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I think WE THE PEOPLE need a reality check. The poor, rich, and middle-class can't stick together for anything. If anything, instead of saying the rich don't pay enough taxes, we should be telling the government to "get yo' hands outta my pocket!" as the government takes too much taxes and does absolutely nothing with it, or does something with it that I total disagreement with them on. According to the church, God only wants 10 percent (or, the church wants 10 percent). Our federal government wants 30 percent...that doesn't include state, local, FICA, SSN, property taxes, death taxes, and so forth.
Fortunately, for the rich (I'm not one of them), they can skirt around taxes by making their money in dividends, which is taxed at a lower rate (14%) than income taxes. That's why these IT CEOs only take a salary of $1.00 because they are making their money via dividends and not income. People, let's stick together and blame the jagaloons who rape us of our money, not blame one another. I think anything over 10 percent is too much money. If you think about it, if the government wasn't taking 30+ percent of our paychecks - and it didn't take taxpayers a full season (3 months) to fulfill our tax obligations - we could eliminate some of these federal and state programs.
Taxes may be reasonable when first instituted--they are negligible, and affect almost nobody. Then they grow with the endless "needs" and wants of power-mad politicians, who multiply like flies. Suddenly everyone is paying huge portions of their income to pay for unnecessary world wars, generations of breeding degenerates, pork and corruption, and the massive size of a huge bureaucracy. Then the nation collapses under the burden of the government cancer that is larger than the host.
That's a good concise description of the path we are on. FIT is a good example as it will be 100 years old next year. It started with a 1% entry bracket rate and is now 10%. That's a 1000% increase. I don't have a source for the effective rates paid, but I would bet they increased in a similar fashion.
A better measure is government spending as a percent of GDP which has increase from 7% to almost 45% in the past 100 years.
This used to be taught in civics classes. I'm not sure how often it is taught anymore.
Is there a point at which using so many deductions and loopholes lowers your tax burden to a level that it represents "shirking" your duties as a taxpayer? I suspect this will be the central issue when Mitt finally relents and releases his tax returns. It sounds as if his 2009 returns will probably be the most damaging.
The right may have a bit of a problem with this issue. They're fond of stating that half the country "pays no taxes." Now, of course that's a patently false statement that doesn't even pass the giggle test, but there is an admirable principle underneath: We all should be expected to contribute to the maintenance of our various levels of government. Now, many of them argue we should all pay the same rate on our income taxes. If it turns out that Mitt, when you adjust for all the loopholes, deductions and tax havens, paid a disproportionately small percentage, it will be difficult for them to defend that, given their rhetoric regarding percentages in the past. If the debate casts his supporters in a libertarian light, which essentially holds that one should try every legal twist and turn possible to avoid paying taxes, I don't think it will benefit them politically.
You are way off thr mark.
There was a highly respected Supreme Court Justice, his name escapes me at the moment, who said every one should pay their JUST taxes and ONLY their just taxes.
If a tax law is on the books, there is NOTHING wrong from applying it to your "due" taxes.
"They're fond of stating that half the country "pays no taxes." Now, of course that's a patently false statement that doesn't even pass the giggle test," The giggle test applies your so uninformed statement.
It has been proven over and over that about 42% pay 0 federal income tax. That is what the issue is. Many try to muddle the discussion by throwing in state and other taxes when the conversation is about FEDERAL INCOME TAXES ONLY.
No one I know advances paying NO federal taxes as you claim. Of course there are always a few. but, they are in the smallest percentile that they don't even deserve a mention.
Based on this post I am not surprised by what you think, because you are lacking so many facts.
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