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Old 04-19-2012, 10:57 AM
 
1,176 posts, read 1,816,528 times
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I personally think that Obama and his minions are being disingenuous when they run around talking about fairness when almost half of people pay no federal income tax. I think that the tax code needs an overhaul from top to bottom, but I know that there is almost no chance of that. I believe in a progressive tax but also believe that everyone (well almost everyone) should contribute something. As it stands today not only do many not pay anything but large numbers actually get money back. I worked one tax season as a tax preparer and saw cases where people submitted suspicious information to get money from IRS. I was told without proof I had to submit the information as given and let the iRS sort it out. That was not a rare occurrence.

 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:07 AM
 
Location: Dallas, TX
31,767 posts, read 28,767,183 times
Reputation: 12341
Quote:
Originally Posted by VMH2507 View Post
I personally think that Obama and his minions are being disingenuous when they run around talking about fairness when almost half of people pay no federal income tax. I think that the tax code needs an overhaul from top to bottom, but I know that there is almost no chance of that. I believe in a progressive tax but also believe that everyone (well almost everyone) should contribute something. As it stands today not only do many not pay anything but large numbers actually get money back. I worked one tax season as a tax preparer and saw cases where people submitted suspicious information to get money from IRS. I was told without proof I had to submit the information as given and let the iRS sort it out. That was not a rare occurrence.
What you personally think, doesn't make for logic as such discussions demand. You went back to the good old rhetoric that you must, for political and ideological reasons.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:07 AM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,675,147 times
Reputation: 18304
I am not so worried about the failness issue( which it not by basic fairness standards) but that it has resulted in too many dependnent on too few ;more and more. We see it results since it started mostly in the mid 60's.Its actually result in a larger and larger share that are considered even by government has disfunstional and even unemplyable.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:09 AM
 
Location: Florida
77,012 posts, read 47,481,489 times
Reputation: 14806
Quote:
Originally Posted by VMH2507 View Post
I personally think that Obama and his minions are being disingenuous when they run around talking about fairness when almost half of people pay no federal income tax. I think that the tax code needs an overhaul from top to bottom, but I know that there is almost no chance of that. I believe in a progressive tax but also believe that everyone (well almost everyone) should contribute something. As it stands today not only do many not pay anything but large numbers actually get money back. I worked one tax season as a tax preparer and saw cases where people submitted suspicious information to get money from IRS. I was told without proof I had to submit the information as given and let the iRS sort it out. That was not a rare occurrence.
If you feel you are being treated unfairly, you can always take a job which pays minimum wage and then enjoy the bliss of tas free income.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:11 AM
 
665 posts, read 1,242,085 times
Reputation: 364
we should be debating all tax's as a percentage of GDP. federal tax's is just one tax. government services
are distributed on the local,and state level as well as federal

also yes people pay into social security and medicare,but people who live past 73 will
take out way more then they put in,if people just took out what they paid in there would be no deficit
in medicare.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:11 AM
 
25,804 posts, read 16,451,635 times
Reputation: 15995
If GW Bush wouldn't have screwed up Bill Clinton's budget by 2016 they could have ended all federal income tax on everyone. That was Clinton and Gore's plan.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:17 AM
 
3,457 posts, read 3,616,531 times
Reputation: 1544
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kkaos2 View Post
The question isn't "how much of government spending does the federal income tax cover."
Exactly, that's not the question, that's the answer to the question (in the rhetorical form of another question.)

Quote:
The question is why shouldn't everyone who makes at least some income contribute at least some money?
And the answer is: everyone does. Even if we ignore payroll taxes (because that's another convoluted topic we've discussed ad nauseum) , technically speaking, every person who uses US dollars (even non-citizens) contributes to federal government revenues in the form of seigniorage.

This is especially important for the aforementioned poor people, because they get the short end of the stick when it comes to the asset inflation caused by all that money printing in both the public and private sector.

So coming full circle, it's important to understand the share of US revenue generated by income taxes, because it helps you understand how poor people are contributing their "fair share" to government revenue.

Last edited by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus; 04-19-2012 at 11:26 AM..
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:17 AM
 
Location: Washington, DC
4,321 posts, read 5,122,050 times
Reputation: 8272
Democrat here who would be fine with the 47% paying some Fed taxes.

But the real money should come from the 1%... people forget how obscenely wealthy they are. And more wealth = more wear and tear on the planet. And they are only getting richer while the rest of us are getting poorer.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:23 AM
 
Location: Home, Home on the Front Range
25,826 posts, read 20,653,757 times
Reputation: 14818
Quote:
Originally Posted by Randomdude View Post
US Federal Budget FY13 Spending Breakdown - Charts


Medicare- 484 billion (this is above and beyond the contributions of the FSMI trust fund, the actual spending is nearly 270 billion more)
SS- 778 billion (actual spending is about 200 billion more without contributions from the trust fund)
Pensions for Federal employees (not military veterans)- 127 billion


Medicaid- 255.3 billion
Food Stamps- 113.5 billion
Section 8- 18.2 billion
TANF- 16.5 billion
Negative income tax payments- 75 billion

(notice the two things people ***** about the most, cash welfare payments and section 8, dont even come to 1/3 of what we spend on retired federal employees a year, even if you add in food stamps, it just barely surpasses retired federal employees)


So, lets see, our yearly spending on old people comes to

1.959 trillion

Our yearly spending on people with low incomes?

478.5 billion (which is less then we spend in medicare ALONE, even AFTER the trust fund contributions)

We spend 160 billion a month on old people. At that rate, old people would have spent the entire amount we spend on poor people in 2.99 months.

Again, if you want to know who is sucking out all "your tax dollars" and you dont want to blame the DoD, instead of blaming "welfare queens", you can turn your head towards Granny Beatrice, because her never ending quest to stay alive 3 more weeks is costing us a fortune.
Yup.
And, that money is not income.
 
Old 04-19-2012, 11:23 AM
 
Location: Palo Alto
12,149 posts, read 8,400,602 times
Reputation: 4190
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus View Post
psst... Your agenda is showing.

The correct answer ( the one you don't want to talk about) is fairly simple. It's fair for FIT to be progressive, because deficit spending and payroll taxes are regressive, and policy governing private sector monetary policy is extremely regressive.
Payroll taxes are not regressive given the funding formula. The lowest contributors to SS benefit the most on a return basis. There SS checks are higher than they would otherwise be for a similar non-subsidized annuity stream. Pure wealth distribution. Welfare.
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