Paying a "fair share"

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by FrankCapua, Apr 12, 2015.

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  1. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Source for this claim please. I don't think that is accurate at all.

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    I think they both would love to disturb it. But they in completely different ways.
     
  2. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    You do realise that people have to earn an icome before paying federal INCOME tax?

    That even an effective tax rate of 2% still means you actually contribute?

    Do you have anything else then these almost bullet points?


    Again so you propose to drasticly raise taxes on 60-70% of he population and think the country will be better of? How?
     
  3. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    Actually you just taxed them about 50% more.

    The poor (people without any income or very low income) now pay no income tax, very little state taxes and mostly just get taxed on consumption.

    Thats around 10% avg.

    And why? So instead of making 25k a month someone makes 27k a month?


    BS they pay around 20% in taxes on an income of 250k. If that is "unsustainable" you are doing something seriously wrong.

    Its actually the lower icomes that have a lot harder time getting around WHILE working that get the bad end.


    BS one makes 1000$ a day and pays 50$ the other one makes 100$ a day and pays 5$.

    YOU want them both to pay 27.5$ . Quite clear that the one making 1k a day isnt goignt o feel the difference while the other one can go look for a second or third job .
     
  4. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It depends on what it's 2% of — we need to look at dollars not ratios. If someone put 2% of $20,000 into the pot, and took $15,000 out ... how can we call that contributing? How can that guy claim he's contributed more than the guy who put in 1% of $1,000,000,000?

    At some point we need to account for the value consumed.




     
  5. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    So you want a tax level based on actual amounts? Not even a flat tax but some sort of admission fee?

    Btw : "claim he's contributed more" is absolute BS. I only see people here defend the "rich" and attack the rest of not paying their 'fair share'
     
  6. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, I don't want to. I don't think we even can — we spend almost $15,000 a person at the federal level alone. A family of four would have to pay almost $60,000 a year if we did that. And I don't think that's possible.

    That doesn't change the numbers though. And I'm not attacking a person who puts $3,000 in the pot, takes out $15,000 and says he contributed more than the guy who put in $300,000 for the exact same rights and privileges our government provides all American citizens.

    I'm just questioning his math.




     
  7. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Taxes are not a payment for services. They are a payment to fund the Govt.
     
  8. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And some of us pay more. I can live with that. I'd just like us to be more honest about who's actually paying for the services provided through our government, especially when we consider raising them.




     
  9. perotista

    perotista Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Probably so. But if it is replaced with a consumption tax or national sales tax one would only pay taxes on things that is bought or consumed. Depending on what you buy, you could control the amount of tax you paid. Of course the more expensive an item, the more you would pay. I would assume the rich would be buying more stuff, more expensive cars and houses, and the like, so they would also be paying more.

    I haven't really thought this through, but I kind of like the idea of only paying taxes on what I buy, not what I earn.
     
  10. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    And why does the government need funding? Why do we even need it in the first place?
     
  11. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    First agan this topic is about those paying more whining they pay it .
    Second, I question your math. You look only at direct aid and forget that there are lots of ways the gov helps people.
    Someone making millions can only do this thx to a stable economy and a safe envirnment, both provided to him.
    In a lot of wasy that guy is getting more out of the gov then he ever puts in.
     
  12. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is about discussing fair share. The government help you're talking about costs ~ $15,000 per person. That help includes infrastructure and regulation. You could say government provides a part of our environment, but it doesn't provide an economy. Economy is what we do in that environment.

    And we all get that stable government, no one is getting a more stable America or a less stable one. We share one America. Some of us are just doing more in it.




     
  13. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    Disturb this lovingly mangled, wholly unfair U. S. Tax Code? Why would any of the rich want to change it so that they would have to pay anything close to a fair share? Reality? They haven't... they aren't, and they won't! It seems to be the one behavior that Limousine Liberal Democrats and Fat Cat Republicans have in common. But yes, the rhetoric varies considerably, although the unfairness of the tax code remains exactly the same....

    I've said it thousands of times -- we will not have fair taxation in this country until the U. S. Tax Code is stripped of ALL the loopholes, shelters, exemptions, and exclusions!

    That includes doing away with the "Negative Income Tax" credit, which, as you know, rewards people with Federal money simply because (supposedly) they didn't earn enough money on their own. What a pile of socialist redistribution horse(*)(*)(*)(*) that is!

    Slowly but surely, though, I'm learning, Iriemon. I'm learning that both political parties are made up of little but opportunistic, deceitful thieves. The best we can do for ourselves until this whole thing collapses is to determine which band of these criminals will steal LESS from us, and then vote for them. Right now, honestly, that looks like the Democrats (*barf!*)....
     
  14. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    Apparently my partner and I have it backwards. We own a manufacturing company developing new products and we use a very low introductory price to generate high initial sales to recoup our develoment costs and then raise our prices once we establish the market. As noted the costs of development are amortized over many units and the best way to sell a lot of units is with a low introductory price. It take considerably longer to sell the same number of units if the price is significantly higher so low pricing is key to rapidly selling enough units to recoup the non-recurring development and tooling costs.

    Of course the fact that we're very successful by using low introductory pricing should be ignored because it works. ROFLMAO
     
  15. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why do you insist on blaming the Democrats for the Republicans' actions? It isn't the Democrats who blocked Obama's proposal to raise taxes on the millionaires.

    Where did you learn the false notion that it is the Democrats who are preventing tax increases on the richest?
     
  16. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    We would actually pay more because today the government spends $3.9 trillion but only collects $3.3 trillion and this deficit is expected to increase. If government spread out the tax revenues in the areas you mention, my guess is they will add up to $3.9 trillion and not the current $3.3 trillion...meaning the collective we will pay about $600 billion more than we do today...
     
  17. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    ...which provides services. It is a distinction without a difference.

    Examples of services are the courts, military, police, diplomacy, public utility and social services.

    What are taxes purposes?

     
  18. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Problem with a consumption tax is the socialist party of the US does not want 75-100 million Americans paying taxes so they demand annual credits, etc. So this places the burden of paying 85% of the taxes back on the same people who pay that today.

    If we use gross GDP of $15 trillion and government expense of $4 trillion, in order to extract $4 trillion tax revenue out of the $15 trillion as consumption tax...this would require a 27% tax on all transactions. A person who today earns and spends $30K annually would need to pay $8,000 in consumption taxes each year...which kind of means they can only spend about $22K instead of the current $30K.

    IMO, other than 100 million Americans not paying income taxes each year, is our federal government simply has become too expensive. And, government spending is perhaps 25% or more inefficient as well as spending too much outside of the USA. So our bang-for-the-buck feels dismal at best...
     
  19. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is a huge difference between saying taxes are a quid pro quo for services you receive versus funding the Govt.

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    Of course, scores of millions of those working Americans pay hundreds of millions in FICA taxes. I'm sure it was an oversight on your part and you would never mean to falsely imply that they were paying no federal tax at all.
     
  20. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    There are a very few distinctive services that are a group of people can elect to join if they wish that protects against (by it prescence) or reacts to the initiation of force against a person (which includes his legal property). These services include the military (I include roads within the military), the police, and the courts. If one wishes to partake within these basic core of services then that is the cost of citizenship. It should cost the exact same for everyone, as no one person's fundamental rights are any different than another.

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    No, there really isn't.
     
  21. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course there is a huge difference.

    If paying taxes is a quid pro quo for services received, then taxes should be due only based upon the services received, and a billionaire might argue that he should owe less taxes than a guy making a poverty level income or who has lost his job. Which some conservatives here do.

    If taxes are to fund the government, then the amount of services received is or irrelevant or minor significance, and a person's income is the crucial factor in what taxes should be paid.

    Its a radical difference. Are you taking the position that everyone's taxes should be based solely on the value of what they actually receive from the Govt?
     
  22. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Great example!! Above is just one great example how socialist USA is thinking...in this case it's not enough that a 100 million Americans don't pay income taxes but Iriemon wants OTHERS to also pay for their Social Security and Medicare and Disability. The more that OTHERS pay the better things will be...
     
  23. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure. Social insurance provides a social benefit. Just as I think others should pay for the national defense.
     
  24. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    It provides both, you simply dont seem to understand that a stable environment is just as import.

    You cant know that depending on the taxes you pay. Thats some BS argument. And this is pointless you want some election of mr america based on who pays more taxes compleet with awards . While you advocate at the same time to let the poorest people those who can least afford, pay a lot more in taxes for no other reason then you think thats more fair.

    Again, look at arab spring, the main issue there was too many unemployed underpaid youths. No coutnry that has a huge gap in income can be stable including the US. Part of keeping the us stable and part of letting those who have a higher income keep making that is the social security build into the system.

    No the USA will not be a better place if you double/triple/tenfold the taxes on lower income families, on the contrary.
     
  25. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    You can raise various tax rates on the big-rich but that doesn't mean that they will pay a penny more in taxes! Tax rates, per se, mean nothing! As long as the über-wealthy have dozens of loopholes, shelters, and exceptions to take advantage of, they don't pay anything extra, on top of paying little or nothing to begin with.

    That's what I've been howling about for years! That's why we need to go way beyond an illusory tax rate change and go the heart of the problem -- the actual structure and wording of the U. S. Tax Code itself! That is something that neither Obama nor any other Democrat has been willing to do, and neither have the Republicans. We need to gut this rotten, corrupt tax code and get rid of all the crap that rich Liberals and rich Conservatives use to cheat the country out of revenue, while laughing all the way to the bank, with their tax attorneys and tax accountants....

    [​IMG] -- Are you old enough to remember Leona Helmsley?
     
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