our governments budget problems. If we weren't fighting two simultaneous wars we didn't have to, all those American troops would still have their lives and wouldn't have lost them fighting a stupid cause for a stupid President; and we'd have sh!tloads of extra monies. What WMDs? Did they find Bin Laden yet?

Go blow yourself up and save us the bullsh1t you're spewing from your terroristic ass.

Excuse me for being rational :roll:

Hick knee jerk reaction based on fear and ignorance vs. pseudo intellectual knee jerk reaction based on oversimplification.

Hmm. Should be interesting. I think I'll sit here as smug judgemental bastard and enjoy the show.

 

[TheNinja]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Flat Tax. That was a lot of written rubbish. Flat Tax would work, people much smarter then us have crunched numbers on it.
Poor people will have much more incentive. Mid-Income salary raises will actually mean something.

Great, they have an incentive to do what? To invest their leftover money? To go to college to get a degree while working 2 full-time minimum wage jobs? What our government spends isn't going to decrease as a result of a change in the tax system. If you change the tax system such that the rich pay a much smaller amount of money, then the shortfall has to be made up somewhere. And, if the poor are making up the shortfall, they're going to be in an even worse situation, regardless of how much "incentive" they have. Incentive and 50cents won't buy you a cup of coffee anymore.

My point is that if we have a flat tax. We won't need to pay the IRS hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out everybody's confusing tax returns. Therefore b/c of that EVERYONE would pay less taxes overall from poor to rich. And besides a flat tax seems fair. If you make 10,000 you pay 1000 in taxes. If you make 10,000,000, you pay 1,000,000.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: TheNinja

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Flat Tax. That was a lot of written rubbish. Flat Tax would work, people much smarter then us have crunched numbers on it.
Poor people will have much more incentive. Mid-Income salary raises will actually mean something.

Great, they have an incentive to do what? To invest their leftover money? To go to college to get a degree while working 2 full-time minimum wage jobs? What our government spends isn't going to decrease as a result of a change in the tax system. If you change the tax system such that the rich pay a much smaller amount of money, then the shortfall has to be made up somewhere. And, if the poor are making up the shortfall, they're going to be in an even worse situation, regardless of how much "incentive" they have. Incentive and 50cents won't buy you a cup of coffee anymore.

My point is that if we have a flat tax. We won't need to pay the IRS hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out everybody's confusing tax returns. Therefore b/c of that EVERYONE would pay less taxes overall from poor to rich. And besides a flat tax seems fair. If you make 10,000 you pay 1000 in taxes. If you make 10,000,000, you pay 1,000,000.

You wouldn't pay less taxes. The government would just find other ways to spend the money that the IRS wouldn't be using.

 

[Rubycon]

Everyone should just pay a flat tax of 10%. No returns, no forms, just a straight bill. Of course if frogs had wings they would not have to bump their asses on lily pads either.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: TheNinja
My point is that if we have a flat tax. We won't need to pay the IRS hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out everybody's confusing tax returns. Therefore b/c of that EVERYONE would pay less taxes overall from poor to rich. And besides a flat tax seems fair. If you make 10,000 you pay 1000 in taxes. If you make 10,000,000, you pay 1,000,000.

*sigh* That's the problem with legislators and the public at large. Absolutely no sense of large numbers. Something that costs 724 million dollars seems far more expensive than something that costs 4 billion dollars. A savings of 300 million dollars works out to 1 dollar per person in the U.S. (of course, though, not everyone pays taxes) WTF are people smoking? Incidentally, the IRS budget is around 10 billion dollars. Regardless, cutting that budget in half would still result in an insignificant savings for the public.

A flat tax would be an incentive for people to *not* have children. Guess what? That's a looming problem for some nations that already have negative population growth. Do you really think it's a good idea for a nation to have a falling population? Job growth? Who's going to fill those jobs? In fact, some countries are currently considering providing more incentives for couples to have more children as a way to address their population problem.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Extelleron
I think I'll stay ignorant on this one.

ignorance of the law is no defense

No, but if you never get caught you don't NEED a defense.

Originally posted by: TheNinja
My point is that if we have a flat tax. We won't need to pay the IRS hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out everybody's confusing tax returns. Therefore b/c of that EVERYONE would pay less taxes overall from poor to rich. And besides a flat tax seems fair. If you make 10,000 you pay 1000 in taxes. If you make 10,000,000, you pay 1,000,000.

What if you have $5,000,000 in the stock market? How do you compute how much money you make or lose per year? I mean, now that we've disbanded the IRS because we can "file our tax return on a napkin", of course all the rich people will happily report every single source of income they have and give an honest appraisal of what they're making...sort of like the poor people are currently including their tips in their returns

That current tax scheme looks unduly complex, and perhaps it is, but the fact of the matter is that money is the ONLY incentive which government wields to coerce the greediest and least morally scrupulous of businesses and individuals into actions more in line with society. Add the carrots and sticks together over decades and decades, and we get the current tax system.

Originally posted by: MS Dawn


Everyone should just pay a flat tax of 10%. No returns, no forms, just a straight bill. Of course if frogs had wings they would not have to bump their asses on lily pads either.

10% of WHAT? And who's counting?

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: BD2003
The problem is you are measuring success by achievement, and ignoring opportunity.

The rich want special treatment just as much as the poor. As badly as the welfare mom wants to get that free check every month, the trust fund kid wants to keep every cent. Both want to justify earning what they have.

The welfare mom says I'm starving, I need food, are you going to let me and my kids go homeless and die in the street? She's right, and we as a civilized nation shouldnt let that happen. But give that helping hand, and she'll come to expect it, and feels she deserves it. It only ends up compounding the problem.

The trust fund kid believes that it's his birthright. His parents rightfully earned the money, so she should have it. And he's right. They most likely legally earned it, and why shouldnt he be able to keep ALL of it? But that money just makes more money, and it only concentrates the wealth in the hands of the few, which is something as a nation that we aren't really cool with.

In other words, dont think you deserve what you haven't earned. The wealthy peoples investment in our stock market etc, is an important part of our economy, and should and is rewarded. But there is a point where both the poor and the rich expect too much, for too little work.

The poor get a lot of help in this country, but it isnt a nanny state. If you've lived in or near a poor neighborhood, you'd know that regardless of the help they get, they lead sh*tty lives...theyre not dancing in the street from free money. No one chooses to be in that situation. They are there because they dont know any better, or don't have the opportunity to learn or do any better because theyre struggling to survive. The fantasy you are having about the poor people who live off the free handout and love every minute of not having to work is absurd, applicable to surely only a small minority.

The rich get taxed more heavily than the middle and lower classes, but at the end of the day, theyre still rich. They're rich because they are at the top of the pyramid, the pyramid which cannot exist without the middle and lower classes below them. So should they get taxed more, because they are rich essentially only with the help of everyone else? Hell yes.

Right now, the system is still functioning to maintain that balance, but it is tipping in the direction of polarization, which I personally think is a bad thing. I don't claim to have the answer to poverty...our current system isnt really it, but yours DEFINITELY isnt it.

You can also argue that the rich benefit the most from a stable society, public infrastructure, ie productive employees with public educations/using public transportation, legal system, police and military to protect their property rights, etc. There would be no Bill Gates/Microsoft growing out of Africa.

I'm not saying the tax system is perfect, but rich people who cry about taxes are imo some of the worst whiny bitches ever.

 

[newmachineoverlord]

Originally posted by: OS

Originally posted by: BD2003
The problem is you are measuring success by achievement, and ignoring opportunity.

The rich want special treatment just as much as the poor. As badly as the welfare mom wants to get that free check every month, the trust fund kid wants to keep every cent. Both want to justify earning what they have.

The welfare mom says I'm starving, I need food, are you going to let me and my kids go homeless and die in the street? She's right, and we as a civilized nation shouldnt let that happen. But give that helping hand, and she'll come to expect it, and feels she deserves it. It only ends up compounding the problem.

The trust fund kid believes that it's his birthright. His parents rightfully earned the money, so she should have it. And he's right. They most likely legally earned it, and why shouldnt he be able to keep ALL of it? But that money just makes more money, and it only concentrates the wealth in the hands of the few, which is something as a nation that we aren't really cool with.

In other words, dont think you deserve what you haven't earned. The wealthy peoples investment in our stock market etc, is an important part of our economy, and should and is rewarded. But there is a point where both the poor and the rich expect too much, for too little work.

The poor get a lot of help in this country, but it isnt a nanny state. If you've lived in or near a poor neighborhood, you'd know that regardless of the help they get, they lead sh*tty lives...theyre not dancing in the street from free money. No one chooses to be in that situation. They are there because they dont know any better, or don't have the opportunity to learn or do any better because theyre struggling to survive. The fantasy you are having about the poor people who live off the free handout and love every minute of not having to work is absurd, applicable to surely only a small minority.

The rich get taxed more heavily than the middle and lower classes, but at the end of the day, theyre still rich. They're rich because they are at the top of the pyramid, the pyramid which cannot exist without the middle and lower classes below them. So should they get taxed more, because they are rich essentially only with the help of everyone else? Hell yes.

Right now, the system is still functioning to maintain that balance, but it is tipping in the direction of polarization, which I personally think is a bad thing. I don't claim to have the answer to poverty...our current system isnt really it, but yours DEFINITELY isnt it.

You can also argue that the rich benefit the most from a stable society, public infrastructure, ie productive employees with public educations/using public transportation, legal system, police and military to protect their property rights, etc. There would be no Bill Gates/Microsoft growing out of Africa.

I'm not saying the tax system is perfect, but rich people who cry about taxes are imo some of the worst whiny bitches ever.

OS for president 2008. You have articulated an idea that appears to be beyond the ability of most people to comprehend.


Although a flat tax wouldn't be all that bad if it exempted the first 200k (in y2k dollars) in income, and if there were still consumption taxes on "bads" such as nonrenewable fuels, cigarrettes, cocaine, prostitution, etc. To be a fair tax, it would have to exempt a high enough portion to pay for basic survival plus transportation to work and child care even in high cost of living areas. I wouldn't see a problem with taxing 70% of income made after the first 200k/year, and nothing before that. Instead the flat tax often promoted is really a "let the rich drink the blood of the poor" tax.

Also, the death tax should be way higher than it is. The world is increasingly run by spoiled rich kids who can use their money to manipulate the public to do their will.

 

[bigredguy]

All that this would accomplish is to increase the deficit. Why?

Because American is filled with too many impulse buying dumbasses. They wouldn't have the money come April, so they'd end up with garnished wages, and guess what. Now you're paying as you go, except you lost a year of income from taxes.

The idea is great, but Politcians will never go for it, and Americans are too stupid for it.

And i roll my eyes every year when someone brags about how huge their refund check is. I try to explain that your goal should be to get the smallest amount back.

 

[bearxor]

I've managed to pay only about $100 or so over the last four years to the federal government because of exemptions and such. I feel very proud of that, but that world is coming to an end this year

And I love how tax systems that really are fair (like the fair tax or the flat tax) aren't really fair because they don't tax the rich heavily enough. I mean, at 15%, someone making 30k a year pays 4500 in taxes, where someone who makes 100k a year pays 15k in taxes. I don't see how this isn't fair and how you can say that in a flat tax system the rich aren't pulling their weight.

Oh well... People who think like that are the reason our tax system will never get reformed. Fair Tax FTW!

 

[Golgatha]

You can request for your employer to not take taxes out of your check. If you're financially responsible and want to do it that way, then more power to you.

/thread

 

[luckysnafu]

Fair Tax FTW!

 

[Specop 007]

Originally posted by: OS
You can also argue that the rich benefit the most from a stable society, public infrastructure, ie productive employees with public educations/using public transportation, legal system, police and military to protect their property rights, etc. There would be no Bill Gates/Microsoft growing out of Africa.

I'm not saying the tax system is perfect, but rich people who cry about taxes are imo some of the worst whiny bitches ever.

I think some of those African warlords are doing pretty good for themselves.
In fact, what would you prefer. Your rich and have to follow the laws of society, or your rich and you make the laws of society and enforce it with small armies of hired killers who do just that to anyone who disagrees with you.

While the rich benefit from a stable society they by no means require one. In fact, the rich are better set to deal with an instable society then you or I and qould most likely have even MORe power in an unstable society then they do in a stable one.

 

[911paramedic]

I wish the IRS was more like WAMU.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: bigredguy
All that this would accomplish is to increase the deficit. Why?

Because American is filled with too many impulse buying dumbasses. They wouldn't have the money come April, so they'd end up with garnished wages, and guess what. Now you're paying as you go, except you lost a year of income from taxes.

The idea is great, but Politcians will never go for it, and Americans are too stupid for it.

And i roll my eyes every year when someone brags about how huge their refund check is. I try to explain that your goal should be to get the smallest amount back.

The IRS has a cool little calculator that will tell you how many exemptions you should take based upon your income and how much is being taken out. I did this the other day and readjusted my W4, I should get a refund of $75 in April now.

I would never trust people at large to be fiscally responsible enough to be able to appropriate money throughout the year for taxes. Someone that is responsible enough to do this, is probably also responsible enough to do the necessary calculations to make sure they are not having too much taken out.

 

[alkemyst]

For most people the interest they would gain is moot and most people would then come up short at tax time.

 

[ViviTheMage]

agreed

 

[vi edit]

In previous jobs I was heavily bonused. My bonus checks got uber taxed. After my deductions (mortgage, student loan interest, charity, ect) I usually had $1000-$2000 coming back.

Yes, I could have switched up my withholdings a bit to get back $100-$150 a month, but what does that *REALLY* gain me? At the measly 2%-3% that savings accounts were at the last couple years I'd have earned another $30-$60 in interest. And then I'd have to turn around and pay captial gains on that.

Big whoop. That money probably just would have been wasted on stupid little things anyway like eating out or needless purchases. Instead I take the big lump sum $1000-$2000 and just plop it down on a loan. Yes, I know that I could have saved myself a bit in interest by paying down over the year, but it just doesn't work out that way.

You mind your business and I'll mind mine.

 

[xospec1alk]

you know....i did a tax estimator , and im on track to get back almost 4gs...im really disappointed, but fact of the matter is....im already claiming 0 on my W2...what else can i do at this point?

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: xospec1alk
you know....i did a tax estimator , and im on track to get back almost 4gs...im really disappointed, but fact of the matter is....im already claiming 0 on my W2...what else can i do at this point?

Uhh, you are getting back 4 gs *BECAUSE* you are claiming 0. If you bump that up to say, 3 you might end up breaking even.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Specop 007

Originally posted by: OS
You can also argue that the rich benefit the most from a stable society, public infrastructure, ie productive employees with public educations/using public transportation, legal system, police and military to protect their property rights, etc. There would be no Bill Gates/Microsoft growing out of Africa.

I'm not saying the tax system is perfect, but rich people who cry about taxes are imo some of the worst whiny bitches ever.

I think some of those African warlords are doing pretty good for themselves.
In fact, what would you prefer. Your rich and have to follow the laws of society, or your rich and you make the laws of society and enforce it with small armies of hired killers who do just that to anyone who disagrees with you.

While the rich benefit from a stable society they by no means require one. In fact, the rich are better set to deal with an instable society then you or I and qould most likely have even MORe power in an unstable society then they do in a stable one.

lol!!

What a terrible argument, so you're saying the rich are a couple steps away from raping and pillaging their own country.

Yeah veiled blackmailing of american society is really productive, do it our way or else we'll hire a mercenary army to pillage everyone.

Way to show people that rich people who cry about taxes aren't power tripping whiney bitches, i don't want to pay taxes, i'd rather hire a personal army/protection mob and buy my way.

I hope you enjoy the occasional coup, assassinations and ransom kidnappings that come along with feudalism. Goodluck raising your nice well-heeled family, lounging around at your waterfront vacation home and holding your old boys cocktail pool parties in perpetual civil war.

 

[xospec1alk]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: xospec1alk
you know....i did a tax estimator , and im on track to get back almost 4gs...im really disappointed, but fact of the matter is....im already claiming 0 on my W2...what else can i do at this point?

Uhh, you are getting back 4 gs *BECAUSE* you are claiming 0. If you bump that up to say, 3 you might end up breaking even.

really? i thought they start taking less and less taxes the more exemptions you have no? i claimed 1 for a while, and was getting a lot less taken out of my paychecks.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: xospec1alk

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: xospec1alk
you know....i did a tax estimator , and im on track to get back almost 4gs...im really disappointed, but fact of the matter is....im already claiming 0 on my W2...what else can i do at this point?

Uhh, you are getting back 4 gs *BECAUSE* you are claiming 0. If you bump that up to say, 3 you might end up breaking even.

really? i thought they start taking less and less taxes the more exemptions you have no? i claimed 1 for a while, and was getting a lot less taken out of my paychecks.

You said you are getting back $4,000. That's because you are having too much held back. You are having that much held back because at 0 exemptions, you are at the "top" of the withholdings. They are holding back more of your paycheck than any other filing.

If you change that to 1, 2, 3, ect, they start holding back less and less taxes. This will leave you with more money throughout the year and you will have less coming back in the form of a refund at the end of the year.

 

[Injury]

Everyone who is supporting the idea of just paying in one lump sum once a year and not having deductions is missing one HUGE thing...

Too many people have piss poor money management skills and will be caught with their pants down when they have to come up with a few thousand dollars at the beginning of April because they didn't bother to save any of it, and they waited to the last couple of weeks to do their taxes. Thus, even though it probably happened for the past decade, they didn't stop to realize that they would owe this much at this point in time.

So yeah, you don't realize how much money is coming out. but the government now has to spend millions more to get what could be 25% of the country to actually pay... then they have to use money that they didn't collect to jail tax evaders all over the country, they have to pay people to find them and the people to watch over them in jail, they have to pay to run the courts.



Or you could just learn to look at your check stub and see how much was taken out. I can tell you that I pay roughly 18% in taxes weekly. I can tell you for the thousands of dollars I get charged, I get only a few hundred back... and sadly, the intrest on a few hundred wouldn't be but maybe a couple bucks, a ten spot at best, and if it means that I don't have to write out a check for a few thousand dollars every year, I'm fine with that.

I do know that you can fill out a w4 in a manner that will adjust how much taxes are taken from each paycheck, and if you want to sit down and do the math to figure out how much you are going to pay in taxes each year and set the percentage as close as you can, then you can essentially either owe the government some chump change, or be getting only some chump change back.