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I view a person's "fair share" of taxes to be a flat, equal rate on or proportion of their discretionary income.
If my coworker and I both make $100k but I live in a studio apartment, eat simple food I cook at home, and shop for necessities at Walmart while he has a fancy home, shops at Whole Foods for trendy overpriced crap, and shops at higher end boutiques I'd have far more discretionary income after we've both paid for the basics of food/shelter/clothing. How is that fair?
What about two people with same income but one lives in NYC so has housing costs 2x higher. NYC person pays far less in taxes since housing eats up more income so less discretionary.
Take two people with same salary and job at same company but one has a large debt from a civil judgement. All things being equal with housing/food the one with monthly payments on the legal issue will have less discretionary income and pay less taxes, why would they deserve to pay less in taxes for having an expense that others don't have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by freemkt
Since the bottom two income quintiles can't save even 1 percent of its gross income, their tax burden is substantial in context.
How can you possibly know that 40% of people can't save 1% of their income? I submit booze and smoking alone can be 1% of quite a few people's income, a pack a day habit would easily clear 1% for many.... for a min wage worker at $7.25 a $5 pack of smokes is 8.6% of their gross income on an 8 hour work day.
I was calling into question the claim that small businesses are unable to compete and the vast majority of workers are employed by corporations that monopolize most industries. From a quick glance it appears only half of workers are employed by large corporations so it would seem quite a few smaller businesses are able to compete.
That is because you are confusing small business with corporate structure. Most companies within corporate structure are held separately within the corporate structure. This is done for legal reasons and to prevent the liability of the parts of a corporation to be transferred to the parent corporation.
A parent corporation with 5000 employees may have them divided into 100 different sub corporations with individual identities and each with 500 employees.
The mom and pop business structure that was common prior to the 1970's has for the most part been driven to extinction by corporate competition. The towns which once had several independent apparel stores, sporting goods stores, appliance stores, drug stores, grocery stores, and the like have been driven out of business by the big box corporate model. The owners of the big box stores lobby government to change trade policy in ways that benefit them and reduce competition.
That is because you are confusing small business with corporate structure. Most companies within corporate structure are held separately within the corporate structure. This is done for legal reasons and to prevent the liability of the parts of a corporation to be transferred to the parent corporation.
A parent corporation with 5000 employees may have them divided into 100 different sub corporations with individual identities and each with 500 employees.
The mom and pop business structure that was common prior to the 1970's has for the most part been driven to extinction by corporate competition. The towns which once had several independent apparel stores, sporting goods stores, appliance stores, drug stores, grocery stores, and the like have been driven out of business by the big box corporate model. The owners of the big box stores lobby government to change trade policy in ways that benefit them and reduce competition.
Given their costs and their prices they certainly should be these days. I know people with NO mortgage payment who are getting $2500 per month rent on a house. That works out to $27,000 minus taxes + insurance + expenses assuming 10% vacancy. These are big landlords in a small pond.
Since it is often possible to make more money by renting out rooms separately than they can make renting out the whole house, you can live for free while making as much as the house might rent for.
I also know several people who bought young a house, lived in the house and rented out the extra bedrooms, and lived in the house for free. Which a few years they were living in the house for free plus enjoying rental income. Today they live in the house for free and make as much rental income as if they rented out the house without living in it.
I know two people who enjoy rental income on property they do not own; they rent a house, live in it, and rent out rooms (at a markup) to other people, i.e. they pay a landlord to live in the house and then collect enough for the rooms to live for free and make money on top of it.
Since those methods of landlording and making money are mostly available to everyone, they're not relevant to any gap between rich and poor. Maybe a gap between those who decide to become landlords and those who don't.
Corporations via lobbing efforts effectively monopolize much of the marketplace making the small business person unable to compete. They do this through regulations and corporate welfare that they purchase via bribes to elected officials they call campaign contributions.
In high tech industries, small businesses also have to deal with patents. The patent office allows big corporations to get a lot of vague generic patents that give the appearance of covering a lot of stuff that hasn't been invented yet. Then when a small business invents something, the big corporation can hire the best patent lawyers, to make their vague generic patents cover what was invented. So that's one more way big companies use the government against small businesses, making it easier for big companies to compete and harder for small businesses to survive.
And because patent law is complicated, and the big corporations force small businesses to become experts at patent law just to have a chance to survive, it takes too many resources away from the small businesses' main efforts, making it harder for them to do all the other stuff they need to do to compete.
And the same goes for other kinds of law. Everything that affects the competition between big corporations and small businesses, the small business needs expertise at that kind of law, at the expense of resources they need for doing their actual business.
It's the essence of capitalism. Accumulating enough capital to buy the government, by spending it on things like patent law firms, to put competitors out of business, because monopolies make more money easier.
And there are so many other ways to bigger business can use the government to outcompete small businesses. Such as by being too big to fail, etc.
In high tech industries, small businesses also have to deal with patents. The patent office allows big corporations to get a lot of vague generic patents that give the appearance of covering a lot of stuff that hasn't been invented yet. Then when a small business invents something, the big corporation can hire the best patent lawyers, to make their vague generic patents cover what was invented. So that's one more way big companies use the government against small businesses, making it easier for big companies to compete and harder for small businesses to survive.
And because patent law is complicated, and the big corporations force small businesses to become experts at patent law just to have a chance to survive, it takes too many resources away from the small businesses' main efforts, making it harder for them to do all the other stuff they need to do to compete.
And the same goes for other kinds of law. Everything that affects the competition between big corporations and small businesses, the small business needs expertise at that kind of law, at the expense of resources they need for doing their actual business.
It's the essence of capitalism. Accumulating enough capital to buy the government, by spending it on things like patent law firms, to put competitors out of business, because monopolies make more money easier.
And there are so many other ways to bigger business can use the government to outcompete small businesses. Such as by being too big to fail, etc.
Yes, under most economic systems, the government ultimately becomes an appendage of the ultra-rich leading to social unrest and upheaval. Some countries have done better than others in checking the growth of the super rich Oligarchy. Those countries are rarely in the news.
As I stated, all the wealthy people I know, save one, was an heir. There is nothing to learn from these people as most of them didn't have to work for their money.
That's a lie. Most wealth has been earned first hand. Far fewer people were born into wealth than earned it.
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