At this rate we will never get ahead
 

Lower corporate income taxes to zero. Raise personal income tax and institute a VAT. Tax the profits at the point of collection -- after all, profits do CEOs no good if they can't spend them. Fringe benefits like company cars, private jets, company apartments should also be taxed as income based on the value of the service.

Yes.

What's your point? We give CEOs bonuses for lowering expenses whether they are taxes, or getting a better location or finding a cheaper source. Why are taxes a holy item? Why should they not try to lower the amount they pay? Do we not do that ourselves in our personal lives? Should I buy from the local shop and pay more for the same thing when I can go pick up the item from a cheaper store on my way home from work?

If the country is to get ahead, we need to cut the spending first. If that is not enough, we can talk about it again but right now, there is too much "Arthur Andersen" going on

Problem is this is far more involved than that article would suggest. The problem in the economy isn't about a few CEO's trying to reduce their tax burden....they are doing that legally. Legal loopholes were put their by politicians, they are legal to use. How about the nearly half the population that effectively pay no federal taxes now....

Picking on the people that create the jobs not suprisingly results in fewer jobs. And the disgust of the half that DOES have to pay ever higher and higher ammounts just adds to the problem.

When EVERYONE.....as in every legal adult has to pay an equal percentage of their income....then they can claim skin in the game and would care about reducing spending and entitlements to those who haven't earned them.

See if then real change doesn't happen.

Tax Corporations as the Citizens they claim to be
 

Tax individuals on an upwards sliding scale based on income.
(Gates + Co. pay the MOST.)
Make Congressional Service a VOLUNTARY Citizen Activism.[One Term Only]
(No Pay,Food Stamps only)
Make Lobbyists Illegal.

While I agree with that, I do believe that first you have to clean up your mess. Before you do that, giving everyone some skin in the game won't help. Even if you increase the revenue, if you piss it away doing stupid things, you will be waiting for the next disaster to happen.

Why punish the smart? Besides, they can move their money somewhere else and you get $0. I would. I have seen companies that do. Easier and better to simply tax at the point of purchase. No deductions, no nothing. No other taxes. Govt needs more money, it needs to raise the sales tax. That will slow down the damage they do

Would be nice but if you can limit the money going in and the money going out, it doesn't matter how much they serve does it?

Even if you do make lobbyists illegal, there is still a way to get around that. Make it harder to get around. Have the citizens actually pay attention to what is going on. Much harder

Everyone currently has skin in the game. Even if you don't pay taxes, you pay via the govno-mint printing money and fellating itself via inflation.

Theoretically, taxing income punishes productivity. Taxing sales makes a lot more sense to me as it would seem to encourage thrift.

Except the American economy is all about borrow-spend-borrow-spend-borrow-spendlikeadrunkenpigonmeth.

Here's a graph of savings rates, comparing some countries between 1992 and 2011. US is very low on that totem pole:

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/10396-household-saving-rates.html#axzz1WdKoRyFR

Currently, if I earn nothing, I am paying nothing. Besides your rhetoric, how did you come to that conclusion

Even if you didn't earn in a given year, if you have savings, those savings are eroded by money-printing.

If you remove everything tax wise and simply limit it to purchasing, whoever saves, saves. If you earn $1 and buy something, you pay taxes. If you earn $1 billion but spend nothing in any way, shape or form, you pay nothing.

Now you are making assumptions that they are having savings to be eroded. Many simply live from welfare check to welfare check and barely, at that.

But without skin in the game...NOBODY is going to even consider reducing the entitlements, thats the root of the problem now. Besides....making the half that pay nothing....pay what everyone else has to pay, percentagewise....if going to result in a big jump in revenue. When they relise THEY are paying for their handouts....those handouts aren't going to sound so good to them.

People prefer to spend their money themselves....not give it to someone else to spend for them with far less efficiency and greater cost..

Joe Public can stretch a buck further than some paper pusher in a government office will.

What about people who have both savings and earn? Better a predictable tax via taxation than a wildly unpredictable tax based on the whims of the Fed scum and the way the dollar acts.

Well, that is true so it boils down to this. If you earn, you are paying and have some skin. If you don't earn or have any assets, you have no skin but you have a say.

I would be in favor of a simple sales tax with NO OTHER taxes or deductions. Buy more, pay more. After all, you are taxing the infrastructure more so you should pay into it. Somehow, I don't see it as "wildly unpredictable".

I can't argue with that.....as long as thats ALL thats taxed.

Taxing sales only hurts those on the bottom. They are too far down to pay taxes and have so little money that they are already consuming at their minimum. VAT style taxes will effect those in the middle because it will cause them to cut back on their buying. VAT taxes will not generate much money from the wealthy because they don't make up a very large percentage of the buying public.

But why should high school dropouts get a free ride. A lot of the people at the bottom are there because of their own choices...and the fact many are happy to get by doing as little as possible. In some cases there is little incentive to get them off their butts and work harder. And those with the drive and the will most cases do get ahead.

I grew up personally knowing too many of the people I just described.....there are a lot of them like that.

I do NOT lump Downs Syndrome or severly handicapped into that group. Everyone ELSE is able bodied and responsible for their choices.

Perhaps but it is fair.

Maybe another thing would be this. Cut your coat according to your cloth.

As long as you keep subsidizing their lifestyle, what is the incentive for performance? Some are happy to skate by. If you are uncomfortable with your situation, perhaps you will try to improve it. That or become the "what not to be" poster boy for the next generation. Win all around, no?

Absolutely no VAT with income tax. Have either a consumption OR income tax, not both. Why give lawmakers even more ways to screw over the masses?

Good question. Here is a better one. If you cannot fire an employee that is performing poorly and has been for a long time, do you

a. Give him more responsibility
b. Not involve him anymore than he already is.

If you had ever been relatively poor you would realize that there in nothing comfortable about it and there is plenty of incentive to improve ones income.

I think it is fair that someone only making $50K/year pays little taxes, I am also taxes at a low rate on the first $50K I make.

You haven't read about FairTax (H.R. 25), which you really should.

Define relatively poor. Does not knowing whether you will have food the next day or so qualify? How about no income and have to do anything you can to find some way to get rent money?

How so? Why should someone be made to bear a heavier burden simply because he can? IOW, why should stealing from someone who makes $50K be any more serious than stealing from someone making $500K? You buy more, you use more infrastructure to support you therefore you should pay more. Percentage wise, it hits us all the same.

Where did you find that pic of my sister? :confused::D

Depending on your situation, you get a refund !!!

The person making $500K pays the same rate on his first $50K as the person making $50K What is not fair about that?

I don't see how you think raising taxes on those who barely have money for the necessities is a workable idea.

Look at it this way, now you are paying back all the money you stole when you were poor and didn't pay taxes.

How many of the "Poor" have Cell phones...as in multiple in the house?

How many have a flat screen TV, X-box or play station, Cable TV, Microwave...a car, more than one car in the house....eat out?

If they can afford those....they can afford taxes too.

That part is fair UNTIL you get to the part of the other 450K. Why would you deserve to pay a higher rate on the rest than someone else?

It made me decide that I didn't want to be that poor any longer than I had to be. Seeing the beggar when I was young certainly made me realize that it wasn't the life I wanted to lead. Perhaps the BEST example was when I was lazy and didn't want to do my homework. I was shown what life awaited me as a HS dropout when I had to spend my school vacation doing hard labor to earn my keep at home.

Look at it this way, now you are paying back all the money you stole when you were poor and didn't pay taxes.

It is only now that you are doing well that a flat tax appeals to you.

When I was young and poor I had to pay income taxes, and no I didn't get them all back either........giving the so called poor a free ride has happened well into MY adult life. and I'm effectively 50 (will be soon).....not 90.

It's not difficult to conceive of a flat tax above a certain rate commiserate with the basic necessities so that everybody gets to keep enough to pay for food, clothing, shelter and nothing more. After that, you pay taxes.

Or if it's a consumption tax, don't tax food and meds and rent below a certain level.

If all we do is set up a strawman extreme and argue against that we will never find a functional compromise.

My basic assumption about national taxes is that at this time, nobody thinks they're fair. Do I get an amen?

1982 0% for a single person up to $2300, 50% on earnings over $41,500

2011 10% tax for a single person up to $8,500, 35% on earnings over $379,150

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
When I was young and poor in 1982 the tax brackets were more progressive than they now are.
1982 was the "free ride" not 2011

I can't say what benefits I got before I started paying taxes so I'm reasonably certain I got nothing before I paid taxes.

Well, if you mean that I am not $2 away from not making rent and I am doing well, I guess I am doing well. Unlike many, I don't simply change my mind based on MY personal circumstances. Perhaps you do, I don't know. I can tell you this much. Before I even became a student in this country, my opinion of the immigration laws was that the legal hoops were justified. When I petitioned to become a worker, I knew it wasn't (because of my vocation) a cakewalk. It was a ROYAL PITA. Did I understand it then? Absolutely. Did I feel it was necessary then? ABSOLUTELY. Has my mind changed? Certainly not. I am not sure why you think I am doing "well" and thus able to support a cause. Do you?

Fair enough. I make $100K. No kids 1 wife. Tell me what I paid in taxes using what you know.

When I lived in Madison, they had a "Recycling tax" that would pay for the recycling program and in 10 years, it would pay for itself and the tax would not be necessary. That was a fantasy but another story. This tax was borne by businesses and not the residents. Question. What do YOU think the businesses did with the tax? They passed it on. So in a sense, I am getting a tax that is indirect. Can you tell me what I paid in that tax?

BTW, Green Bay had a "Stadium Tax". Some places have a "City Tax" and who know what other taxes. Some are direct and some are indirect. How did you figure that out in your equation?

So one more time. How much in taxes did I pay? Down to the dollar, will be fine. I would so love to dazzle my accountant who doesn't think she can accurately answer that question without tearing into each and every purchase I made but do give it a try.

I think a consumption tax would be fairer. If you insist on covering each and every square inch of your house with TVs, you can. You are taxing the infrastructure so you pay for it. No exemptions. Soon as you give 2 exemptions, 1 more will pop up and one more after that.

$44,396.12 (give or take) :D

I can tell you that from 1982-2011 federal taxes were raised 10% on the bottom bracket and lowered 15% on the top. Yet I keep hearing that the low income earners have it easier today.

Sure it is complicated, knowing total tax rates but that is changing the subject.

Ah, but sir. That is the crux of the issue. IF you buy your staples (eggs, milk, veggies, meat) and I take $1 off your meat but add $0.50 to each of the others, your meat looks good but your total bill becomes something else.

That is the PERFECT reason why I would do something like that. A penny here, a dollar there, half a buck here, two there and you don't miss anything. So yes, you would be right according to your link. We pay less to the IRS but that doesn't tell me the whole picture of your "Divide and Conquer" scheme, does it? If you lower my IRS taxes but tack it on elsewhere, do I really have lower taxes?

So if I pay less to the IRS but more somewhere else, did I really pay less today? All you are telling me is that my boss gave me a $500 raise but you don't count that he reduced my vacation days, sick days and increased what I paid for health insurance and reduced what he paid into my 401K. So yes, you are right. I did get more money back today but you need to tell me what I paid before we can make a fair comparison.

Another prime example is that the utilities were supposed to charge a surcharge to give Grandpa and Grandma heat in the winter. What does that have to do with my IRS? Nothing. What happened to the money? Got sent to maintain the DA's office. Simply put, that was another tax, one you don't see till you look closely. So yes, I reduced your overall tax burden on IRS form but what did you pay in taxes altogether with the IRS AND the other indirect taxes? Without knowing that, your picture is rosy but incomplete at best and inaccurate at worst.

Those numbers for 1982 and 2011 are not corrected to account for inflation.

A dollar in 1982 bought a LOT more than it will today.

Without a correction, you are comparing apples to oranges.

Even WITH correction, if you don't know the FULL amount of taxes you are paying, how do you make a comparison? Even if I told you to multiply it by a factor of X and you get inflation correct values, the other part of the equation eludes you so how do you figure? Do you know what you paid in taxes in 2010? I don't. All I know is what I wrote to the IRS. Not the sales tax, city tax, county tax, dog catcher tax, stadium tax, whorehouse tax, etc, etc. As I asked, what about the businesses that get taxed? Surely they pass it on so again, I am paying a tax that I don't figure in.

By design, it is confusion so you think you are getting a deal by me reducing your tax check but in reality, to pay for those things you got, I increase or add on other taxes which trickle down to you in the end. Unless you are going to argue that the trickle down factor is the same then as it is now, how can you assess the difference?

You really should be keeping those tax records for at at least 5 years. I can pull up record of exactly what was taken out of my pay for further back than that.....now like you implied.....what I spent on sales taxes...fuel taxes....restarant taxes etc....I can't venture a guess. Nor what I have paid in higher prices due to corporate taxes that raised the price on good I've bought.

And yeah....like you said...it really is all smoke and miorrors meant to confuse all but the most tedious accountants.

I do. 8 years. 1 more than the recommended 7. Every year, there is a burning of the one 8 years old

That is why I said that the IRS statements we keep, nobody knows. THAT is why I believe the picture is muddied. That is why I said, it is easier and more efficient to simply levy a sales tax and NO OTHER taxes. Buy $100 of stuff, pay $X in taxes. After all, you tax the infrastructure so that infrastructure should be paid to keep you happy. No deductions of ANY sort. And it does give everyone who purchases stuff some skin in the game.

Which is the way they want it. Nobody misses a dollar here, a dollar there so no grumbles. Sales tax ONLY will make people scream when you need more money and have to change the percentage of tax and you need a justification. It will NOT keep them honest. Just LESS dishonest.

Here's a tax loophole we can close.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/02/undocumented-workers-pocketed-42-billion-in-tax-credits-audit-shows/

Corrected for inflation the lowest tax bracket would still have been raised 10% and top bracket lowed 15%. I don't see the need to correct for inflation since the tax brackets have been adjusted for inflation.

Taxes have become less progressive.