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I think people get so lost in the politics of today, that they don't look at how policies actually affect life.
For example, could we have afforded to have a space program on a simple flat tax? Made it to the moon? Funded the science programs that led to harnessing the atom? Lasers? Satellites? Paid for returning vets to go to college and create the largest white collar work force in the world?
How would many of the developments that funded our advancement into a superpower been achieved on the severely reduced tax revenue of a national sales tax, VAT, or flat tax?
Keep in mind that historically, we had 70 years where the top marginal tax rate was never less than 50%.
I think people get so lost in the politics of today, that they don't look at how policies actually affect life.
For example, could we have afforded to have a space program on a simple flat tax? Made it to the moon? Funded the science programs that led to harnessing the atom? Lasers? Satellites? Paid for returning vets to go to college and create the largest white collar work force in the world?
How would many of the developments that funded our advancement into a superpower been achieved on the severely reduced tax revenue of a national sales tax, VAT, or flat tax?
Keep in mind that historically, we had 70 years where the top marginal tax rate was never less than 50%.
I will keep in mind the fact that you don't know chit about anything other than what we now have. You don't seem to understand the difference in the sales tax, a flat tax, and the Fair Tax. Most people of the left lean sure don't know about the Fair Tax and how it works. Maybe you should use everybody's friend, Google, and learn about that one.
Do you pick herbs when they are seedlings ? Why would one tax as early as possible in the production chain? Let alone that taxes on goods and services are idiotic.
I will keep in mind the fact that you don't know chit about anything other than what we now have. You don't seem to understand the difference in the sales tax, a flat tax, and the Fair Tax. Most people of the left lean sure don't know about the Fair Tax and how it works. Maybe you should use everybody's friend, Google, and learn about that one.
I look forward to this, seeing how you're one of the people that describes Obama as a "Socialist"... lol. But I'm not expecting a whole lot of exposition from you on this, just party talking points lacking any insight. All you know is "taxes are bad" like some political Frankenstein's monster running from fire. But feel free to show you're not just some FOX News parrot and contribute to a discussion that doesn't already have a your talking points laid out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by irishvanguard
Money is way too mobile now to try that again.
If you haven't noticed there are actually some other economies out in the world these days.
I have noticed, and have you noticed that none of the leading economies or societies have done away w/ the progressive code?
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwynedd1
A VAT tax is the worst possible tax to have.
Do you pick herbs when they are seedlings ? Why would tax as early as possible in the production chain? Let alone that taxes on goods and services are idiotic.
And yet, a VAT is routinely paraded as an alternative/complement to our current tax code by the "taxes are stealing" crowd.
I will keep in mind the fact that you don't know chit about anything other than what we now have. You don't seem to understand the difference in the sales tax, a flat tax, and the Fair Tax. Most people of the left lean sure don't know about the Fair Tax and how it works. Maybe you should use everybody's friend, Google, and learn about that one.
They are all stupid so what more is there to know?
This is not rocket science. How progressive/regressive do you chose to be? Then you develop a tax set based on that desire.
I don't think we are progressive enough. I think Mitt should pay more in taxes than I do...he don't.
I am pretty sure that Mitt Romney pays more in income taxes each year than you do in your whole life. You want him to pay the same percentage you do but aren't able to see that he pays so much more right now and the numbers you are talking about have to do with his taxes on his investments not his income. He gets to go twice there just like I do.
Is is fair that you pay a percentage on your working income and I get to pay income taxes on my social security after having paid taxes on the same thing before I stopped paying on income? I am going around a second time.
Do you really understand what those words, progressive tax, really mean. You seem to think that it means the more you make the more your percentage should be. Is that right?
The middle-class is where the real money is, and the only way to get more of it with the least political pain is through a broad-based consumption tax such as a VAT
Where have I read this before?
§1. Are direct or indirect taxes the most eligible? This question, at all times interesting, has of late excited a considerable amount of discussion. In England there is a popular feeling, of old standing, in favour of indirect, or it should rather be said in opposition to direct, taxation. The feeling is not grounded on the merits of the case, and is of a puerile kind. An Englishman dislikes, not so much the payment, as the act of paying. He dislikes seeing the face of the tax-collector, and being subjected to his peremptory demand. Perhaps, too, the money which he is required to pay directly out of his pocket is the only taxation which he is quite sure that he pays at all. That a tax of one shilling per pound on tea, or of two shillings per bottle on wine, raises the price of each pound of tea and bottle of wine which he consumes, by that and more than that amount, cannot indeed be denied; it is the fact, and is intended to be so, and he himself, at times, is perfectly aware of it; but it makes hardly any impression on his practical feelings and associations, serving to illustrate the distinction between what is merely known to be true and what is felt to be so. The unpopularity of direct taxation, contrasted with the easy manner in which the public consent to let themselves be fleeced in the prices of commodities, has generated in many friends of improvement a directly opposite mode of thinking to the foregoing. They contend that the very reason which makes direct taxation disagreeable, makes it preferable. Under it, every one knows how much he really pays; and if he votes for a war, or any other expensive national luxury, he does so with his eyes open to what it costs him. If all taxes were direct, taxation would be much more perceived than at present; and there would be a security which now there is not, for economy in the public expenditure.
...
A certain amount of revenue may, as we have seen, be obtained without injustice by a peculiar tax on rent. Besides the present land-tax, and an equivalent for the revenue now derived from stamp duties on the conveyance of land, some further taxation might, I have contended, at some future period be imposed, to enable the state to participate in the progressive increase of the incomes of landlords from natural causes. Legacies and inheritances, we have also seen, ought to be subjected to taxation sufficient to yield a considerable revenue. With these taxes, and a house tax of suitable amount; we should, I think, have reached the prudent limits of direct taxation, save in a national emergency so urgent as to justify the government in disregarding the amount of inequality and unfairness which may ultimately be found inseparable from an income tax.*52 The remainder of the revenue would have to be provided by taxes on consumption, and the question is, which of these are the least objectionable.
J S MILL
Taxes on wealth called in the classical age a rent has no dead weight on goods and service at all to the consumer since that cannot be passed on because the least producer sets the price. For:
For example, let there be five qualities of land, which severally yield, on the same extent of ground, and with the same expenditure, 100, 90, 80, 70, and 60 bushels of wheat; the last of these being the lowest quality which the demand for food renders it necessary to cultivate. The rent of these lands will be as follows:—
The land producing 100 bushels will yield a rent of 100-60, or 40 bushels
That producing 90 " " 90-60, or 30 "
" 80 " " 80-60, or 20 "
" 70 " " 70-60, or 10 "
" 60 " " no rent.
V.4.6
Now let a tithe be imposed, which takes from these five pieces of land 10, 9, 8, 7, and 6 bushels respectively, the fifth quality still being the one which regulates the price,
Why would you employ a tax that is a dead weight on production given the alternative, especially the most insidious?
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