LegendKiller
Lifer
I paid about 60K in taxes last year, yet I'm not bitching about it as long as the money goes to useful purposes.
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Top 1% pays 50% of the taxes.
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I paid about 60K in taxes last year, yet I'm not bitching about it as long as the money goes to useful purposes.
D
Deleted member 4644
I noticed that none of the repugs like replying to my posts.
shiner
Lifer
I'm well aware that there are legal ways to lower your tax bill if you have good people working on it for you. I'm one of the people that takes advantage of the tax laws every which way I can.
However that doesn't change the point of this thread. The "rich" still pay most of the taxes in this country yet are constantly demonized through the class warefare of some within the Democratic Party.
Because your posts are nothing more than class warfare and jealousy.
The reason the top 10% of wage earners have 80% of the wealth is because they want to grow their money and increase their net worth. That is not a bad thing. It also includes the top 1% of earners whose net worth grows largely year over year.
That is not a bad thing. Nothing is preventing anybody from increasing their wealth or becoming one of those evil top 10% of wage earners.
D
Deleted member 4644
The poor are demonized too. They are called lazy and worthless and it is said that they waste their money.
But many of them work 50 hours a week doing back breaking labor. Many of them barely earn enough to eat. And a lot of them are tricked into bad debt.
So if the rich are demonized a little too, well, they can have their PR people handle it, and I don't feel too sorry for them.
heyheybooboo
Diamond Member
Dude.
Reality check.
D
Deleted member 4644
I agree its not a bad thing, but will you admit one thing?
The rich could not possibly be rich without the system and institutions created by the politicians they get elected and the people who work in their call centers and factories.
The rich get HUGE opportunities possible only in a hybrid capitalist/socialist system like the USA, where government subsidies and special rules ranging from IP laws to criminal laws make it all possible.
The rich OWE it to the rest to pay a reasonable -- and yes large -- share back into that system.
If we had a TRUE 100% free market, and everything was 100% private. Fine. But the rich (of all parties) have used the system to make a lot of the RISK public and the REWARD private. Taxes are the only thing that equalizes that at all.
spacejamz
Lifer
Cue up the 'right wing propoganda' reply posts!!!
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that?s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ?Since you are all such good customers,? he said, ?I?m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.? Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ?fair share?? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody?s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man?s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
?I only got a dollar out of the $20,? declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,? but he got $10!?
?Yeah, that?s right,? exclaimed the fifth man. ?I only saved a dollar, too. It?s unfair that he got ten times more than I!?
?That?s true!? shouted the seventh man. ?Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!?
?Wait a minute,? yelled the first four men in unison. ?We didn?t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!?
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn?t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn?t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
Progressive taxation is not perfect, but it is the best way of collecting income tax. A flat tax doesn't work, nor is it fair.
The top 1% only have 1% of the vote. The bottom 50% will decide who wins and loses every election year.
The top 1% only have 1% of the vote. The bottom 50% will decide who wins and loses every election year.
halik
Lifer
I would tend to argue that top 1% should pay back to the system, because it's in their best interest. Without middle class you end up with a society like in columbia, where you have to drive around in armored vehicles with machine gun escort.
That and the marginal utility of cash is decreasing - $100 to Bill Gates is worth a lot less than someone flipping burgers, which is why progressive rate taxes make sense.
D
Deleted member 4644
Your post reflects sanity, IMO.
does thinking for yourself hurt so much that you need Rush to supply your talking points?
if your brain is even half on, there should be absolutely nothing shocking about these percentages. the only way to owe taxes is to earn money. the only way for 1% of NYC to owe 50% of NYC's taxes is for that 1% to have earned a shit ton of money. the fact that income disparity is so great is the real problem.
D
Deleted member 4644
This post is simple, but correct.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
Blue collar guy has enough for 3 square meals a day, a wide screen TV, a car etc. Meanwhile, in a lot of African countries you are lucky if you get any food at all. From African guy's perspective, 'blue collar' guy is loaded.
It's not that fairness is hard to nail down, from an existential perspective, it doesn't exist.
Show me the tax returns and employment contracts of the top 1% and I'll show you a large group of tax cheats, overpaid swindlers, fat cats eating out of the corporate dining room and off the fat of the company, and so much more. I'll bet their actual tax rates are lower than the average Americans'.
I worked in a tax law firm for two years (I'd aced my tax courses in law school so they thought they'd give me a shot even though I didn't have an LLM.). Anyway, I never saw so many tax avoidance schemes in my life. LOL! They were paying the senior partner $200 an hour in 1973 for a reason....
The naivete on this board is beyond astounding....
-Robert
I worked in a tax law firm for two years (I'd aced my tax courses in law school so they thought they'd give me a shot even though I didn't have an LLM.). Anyway, I never saw so many tax avoidance schemes in my life. LOL! They were paying the senior partner $200 an hour in 1973 for a reason....
The naivete on this board is beyond astounding....
-Robert
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