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There is no "CEO" tax rate. That you don't understand that is rather telling. To engage in this discussion when you lack even a basic understanding of how things actually work is a futile endeavor on your part.
EVERYONE pays they exact same tax rate on the same quantity of the same type of income. There are no special rates for rich people or CEO's.
Rather than learn the tax code....some would rather worry about the "dog with a bone".
Get your own bone folks....if you can type on the message board...you can do it.
That's not I was getting at all, pnw. Donn, the poster the comment was directed at, made the very wrong assumption that because I'm liberal I'm poor and do not pay taxes. No, so happens, as I stated in my original post, I'm a squarely middle class citizens who pays around 30 percent of my income in taxes. I don't see why I should be paying 30 percent of my income while most of the wealthiest pay half that -- if that.
That's not I was getting at all, pnw. Donn, the poster the comment was directed at, made the very wrong assumption that because I'm liberal I'm poor and do not pay taxes. No, so happens, as I stated in my original post, I'm a squarely middle class citizens who pays around 30 percent of my income in taxes. I don't see why I should be paying 30 percent of my income while most of the wealthiest pay half that -- if that.
All Americans should pay the same rate, top to bottom, no exemptions, no deductions.
The only reason anyone who's intellectually honest can give for some people paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than others is that "the rich don't need the money".
That's class warfare, plain and simple.
A flat tax would insure that everyone has an equal percent of skin in the game and that the government would have to justify to everyone when they want to raise taxes rather than trying to use the tax rates as a political weapon.
And for those who will start whining about how it would disproportionately effect the poor, I say nonsense.
Using a 10% rate as an example to keep the math simple, someone who makes 100,000 a year would pay 10,000 in taxes which would be double what someone who makes 50,000 a year would pay at 5,000 and 10 times as much as someone who makes 10,000 a year would pay at 1000.
Anything more complicated than that is nothing more than a way for the government to pit one group of people against another for political purposes.
When the income tax was first adopted, Americans were assured that money used to secure life's basic necessities (food, shelter, clothing) would never be taxed. If you only made enough money to survive, you didn't pay taxes. So, the income tax was in effect a luxury tax.
I think we should incorporate that principle into your suggested tax code revision. We should not tax the first (15,000? 20,000? 30,000? whatever) a person makes. After that minimum dollar amount, we should tax everyone the same percentage of their income. And income should be taxed equally regardless of its source. (Taxing income resulting from labor more heavily than capital gains is ridiculous.)
Some think that lack of money is the cause of poverty and that taking from productive people and giving to the non-productive people is the remedy. But if money really ended poverty, let us just give 22 billion billion quatloos to everyone, making them set for life. Of course, if the newly rich do not engage in productive labor, generate goods and services, transport them, and fill the marketplaces, there would be nothing for those billions to purchase. And civilization would swiftly collapse.
It is obvious that money is not the solution in a money mad world.
When the income tax was first adopted, Americans were assured that money used to secure life's basic necessities (food, shelter, clothing) would never be taxed. If you only made enough money to survive, you didn't pay taxes. So, the income tax was in effect a luxury tax.
I think we should incorporate that principle into your suggested tax code revision. We should not tax the first (15,000? 20,000? 30,000? whatever) a person makes. After that minimum dollar amount, we should tax everyone the same percentage of their income. And income should be taxed equally regardless of its source. (Taxing income resulting from labor more heavily than capital gains is ridiculous.)
The tax from labor has already been paid when the money is invested.
Just read though the posts......I am not good at explaining this.
I don't disagree at all. The fact of the matter is, our federal government wants to treat the tax code like a voodoo doll. That means they create tax breaks for an insanely long list of things. There are lower tax rates for doing certain things -- and the list of those things is also insanely long.
Better idea: Scrap all of this "tax breaks for ergonomic toilet seats at truck stops" idiocy. Fair tax means everyone pays taxes no matter what. Adding in a luxury tax for items that only the obscenely wealthy can afford means they pay more taxes. And tax evasion would be virtually impossible. How do you avoid sales tax? Offshore accounts in the Caribbean or Switzerland won't help you there because you only get taxed when you actually spend money.
It may not be the end-all-beat-all solution, but I think it works better for individual taxes. Right now, our tax system is so complex that we have an entire industry (a massive one too) built on trying to make sense out of it all. That creates a world where the wealthiest of Americans will always come out ahead, just as we see with Romney paying about 14% on his estimated $21 million annual income, and doing so 100% legally. Romney is a small fry in that whole game. Bigger players can and do come out paying even lower tax rates.
Like I said, don't hate the player, hate the game. If you hate the game thenadvocate for changing the game. The current game is stacked against regular middle-class workers because it is insanely complex. So the solution is to make taxes as simple as humanly possible. Ain't rocket science.
Agreed on all points. A complicated tax code inevitably benefits those who are wealthy enough to lobby politicians to create loop holes for them. A fair tax code would be much, much simpler.
Agreed on all points. A complicated tax code inevitably benefits those who are wealthy enough to lobby politicians to create loop holes for them. A fair tax code would be much, much simpler.
The tax from labor has already been paid when the money is invested.
Just read though the posts......I am not good at explaining this.
I'm quite familiar with this line of reasoning, driller. I don't agree with it. I don't see the capital gains tax as taxing the same dollar twice. That's a very convenient line of thought for those whose primary source of income in investments, but it's a recipe for concentrating wealth and power at the top and overtaxing the middle, laboring classes.
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No, so happens, as I stated in my original post, I'm a squarely middle class citizens who pays around 30 percent of my income in taxes. I don't see why I should be paying 30 percent of my income while most of the wealthiest pay half that -- if that.
