Studying is fer thems intellect-ul elites liberal lefty commies. I don't need no gubmt educashun with thems eve-o-lutions from monkeys. Got mah answers here in the B-I-B-L-E, I do. Pat Roberson sayed so.
All this talk about Dunkin' Donuts is making me miss the east coast. I would right about kill for a Dunkin Donuts sausage, egg, and cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel right now. And don't even get me started on Papa Gino's. MAN do I want me some Papa Gino's.
Oh I'm sorry, political talk. Right. Boo, Romney. Hiss.
Let me take a moment out from the paper I'm working on to succinctly state why flat tax is really, really bad.
So, first, take the flat tax to be 30%.
Imagine a family sub-poverty line with a gross annual income of $10k, which must then pay a total of $3000 of tax. That effectively leaves the family with $7000 of usable income for an entire year; failure to remit results in prison. $7000 is an effectively unlivable sum of money. Barely enough for food, power, and rent, let alone healthcare. Even gas to work is out of reach. $7000 is homeless-in-a-car money.
Now, take a person grossing $7mil per annum. Their tax at that rate is $2.1 million dollars, which is a lot. However, that person has an absurd sum of money left over, easily enough to live in luxury with cash left over.
The problem with the flat tax is that it locks the poor into poverty, and doesn't impact the rich at all. Realistically, taxes should be scaled across income brackets to impact everyone evenly. Someone grossing $10k should pay maybe $500/yr, while a $7m earner pays $4-5mil or something, with a tax cap for ultrahigh earners so that you don't see people with $20m annual income giving up 90% of it. Neither person is utterly fucked by their taxes, but the government gets more money for programs and infrastructure, and everyone benefits.
If you're so mad about "progressive" taxation, then why do you advocate a flat percentage tax? People who earn more still pay more here! To follow your argument, the only fair tax is a properly flat tax: one where everyone pays the same dollar amount. Otherwise, people who make more pay more, which seems to be what you're against on an ideological level.
There is zero ideological gap between a flat percentage tax and a scaled percentage tax, at least in the context you've described.
Who are you addressing? I think those that make more should pay more. At income rates, Romney should have paid $7m in taxes on his $20m+ of income, but the capital gains subsidy means that he only paid $3m. That's not OK.
If you're so mad about "progressive" taxation, then why do you advocate a flat percentage tax? People who earn more still pay more here! To follow your argument, the only fair tax is a properly flat tax: one where everyone pays the same dollar amount. Otherwise, people who make more pay more, which seems to be what you're against on an ideological level.
There is zero ideological gap between a flat percentage tax and a scaled percentage tax, at least in the context you've described.
Some folks involved in this discussion do not know appear to know what a regressive/ progressive/ proportional tax is.
Payroll taxes are regressive because there is an income cap in place that results in people with higher income paying a lower effective percentage once they pass the cap.
A tax code where the rates go up the more money you make is progressive. Even if those who make $10K pay 30% the tax is progressive if those who make $100K pay 50% and so on.
funny part is when you add in state and local taxes to your total tax liability, the US tax code is surprisingly already flat. With most people all playing about the same %. Which in my opinion is part of the problem we have.
Not pretending to be a tax expert but... Don't forgot to consider the way taxes are calculated. The percentage is only calculated in certain ranges. (Disclaimer, figures not exact, going from memory, making these up, etc.) So the first 7,000 for everyone is not taxed. Then any money made after that is taxed at ~15% up to whatever the next a bracket is (25k?), money made after that is at 20% up to (50k?) etc. etc. So in the end, if you make say 75k and are in the 25% bracket, you aren't actually paying 25% on all of it, it ends up overall being lower than that. I like it that way because it means if you make 49k at 20% tax rate, then get your annual raise to 50k at 25% rate, you aren't totally fucked. At least I think thats how it works... *scratches head*
I wonder what percentage of Americans know the D/R status of various past presidents beyond their own lifetimes. Edit: Oh I meant to ask, to which charities did he donate? LDS Church doesn't count. Doubt edit: turns out LDS Church is high on that list. Also, personal charity which donates to "pro-family" groups etc.
Probably depends on the president. I think it's fairly well known that Lincoln was a Republican (hell, that's probably where they get %5-10 of the vote), but I'm not sure how many people know what parties FDR and Nixon were from.
A flat tax is economically regressive - it is not a "regressive tax." Even if a tax is equally proportionate across incomes, necessary expenses generally are not. The same basket of food from the same store costs exactly the same amount of money no matter who buys it. When you're at the poverty line, necesary expenses are the vast majority of what you pay. If you're Mitt Romney, necessary expenses are literally insignficiant.
Basically, it costs some dollar amount to actually get by in this country. Poor people are constantly close to ruin, and the wealthy forgot what it looks like. Flat tax ignores that reality.
There is likely not a single person on this board who would benefit from a flat tax. That includes those people on here who are for the flat tax. That's what's crazy about this; Steve and Jack are actively advocating something that, at their tax bracket, would fuck them totally and completely.
I was in the 95th percentile when I had a corporate job, but now I'm down to the 88th. As much as I like having gobs of money, I enjoy the work I'm doing now much more.
Not pretending to be a tax expert but... Don't forgot to consider the way taxes are calculated. The percentage is only calculated in certain ranges. (Disclaimer, figures not exact, going from memory, making these up, etc.) So the first 7,000 for everyone is not taxed. Then any money made after that is taxed at ~15% up to whatever the next a bracket is (25k?), money made after that is at 20% up to (50k?) etc. etc. So in the end, if you make say 75k and are in the 25% bracket, you aren't actually paying 25% on all of it, it ends up overall being lower than that. I like it that way because it means if you make 49k at 20% tax rate, then get your annual raise to 50k at 25% rate, you aren't totally fucked. At least I think thats how it works... *scratches head.
I'm fairly sure that's how my accountant friend explained it to me the other day.
There is likely not a single person on this board who would benefit from a flat tax. That includes those people on here who are for the flat tax. That's what's crazy about this; Steve and Jack are actively advocating something that, at their tax bracket, would fuck them totally and completely.
There is also the benefit of not having to hire an accountant when you file your taxes. To me, that is the primary benefit of a flat tax: simplification of the tax code.
Hrm... I've had this question for a while and I'm uncertain on it.
Let's say you have a sales tax. Let's say I sell you a television for $1. You pay your sales tax on that, which I remit to the authority. You now have a receipt that says you paid that tax.
Then you go and re-sell the TV (which iirc, is totally fine) for $2. There's no tax paid on that $2 TV because it can't be taxed twice, and it's already been sold at retail/first sale/whatever.
If you did this specifically to reduce the tax burden (only having to pay $1 worth of tax instead of $2) is that tax evasion?
There is also the benefit of not having to hire an accountant when you file your taxes. To me, that is the primary benefit of a flat tax: simplification of the tax code.
My main issue with flat taxers is that they seem to oversimplify the nature of taxation in general. Determining tax rates is an incredibly difficult balancing act -- you don't want to screw over the poor by taxing them too much, yet you also want to make sure the wealthy aren't overly taxed either, lest it discourage striving for achievement (as long as we have a society where monetary gain is the principal method of rewarding achievement -- this ain't Star Trek: The Next Generation where human betterment is all that matters, after all) and legitimate investment (not like some of the crazy ass hedge fund investments that really seem to be an efficient way to transfer money from the rich but stupid to hedge fund managers). You also need to make sure there is enough money in the government to let it to function properly. Some may reasonably debate just what those functions are, but no one in their right mind would say it has no function. About the only thing that can be stated is that supply-side economics has all but been proven as a flawed philosophy.
Flat taxers conflate "simple" and "fair" without giving the implications of either much thought. Plus, they tend to be really bad at both math and statistics.
Hrm... I've had this question for a while and I'm uncertain on it.
Let's say you have a sales tax. Let's say I sell you a television for $1. You pay your sales tax on that, which I remit to the authority. You now have a receipt that says you paid that tax.
Then you go and re-sell the TV (which iirc, is totally fine) for $2. There's no tax paid on that $2 TV because it can't be taxed twice, and it's already been sold at retail/first sale/whatever.
If you did this specifically to reduce the tax burden (only having to pay $1 worth of tax instead of $2) is that tax evasion?
Sales tax law differs by state, but I know in NY you are supposed to register for a temporary sales tax license/number even for tag sales/garage sales. Not really sure why you would need to do that if resale never had sales tax on it. There may be more specifics about the circumstances where first sale doctrine applies.
You also may avoid paying sales tax, but technically now that $1 is income you need to report for state and federal income tax. You might not bother for just one of a few, but what if you did it 20,000 times? That's $20,000 dollars of income.
You also may avoid paying sales tax, but technically now that $1 is income you need to report for state and federal income tax. You might not bother for just one of a few, but what if you did it 20,000 times? That's $20,000 dollars of income.
I think that may be capital gains, not income at that point.
Comments
Oh I'm sorry, political talk. Right. Boo, Romney. Hiss.
So, first, take the flat tax to be 30%.
Imagine a family sub-poverty line with a gross annual income of $10k, which must then pay a total of $3000 of tax. That effectively leaves the family with $7000 of usable income for an entire year; failure to remit results in prison. $7000 is an effectively unlivable sum of money. Barely enough for food, power, and rent, let alone healthcare. Even gas to work is out of reach. $7000 is homeless-in-a-car money.
Now, take a person grossing $7mil per annum. Their tax at that rate is $2.1 million dollars, which is a lot. However, that person has an absurd sum of money left over, easily enough to live in luxury with cash left over.
The problem with the flat tax is that it locks the poor into poverty, and doesn't impact the rich at all. Realistically, taxes should be scaled across income brackets to impact everyone evenly. Someone grossing $10k should pay maybe $500/yr, while a $7m earner pays $4-5mil or something, with a tax cap for ultrahigh earners so that you don't see people with $20m annual income giving up 90% of it. Neither person is utterly fucked by their taxes, but the government gets more money for programs and infrastructure, and everyone benefits.
There is zero ideological gap between a flat percentage tax and a scaled percentage tax, at least in the context you've described.
Payroll taxes are regressive because there is an income cap in place that results in people with higher income paying a lower effective percentage once they pass the cap.
A tax code where the rates go up the more money you make is progressive. Even if those who make $10K pay 30% the tax is progressive if those who make $100K pay 50% and so on.
Edit: Oh I meant to ask, to which charities did he donate? LDS Church doesn't count.
Doubt edit: turns out LDS Church is high on that list. Also, personal charity which donates to "pro-family" groups etc.
Basically, it costs some dollar amount to actually get by in this country. Poor people are constantly close to ruin, and the wealthy forgot what it looks like. Flat tax ignores that reality.
Let's say you have a sales tax. Let's say I sell you a television for $1. You pay your sales tax on that, which I remit to the authority. You now have a receipt that says you paid that tax.
Then you go and re-sell the TV (which iirc, is totally fine) for $2. There's no tax paid on that $2 TV because it can't be taxed twice, and it's already been sold at retail/first sale/whatever.
If you did this specifically to reduce the tax burden (only having to pay $1 worth of tax instead of $2) is that tax evasion?
You also may avoid paying sales tax, but technically now that $1 is income you need to report for state and federal income tax. You might not bother for just one of a few, but what if you did it 20,000 times? That's $20,000 dollars of income.