The impossibility of a Fair Tax

[Triumph]

No taxes... we should pay for everything out of our own pocket. Pay a toll to get on the road, pay a bill to the "public" school, pay the hospital for your surgery, and buy a gun to protect yourself.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Triumph
No taxes... we should pay for everything out of our own pocket. Pay a toll to get on the road, pay a bill to the "public" school, pay the hospital for your surgery, and buy a gun to protect yourself.

LOL, because you say so, right?

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: Triumph
No taxes... we should pay for everything out of our own pocket. Pay a toll to get on the road, pay a bill to the "public" school, pay the hospital for your surgery, and buy a gun to protect yourself.

LOL, because you say so, right?

Well why not? You only buy what you need. No government involvement at all, pure capitalism. And it'd be more fair than a flat tax, even. Think about it, a rich person doesn't use the roads any more than a poor person does. He doesn't get sick any less often than a poor person. He's just as likely to need the fire department as a poor person. So why should he effectively pay more for these services?

I'm just throwing things out there; I think it'd be interesting to get an island community together to try out these different economic theories. Get a couple hundred people together on an island, absolutely no system of government, and see what happens. It'd make for good reality TV.

 

[RobCur]

Most believe taxes is necessary. Who would make the roads? Who would provide public education? Who would defend this country? and the list goes on.

Taxes is a good thing? No? as long as most are ignorance and dumb it won't go away anytime soon.

Only smart people know that paying taxes is nothing more then a big scam, it isn't required to run this country at all since the rich are already financed by this big business such as coke, ibm, ford, microsoft, etc.

Taxes are so the poor will have to foot most of the bill keeping the rich, super rich.
Because the poor are so dumb, they'll never figure it out that their poor because of all the taxes imposed on them. This is not capitalism, it's commies growing larger everyday. The only way to pay less taxes is to work less and make less. so this is not good for the country, it makes everyone lazy knowing that working harder has no benefits.

Maybe they enjoy being poor, I dunno but an idiot will always be an idiot.
Nuff said.

 

[chess9]

This idea, along with privatization of social security, is an interesting one, but what is most troublesome about these big leaps in policy is WE DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT WILL
ACTUALLY HAPPEN.

If you had a doctor who was very good, but a bit on the pricey side, would you dump him in favor of a slightly less expensive doctor whose competence was unknown?

I'd suggest the neocons and right wingers embrace bringing our troops home from Iraq and cutting our defense and offense spending and balancing our budget before they engage in stupid
tinkering with our tax systems.

-Robert

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
The only fair tax is a progressive income tax on everyone and every corporation. The more you make the more you pay. If a corporation is making billions and tries to pass all the tax along to the consumer then maybe they would make an opening for a smaller corporation to become competive. And competition is as good for the goose as it is the gander.

And WHY is it fair for you to pay a higher PERCENTAGE because you EARNED more? A "Fair" tax would be if we all paid the same RATE (say, 10% or however much).

I have to print this to read later, but does anyone know offhand if it includes food?

Jason

 

[3chordcharlie]

A truly fair tax is a pipe-dream.

Progressive taxation can be explained in two ways:

1. By an assertion (which is not 'unsupportable' but neither is it carved in stone) that the wealthy derive more financial benefit from government programs (including infrastructure) and the 'system' that government protects (via courst, etc).

2. By an argument from 'diminishing utility of wealth' (basically the idea that losing part of a large income has less detrimental effect than losing a proportionally similar part of a smaller income). This is essentially the same argument as 'rich people can afford to pay more, but stated more effectively, because the reality is that everyone 'could' afford to pay more.

If neither of these were true (and the second one is completely true; questioning it comes from an ethical POV, not a mathematical one), a flat tax would obviously be most fair (not flat rate - flat in terms of dollars).

 

[Kibbo]

Here's another couple for you charlie:

Continually increasing wealth and income inequality will lead to greater class identification, and then resentment. This could fundamentally undercut the political stability of a given state. This is the reason that Bismark, a deeply conservative politician, instituted the first modern welfare state in his newly-united Germany. It's also why Roosevelt created a large welfare state in the US. He's been quoted as saying that he was "making it safe to be rich." As far back as Plato equality has been touted as an instrumental "good" for the purposes of maintaing a "good" state. Note that some say that class mobility can serve a similar purpose.

Continually increasing wealth inequality *could* concentrate political power in the hands of the upper class. That's related to your first point. I'm not married to that one.

There is also the purely moral argument against inequality, that it is obscene that one man grows fat when another man starves.

Of course, these arguments all hinge on the assumption that the best way to reduce inequality is through progressive taxation. But I've not ever heard a better plan.