Should The Rich Pay More Taxes?

[jimzinsocal]

I figured a thread might work on the issue so the other thread doesnt get off topic or too centered on taxes. Also because its a strong campaign issue.
And llso because at Zerohedge they had a similar question today.

So give this a read.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-...e-taxes?page=1

If you think so or dont..explain reasoning.

[Keven]

Gallup did an interesting poll.

They said, "How much should somebody making $250,000 pay in taxes?"

Most people said 20%. Which, if of course, way below the marginal tax rate for that bracket of 35%.

No, I don't think the rich should pay more in taxes. I think there should be a flat tax rate for everybody.

"But that's regressive! It's harder on poor people!"

So? Society is regressive. A $20 meal at Applebee's may be a once-a-month expense for a poor person, but $20 is nothing to a rich person. Life is regressive.

Considering that half this country doesn't pay any federal income tax at all (due to them being kids, old people or unemployed), I don't see how the rich paying more is making them pay their "fair share".

People who make over $50,000 and corporations already make up 95% of this country's tax burden. That's something to consider next time Obama or Elizabeth Warren stand up and say the rich aren't paying their fair share.

I also think capital gains tax is wrong, double taxation and unconstitutional. But, we can get into that later.

[kbohip]

^^^^I've always like the idea of a flat tax, but I don't think most in the IRS would go along with it.

[AMDScooter]

^^^^I've always like the idea of a flat tax, but I don't think most in the IRS would go along with it.

I like the idea as well with the caveot that EVERYONE pays into it. As in.. no one too rich or too poor. Libtards always use the "what about the poor" argument to tax the 50% of us who do pay taxes into oblivion while the 50% who don't simply continue to vote Demorat. EVERYONE needs to have skin in the game. Period.

[Keven]

I like the idea as well with the caveot that EVERYONE pays into it. As in.. no one too rich or too poor. Libtards always use the "what about the poor" argument to tax the 50% of us who do pay taxes into oblivion while the 50% who don't simply continue to vote Demorat. EVERYONE needs to have skin in the game. Period.

Exactly. I am astonished by how the American left is just completely unconcerned about the debt. They seem to think that lopping the military budget in half (which probably wouldn't even be possible) and raising taxes on the rich will work.

Uh, hello? We're behind $15.7 trillion. You can't raise enough taxes to get that to work.

We're spending $2.2 trillion every year that we don't have.

Let's do a little exercise.

313 million Americans.

Half of them don't pay taxes because they're kids, old, poor, disabled, whatever.

So, 156.5 million taxable Americans. $2.2 trillion divided by 156.5 million.

2,200,000,000,000 / 156,500,000 = 14,057

You would need to raise the taxes on every person making over $50,000 by $14,057. And that just covers one year's deficit. That doesn't even touch the $15.7 trillion debt.

Sorry, liberals, there aren't enough Bill Gates and Warren Buffets in the United States to bail us out.

[bk94si]

^^^^I've always like the idea of a flat tax, but I don't think most in the IRS would go along with it.

I've always liked that idea as well. Everyone pays their fair share because everyone is paying the same rate. Of course you would have to get rid of all deductions and loopholes and tax incentives and tax free investments and tax rebates and earned income tax credits and deductions for dependents and property tax deductions and green energy credits and.........

[bk94si]

As for the rich paying more taxes, they already do!

[Keven]

I've always liked that idea as well. Everyone pays their fair share because everyone is paying the same rate. Of course you would have to get rid of all deductions and loopholes and tax incentives and tax free investments and tax rebates and earned income tax credits and deductions for dependents and property tax deductions and green energy credits and.........

Yeah, when he was still in the pres race, Rick Perry had put forward a plan for a flat income tax, but his plan said that people who made less than like $20,000 would get a tax "prebate" so the tax wouldn't be regressive. I don't like a flat tax plan if it involves, um, mailing checks to poor people. We probably do too much of that already.

[kbohip]

I've always liked that idea as well. Everyone pays their fair share because everyone is paying the same rate. Of course you would have to get rid of all deductions and loopholes and tax incentives and tax free investments and tax rebates and earned income tax credits and deductions for dependents and property tax deductions and green energy credits and.........

...and the IRS...It's like I said, the IRS will NEVER go along with a flat tax. FYI, if for some crazy reason they ever do, I will short every paper company I can!

On the subject of a flat tax, we already have a sort of flat tax that everyone, rich or poor pays into. It's called sales tax. Guess what, it works pretty good for the most part too. The rich pay more sales tax as they tend to buy more expensive items. The only time sales tax can be abused is when, you guessed it, the politicians squander the money on things it was never supposed to be used for, and then raise the tax to ridiculous heights. Hmmm, and guess which city has the highest sales tax in the US? Uh huh, BO's old proving ground of Chicago.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politic...elieve-in.html

[Keven]

...and the IRS...It's like I said, the IRS will NEVER go along with a flat tax. FYI, if for some crazy reason they ever do, I will short every paper company I can!

On the subject of a flat tax, we already have a sort of flat tax that everyone, rich or poor pays into. It's called sales tax. Guess what, it works pretty good for the most part too. The rich pay more sales tax as they tend to buy more expensive items. The only time sales tax can be abused is when, you guessed it, the politicians squander the money on things it was never supposed to be used for, and then raise the tax to ridiculous heights. Hmmm, and guess which city has the highest sales tax in the US? Uh huh, BO's old proving ground of Chicago.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politic...elieve-in.html

Call me crazy, but if liberals get their way, we might see a "progressive" sales tax in the next 50 years or so.

The lefties already talk about "progressive" traffic tickets so rich people could pay more than poor people when they're caught speeding or illegally parking.

I can only imagine if some people are plotting to give rich people bigger speeding tickets, then they'd figure out a way to give bigger sales tax to rich people and smaller ones to poor people.

[kbohip]

They figured out how to do that years ago already. They btw being the Republicans (back to why I'm so unhappy with the party but I digress). It was none other than Bush senior who signed it into law, and of course the stupid tax failed miserably so it disappeared. That actually amazes me, as it seems most of the time taxes that don't work never stop government from keeping them around.

The U.S. enacted a luxury tax in November 1990, established by Congress and signed by President George H.W. Bush. Buyers of private yachts, planes, furs, jewelries and luxury cars are levied excise taxes. When luxury goods exceed certain prices, they are charged with excise taxes. For example, yachts below $100,000 are taxed at regular rates, and for yachts above $100,000, in addition to the regular rates, a 10 percent tax is charged on the excess amount.

At that time, the bill was idealistic and simple to understand — only the rich can afford luxury items, and a tax on the rich fulfills social justice. Although the bill violates Bush’s election promise to “not raise taxes” during his term as president, he did not receive much opposition in proposing the luxury tax.

However, in August 1993, two years after its introduction, the U.S. Congress decided to end the “luxury tax” because the tax revenues were disappointing and the livelihoods of common folks who made a living by selling “luxury items” were negatively impacted.
http://watchingamerica.com/News/9439...total-failure/

http://lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams92.1.html

[jimzinsocal]

On more taxes for rich folks? For me it depends on what hat Im wearing really.
As a fellow taxpayer I understand the selfish notion that might suggest "if they pay more maybe theyll leave me alone" Its only valid because the thinking/perception is real.
As a government employee tasked with increasing revenies (my future) I can understand as well.
As an economist Id have to know a few things:
1. What is the endgame...what is it you are attempting to change?
a. Fairness perception (political consideration)
b. Increased tax revenues to help deficits
c. As a method to increase income equality
d. As a means to stimulate economy

On the fairness angle..the political interest it probably wins. Lets face it thats the reality out there..that somehow punishing rich folks improves how I feel. Typical Obama sort of thinking.
As a deficit reducing tool? Actually any new tax revenues would help there. No single tax increase will solve it all but it can be argued any increases are better than none from a budgeting point of view. If we really want to dent the deficit increase everyone's taxes across the board. To the point of should just rich folks get taxed more rubs me the wrong way as its aimed at one minority taxpayer block.
Income equality. I think under typical circumstances more taxes on the rich wont change a thing. Ive yet to see a chart that shows clearly how a rich guy's tax bill has any effect on anyone's W-2 or 1099....nor will it change the 1099 or W-2 the rich guy gets. In other words nobody's annual income is affected. Yet some politicians think it will close the income gap.
Stimulate the economy. Lets call it the Krugman hunch. The assumption suggests when we boil it all down, rich people arent investing much at the moment, so in order to improve things..more government revenue will lead to more government spending = more jobs and GDP gains.
I might argue well how did those spending increases work out before? Obviously not well. Setting aside the source of the cash? Why would we think increased revenues will suddenly provide us a laundry list of government "investments" that are golden? Or do we simply say any spending is good done by government and smarter than what a rich guy might invest $ in.
Seems backwards to me. Why not incentivize investment instead rather than shrink the investment pool owned by the rich.

And I 100% agree some flat tax/sales tax deal needs to be done.

[Dutchcedar]

After seeing lots of chart-fu about this, I still haven't seen any that shows taxing the rich more will actually bring in mo money. I've seen that it does indeed change the behavior of investors and businesses, hardly ever in a positive way.

I could get behind flat tax rates and eliminating loopholes. I'd go as far as supporting the elimination of all deductions... even charitable deductions and home mortgage interest.

[myv65]

The tax issue has become increasingly muddled over the years. Let me start with what I take as obvious:

If you have more, you (should) pay more. I do not necessarily mean a higher percentage, but simply more $$$.

I find myself often frustrated by the over zealous focus on a single aspect of the tax debate. People lock onto federal income tax, for example, and beat it to death. I got news for ya folks, if you're in the lower 50% income bracket then your federal taxes, if any, represent peanuts of your total tax burden. It makes little sense to hammer away at the fact they pay no federal income taxes when they're still paying FICA, Medicare, sales tax, gas tax, booze tax, cable TV tax, phone tax, 911 tax, vehicle registration tax, tire fees, blah, blah, blah.

What I'm driving at is that, IMHO, we've put too much focus on the specific case of federal income tax (tax rates, proportion carried by income group, etc) and lost sight of a key concept. On the whole, federal income tax rates have fallen over the past 50 years, yet government continues to bloat. How is this? It's because our politicians have been keeping us distracted on stuff like federal tax brackets and federal tax stats while instituting a whole host of new taxes and fees.

For us upper-half income folks, this should be distressing. It means government is getting bigger and consuming more of our national output. It means they're deceiving us by taking a smaller chunk out of our paycheck, but taking a bigger (much bigger) piece of our take home pay.

For the lower-half income folks, this should be distressing. It means government has left our paycheck alone, since they never really did much to it anyways, but has decided to consume a big part of our take home pay. These after-tax taxes hit the lower-half income people especially hard.

Personally I can shrug my shoulders and grumble a bit when I clean out the glove compartment and find out that my annual vehicle registration has climbed from $55 a year in 2003 to $95 a year now. I can grumble when I find that I'm paying $5 a tire when I buy new tires to cover post-processing (and grumble again when I pluck four old tires out of my 1/4 mile of ditch every year). I can grumble when the government puts in another $2 a month to cover 911 on cell phones. These are nickels and dimes, and I and others blindly seem to take every new one that comes along.

The poor do the same, mildly complaining while a greater portion of their income gets chewed up by some politician's latest invention.

Each new one indeed tends to be nickels and dimes, but by gosh over the years they really add up to big bucks.

IMHO, the greater battle isn't nit-picking over absolute tax rates or whether all should be paying a fixed percentage versus a progressive one. The greater battle should be on the overall size of government, including all levels, over time. Simple fact is that it's grown incredibly over the past 100 years, especially over the past 50, and shows no signs of halting that growth. *That's* what's going to kill us if not addressed. This debate of bumping tax brackets up and down a few points and nudging standard deductions is fluff in comparison.

[kbohip]

^^^^

In other words vote for Ron Paul. Sorry, I had to state the obvious. Oh and btw, it seems your city/state has done the same thing with vehicle registration fees that mine has. My yearly cost increases almost mirror your's exactly.