What is a fair income tax on the rich?

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What would be fair, how about the same 15% from those making 1 dollar, up to those making 50 billion dollars, that would be fair, anything else is punitive to those that are successful.

FUCKING ZERO, dude!

Why? Aren't they contributing enough by generating all those fucking jobs, economies of scale, economies of scope, etc?

replace taxes with usage fees

The government should only exist for 3 purposes: provide courts so people don't anally rupture each other on contracts/crack down on crime, military to prevent invasions, and police to keep them from fucking each other up. Outside of that---the govt that governs least is the government that governs BEST.

Lao Tzu said, thousands of fucking years ago: take away government...and morality returns

Well, no. They aren't.

Zero. There should be no income tax. There should be a flat sales tax and that be the end of it.

Flat sales tax, the time has come.

Absolutely agreed. The value of a dollar is a dollar. Why should anyone's dollars be valued differently just because they earn more or less of them?

Taxes should also be combined with budgeting and controlled spending. The Gov't spends worse than anyone or anything anywhere. When I ran out of money, I dealt with foreclosure and bankruptcy. When the gov't runs out of money (how should they? They know their revenues from taxes! Don't spend more than that!), they just print more! Wish I had a printing machine in my house for times like that!

A flat tax of some sort. I don't think just a sales tax, but more like a transaction tax. Sometimes money is moved that has nothing to do with a sale. Depending on how it is moved and who it is moved to, some of those scenarios could be taxed as a transaction.

No deductions, no adjustments, no anything. If you get a dollar from me, the gov't gets whatever the percentage is. I don't care if you have employees, I don't care how much you have to spend on an office, whatever. That's your problem. Why get deductions on it? Corporations are taxed differently than persons who are taxed differently than other persons that make more or less??? WTF? Simplify it. If the dollar moves from entity to entity for an exchange of purpose, tax that. No loopholes. Betcha our debt would be paid off in a matter of a few years.

What % would the flat rate sales tax need to be at though? High enough to keep out tourists and immigrants probably. High enough so we end up buying the same thing from a foriegn country over the internet.

Maybe a slight progressive sales tax would be better. Lower prices lower tax, higher prices higher tax.

Huh? keep out tourists and immigrants? First of all, tourists are important. Tax them based on transactions (hotels, rental cars, food, etc). Immigrants will never go away, so why not tax them for usage too (western union money shipments out of the country could be taxed heavily to promote keeping us dollars within the US).

a progressive sales tax would be the same as a progressive income tax... tax the fuckin rich. Doesn't solve a thing except inform the rich that their dollars are treated differently than everyone else's.

I like how all the rich guys pick zero. Couldn't see that one comin'

I'm not sure 250K-500K is "rich", but if you're talking theoretically about who can afford to shoulder national tax requirements, then it's a reasonable place to start squeezing a little.

In America, the top 10% owns 70%-90% of the nations wealth. The reason for the wide range I'm quoting is because it's easy to manipulate statistics depending on what you include or omit, so that covers the most conservative to most liberal interpretations.

The top 5% hold more than the remaining 95% of citizens, yet this group only covers about half of America's taxes. That's a steal.

The bottom 40% owned less than 1%. IMO none of these people should pay any income tax.

What every message board tax thread reveals is the mass ignorance of the working population about true wealth distribution in this country, comical perceptions of what rich is, and generally poor math skills with no ability to conceptualize the consequences of numbers.

I only said 250 to 500 because that is what Obama has been said to think is rich.

How bout the same as everybody else? Doesn't the constitution say that any tax on labor is to be APPORTIONED?

150b a year important, that's what I'm saying. If we use a flat tax rate then it may be so high that no one will want to come here, which is bad.

250k a year is rich? that works out to less than 5k a week

It is fucking retarded to penalize the "rich" for working hard and being successful.

INCOME tax should be 0%.

I haven't seen one rich person working in my entire life... Just because you have money and can buy people doesn't mean they shouldn't have to pay for the privilege.

The privilege to give someone a job?

http://edgeeffect.blogspot.com/2006/...k-liberal.html

So how much MORE did you pay this year in your taxes? I dont mean because of tax increases I mean because you believe the government can do better with your money than you can?


Thank you Liberals so much for making taxes so high Bush had enough money to go to war with two or more countries in the last 8 years.

LOL.. The privilege to profit off others work.

You cant be fucking serious? You dont think anyone should profit off your work?

I think i just sounded like a copyright holder. Hmmm...

sad to see when people have no idea what freedom has done for ALL OF OUR standard of living

Well someone is going to profit from selling your work, thats not a privilege, that is an agreement you have with the person/company you choose to have sell your items. YOU give them the privilege not the government.

FLAT TAX...Everyone pays the same...

talk to someone who had money under eisenhower 90 percent or nixon 70 percent or reagan 50 percent. Dont you read bush gave that money back the iraq ar was fought on borrowed money, why do you think they didnt include it in the budget?

Newsflash if it wasnt for government funding there would be no internet. so much for the free market will do it all. lol

"rich" is a word "poor" people use

Either way it should be the same % as everyone. Its retarded I have to pay more because I work harder than most people. Just makes me want to hide my income.

On 2nd thought I should have to pay less. I hate paying all these fuckers welfare checks.

On 3rd thought fuck the US

I'm sorry, it's not the successful who have "the privilage"
it's you, the unsuccessful who haven't contributed to society who've been given the privilage to enjoy that which he has not earned and that which, because of his failure, he does not deserve.

There's something very crass that defines the lowest rung of society that looks upon charity as an entitlement.

Without the successful carrying your load, you'd have nothing

Newsflash, successful has nothing to do with the Internet.

But remember that without societies consent, you'd have nothing either. The very first reason (among many others) that a rich man remains a rich man is because society protects that privilege and allows him to retain that advantage. Ownership is an illusion mutually agreed upon. The only reason you have the luxury of feeling like you own anything is reasonable confidence that others won't kill you and take all your stuff. So if you want to hold onto your wealth, it's critically important that the poor do not start to feel too desperate. Historically, it's not uncommon for the working poor to revolt when disparity becomes too great. And if not in an organized movement, through crime and chaos. Is it so important to claw back every cent if the cost is living in a world of increasingly random violence with an unstable political environment?

Why do some of you people feel it's a privilege to be rich? If you work and make money than you should do with it what you want... I spit on those that beg and refuse to work..Nobody ever said life was fair....

Strawman argument. The vast majority of humanity are hard-working people on subsistence wages, even if some happen to be employed in occupations I personally consider a waste of manhours. I'm extremely grateful to have all those people doing the back-breaking shitty work for me. I think if society relied on me to do it, the power would fail and the sewers would overflow. Meanwhile I make 10x more contributing nothing of any critical importance. Capitalism actually does a pretty lousy job of measuring who is more deserving. It's Darwinism/jungle-law, and generally the winners are the best predators, or best parasites, not the best worker bees. So prosper as much as you can, but always keep in mind that without that peasant class the lords would starve. And frankly, if you can't afford to retire comfortably right now today, don't fool yourself, you're still a member of the peasant class too.

you're wrong.
Darwinism is what's driven mankind to the heights its achieved today.
"deserving" is a quaint idea you have but irrelevent
lastly, its silly to talk about "subsistence wages" when Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes, Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning, The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, not the poor in europe, the average. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

The point the people on your side completely miss is that if the "unwealthy" felt the pain of what their representatives in washington were promising them, government and life as a whole would be much better.
This has never been an argument over taking care of our poor, this is an argument about the government setting up class warfare so they can continue spending beyond its means by taking from the smallest segment of our population with the support of the largest part whom they've now set up to vote for more, while paying for nothing.

The physical Darwinism of thousands of years ago solved it's own problems by killing the losers. The trouble with social Darwinism today is that the losers do not die or disappear, instead they remain to wreck havoc on the rest of us. The best reason for the rich to pay for the care of the poor is completely selfish. If you don't, hungry homeless people start looting and killing. The absolutist strain of "libertarianism" never provides an answer for what to do with those too stupid, unwilling, or unlucky to participate successfully under our system. Putting them in prison for the inevitable crimes the disaffected will commit is more expensive than welfare, before even counting the cost of the damages. Pragmatists in power long ago figured out that it's best to bribe away the problem. It's really the only available solution, short of killing them, and history shows mass-executions frequently lead to your own execution.

And here we have the definition of today's shrinking Republican party. Those who hold this view simply fail as moral beings. Every person on the planet deserves adequate food, shelter, healthcare, education and opportunity. Beyond that, those who do the difficult, dangerous, or just plan gross work for the rest of us deserve even more. In an ideal world, a farmer or firefighter would be rewarded more than a pornographer. However I've made no suggestion that this is anything more than wishful sentiment on my part; human nature prevents it.

I obviously have higher expectations of the 21st Century than you do. Most people live paycheck to paycheck, most rent or owe a mortgage, and layoffs, accident, or illness means you'll be living in that clunker you drive. For the peace of a society, everyone should know that there is a safety net in place that will take care of the disabled or unlucky. It takes such a tiny fraction of our resources to provide that, that to not is both immoral and unwise.

It is also compensation for the fact that our system has stolen the option people used to have of just settling some unoccupied land somewhere and building their own community. If a poor person were to go chop down some trees and build a little cabin by the sea with the intention of fishing their days away, the state would step in, tear down his house, and force him away at gunpoint. You can't even legally live the life of a caveman anymore.

You're talking as if the rich are a victimized minority, which is complete nonsense. The top 5% who control 95% of the wealth only contribute 50-60% of the tax burden, when in fairness they should contribute 95% in correlation with the resources they control.

There is a lie going around that there's not enough, and that's bullshit. The human race has been a big fat success beyond the comprehension of those who are used to only looking at their own family budget and can think only in those terms. It takes only a fraction of GDP to cover the basics, and it's both moral and practical to do so before blowing the rest on more crap noone needs.

as I said, very quaint ideas.

not really based in fact.

well you can certainly tell the discussion in this thread is being conducted by mainly north americans...

The irony that it's on a porn forum is quite funny....

Discussing Tax can't be done without talking about your view on society and individuals with in it. Go read Thomas Hobbes. Do you want to help your fellow human being or shit on them? When you need help would you like someone to help you or would like to be left to starve and die?



I.

so there is a penalty for succeeding? 20% accross the board.

hello, clueless. The US and its population are the largest givers of aid in the world so wherever your high horse is sitting, you do less.

The issue those of us who are paying have with those of us who do not, is the fact that their is no pain for the underbelly to continue to vote for free everything.
this is unsustainable.

you should spend less time reading thomas hobbes and more time reading common sense.

great way to totally tank an economy for good. nice idea

I voted zero - not because I'm rich...but I don't believe in taxing (penalizing) people with a percentage-based tax simply because they're more successful at earning more money.

Huh?

Think about it.

20% of a $20,000 salary is $4,000.

20% of a $100,000 salary is $20,000.

When you impose a 20% taxation "across the board" - you're penalizing success.

LOL...errr ok, I'll get of my high horse (neigh!) if you get off your soap box and take the blinkers off.

Where do I get to find this book about common sense?

I suspect Godwin's Law will be invoked soon

your poll is pointless because you have no idea how the income tax structure of the US works. For example the highest tax bracket is 35% now say you're in the tax bracket( $358K in TAXABLE income for single person ). well first all no all your income is taxable so it's possible to make more than $358K and not be in the highest bracket. Secondly you're not paying 35% taxes from dollar $1 to $358K the 35% only applies to income ABOVE $358K. Even hose making $1 mil only pay 10% on their first $8000 just like poor people for example.

Now take a single person no dependants. Since he qualifies for $5500 standard deduction and $3500 personal exemption the first $9000 if his income would be exempt from income taxes. So in order for him to be in the highest tax bracket he would actually have to make at least $367K assuming he takes no further deductions. So say he makes that. Ok so now even though he's in the "35%" tax bracket his actual income tax would be $104K which is 28% of his gross income of $367K.

Of course is all his income comes from capital gains he only pays 20% even if he makes $100 million a year. I'm sure the guy who is makes $150K at an actual job appreciates some billionaire is paying a lower % in taxes than him.

No you're. Look at it this way if taxes are so bad for rich people why don't they make LESS so they pay less taxes? Oh wait they make so much they still have tons of money.

spoken from the bottom of the barrel