Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Actually, that isn't true. The majority (by a narrow margin) of American households pay at an actual rate of 0% federal income tax.
That's because they don't have sufficient taxable income to owe any tax. You should try it sometime. And this of course has exactly nothing to do with relative tax rates between wage income and investment income which was the actual matter being discussed.
Corporate taxes are a giant patchwork of offsets, deductions, and credits. Some industries as a group pay at very low rates, some pay at much higher rates. Each year some corporations manage to pay nothing at all, and some are able to pay nothing over a number of years in a row, but they pay again at some point. And contrary to rumor by the way, Apple owes and pays billions in US federal, state, and local taxes.
The most-heard argument is that capital gains are more risky and to put the incentive to choose capital gains over ordinary income on a more even footing with ordinary income by accounting for risk.
Interesting point. So, for some companies, like Apple, the investors really don't pay the corporate tax. I guess if they had no corporate tax though, there would be no loopholes for the bigger companies that ship their manufacturing overseas, while the smaller companies are stuck here.
That poster is mostly wrong.
Moving operations overseas doesn't evade taxes. If only it were that easy or legal.
They may pay taxes to other countries or defer U.S. taxes into future years. The difference is recorded as a deferred tax liability and is a future claim by the government on shareholder's equity.
The most-heard argument is that capital gains are more risky and to put the incentive to choose capital gains over ordinary income on a more even footing with ordinary income by accounting for risk.
Yes, yes...we want to incentivize investment, don't we? Investment is the source of progress. We are all good capitalists, aren't we, and want to see already wealthy capitalists prosper through having a form of income that they specialize in taxed at favorable rates? Don't we?
That poster is mostly wrong. Moving operations overseas doesn't evade taxes. If only it were that easy or legal. They may pay taxes to other countries or defer U.S. taxes into future years. The difference is recorded as a deferred tax liability and is a future claim by the government on shareholder's equity.
I like to rep posts that include cold, hard facts such as these, but apparently, City-Data suffers from a phobia over prospects for Reputation-obesity.
I think we should base our Federal or any other, income tax on all income from all sources including criminal. The tax owed should be based on everything over the 95th percentile. That way the people that actually own and control the country could pay for the privilege.
Are gains on investments and shares of profit not income???
Are there any arguments for it?
My argument against this is that wages, the income for the majority of Americans, are taxed at a higher rate than investments, which are the income of a minority of Americans - the already wealthy ones.
Income is earned by your efforts. Capital gains comes if you have capital to invest. In order to have capital to invest, one saves part of income after paying income taxes no it to have capital to invest. A lower tax rate on capital gains recognizes most capital to invest generally has already had taxes paid upon it. Also taxing something at a higher rate insures you have less of it, so a lower capital gains rate is designed to encourage savings and investment so businesses can expand or start up by using the capital invested from ones savings.
Since you already paid income tax on everything, sales taxes and excise taxes on consumer purchases ought to be done away with. They won't be. This is because everything is taxed over and over and over again. The idea that something has already been taxed somewhere has no bearing on anything.
And do you expect that if taxes on your income are raised, you will try to earn less of it? There are some holes in your silly old wives tales, if you don't mind my saying so.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
