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Should Federal and Employees Pay Federal Income Taxes?

Should Federal Employees Pay Fed. Income Tax?

  • Yes

    Votes: 12 75.0%
  • No

    Votes: 2 12.5%
  • Potato

    Votes: 2 12.5%

  • Total voters
    16
I can think of a few...it would likely cost as much to ensure the salaries were balanced. It takes away the opportunities of individuals to invest their money before they are required to pay taxes on them. You are creating a caste or class of people that would create unnecessary rifts. It removes the personal investment we ALL have to ensure our tax dollars are collected and spent wisely (if I dont have to pay taxes but still get federal services and benefits, what do I care about how it is spent?).

It would probably cost us less. The IRS has to employ people to do those taxes. Also, someone has to do their tax withholdings.

Investment opportunities - that's something right there. OK that's one reason I'll give you.

The caste system argument is BS. What are you talking about?
 
We wouldn't lose that $13 billion, because the government would never pay it to them to begin with.

huh????????????????

so you want to prevent Federal employees from paying Federal income taxes, by firing all Federal employees?
:lamo
 
I say "no."

If you think about it, it's just redundant. Federal employees are paid with tax dollars. Having them pay taxes just increases the workload for the IRS.

It's inefficient.

of course they should.

o are you proposing
 
huh????????????????

so you want to prevent Federal employees from paying Federal income taxes, by firing all Federal employees?
:lamo

What the hell are you talking about Thunder? I'm not saying that at all. Just don't pay them what they would otherwise have to pay back anyway in income tax.

So if you work for the post office, and you owe $10,000 in income taxes, what I'm saying is that the government should just pay you $10,000 less to begin with, and you don't have to pay any taxes.

That's good for everyone. You don't have to do your taxes (which takes forever), the IRS doesn't have to process them, and everybody has the same money at the end of the day.
 
...So if you work for the post office, and you owe $10,000 in income taxes, what I'm saying is that the government should just pay you $10,000 less to begin with, and you don't have to pay any taxes....

rather then beating around the bush and being coy, why didn't you just say so??
 
All people who add to their wealth or income through the acquisition of money should pay federal income taxes. That includes federal employees.
 
how would the IRS be able to know how each of the 1 million Federal employees would be paying in taxes. everyone has different deductions, different exemptions, different everything.

We should have a flat tax. For example, Gingrich is proposing an option of 15% flat tax on all income with no deductions. We should just do that, exempt Federal Employees from paying it, and reduce their salary by 15%.
 
It would probably cost us less. The IRS has to employ people to do those taxes. Also, someone has to do their tax withholdings.

Investment opportunities - that's something right there. OK that's one reason I'll give you.

The caste system argument is BS. What are you talking about?
You dont see the potential for a separate and unequal status for federal employees exempt from paying taxes? Boy...I sure do...
 
You dont see the potential for a separate and unequal status for federal employees exempt from paying taxes? Boy...I sure do...

Not at all. They would be netting the same amount of money, I don't really see the issue. Am I missing something?
 
They shouldn't be exempt from the same obligation every other citizen has simply because tax dollars pay them. I found one estimate that says there are over 24 million government employees as of 2010. When you consider that most govt. employees receive 17-40%+ more total compensation that private sector equals I think it's foolish to also give them a break on their tax obligation. Either deduct the amount equal to the average effective tax rate for their bracket from their projected yearly income, or take it out of their payroll checks like any other employee.
 
Not at all. They would be netting the same amount of money, I don't really see the issue. Am I missing something?
Start with the military and how it is perceived they get 'free' medical. In essence you already have a model for what you think should be happening with every federal employee. And heres a shocker...SOME federal employees actually have to PAY taxes because not enough gets withheld. What you are suggesting is a good notion...just not very practical. You could say the same thing about every city, county, state and federal employee...and for that matter EVERY person...just let their employers figure out their tax requirement and pay the fed directly.

I just think things get way too convoluted. Im all for simplifying the system...I dont think this would do what you think it would do.
 
They shouldn't be exempt from the same obligation every other citizen has simply because tax dollars pay them. I found one estimate that says there are over 24 million government employees as of 2010. When you consider that most govt. employees receive 17-40%+ more total compensation that private sector equals I think it's foolish to also give them a break on their tax obligation. Either deduct the amount equal to the average effective tax rate for their bracket from their projected yearly income, or take it out of their payroll checks like any other employee.

That is what I'm proposing. I should have spelled that out better with the OP.
 
Start with the military and how it is perceived they get 'free' medical. In essence you already have a model for what you think should be happening with every federal employee. And heres a shocker...SOME federal employees actually have to PAY taxes because not enough gets withheld. What you are suggesting is a good notion...just not very practical. You could say the same thing about every city, county, state and federal employee...and for that matter EVERY person...just let their employers figure out their tax requirement and pay the fed directly.

I just think things get way too convoluted. Im all for simplifying the system...I dont think this would do what you think it would do.

I don't think any sane American views the military in a poor light. I guess whether it would be convoluted would depend on how you did it. If you based it on a flat tax, it would be simple because the idea of deductions is out the window. It makes everything more transparent and simple.
 
I don't think any sane American views the military in a poor light. I guess whether it would be convoluted would depend on how you did it. If you based it on a flat tax, it would be simple because the idea of deductions is out the window. It makes everything more transparent and simple.
If you based everything on a flat tax it would be pretty simple. But then you would still have to have someone calculating every federal employees percentage of income, time in service, rate, etc.
 
While I agree with the logic you propose in general, it is actually much simpler to take out of the right pocket to put into the left. Arguing for a simpler tax code is separate from your OP. You are asking why don't we do it a certain way. Not how do we get our system so we can do it that way. The answer to the OP is we have all the federal employees pay taxes in the same way as non federal employees because of the complexity of the tax code.

To use another item for a similar example: Fair Tax. Please I'm not putting the entire bill up for argument here. There are other threads for that. I am simply using one portion of it to show the logic. I'm sure that everyone could find parts of bad bills that they would like, even if they believe that the bill as a whole would cause more harm than good.

The logic of having a prebate instead of exempting each individual's purchases up to a certain amount (the poverty line) is the simplicity of not having to track each individual's purchases, as we do now with their incomes. If you have no exemptions but then provide the money to cover taxes on purchases, You actually eliminate a lot of paperwork and tracking.

But in the end, unless the employee really botches on their exemption status, the federal government is not really taking out those taxes. They stay in the treasury. Simply because the paperwork shows what those taxes are, the only money that physically comes out of the treasury is that from the cashed check which is the post taxed amount. In fact, if the federal employee does his exemptions correctly, the treasury will not have given out enough money to the employee.
 
While I agree with the logic you propose in general, it is actually much simpler to take out of the right pocket to put into the left. Arguing for a simpler tax code is separate from your OP. You are asking why don't we do it a certain way. Not how do we get our system so we can do it that way. The answer to the OP is we have all the federal employees pay taxes in the same way as non federal employees because of the complexity of the tax code.

To use another item for a similar example: Fair Tax. Please I'm not putting the entire bill up for argument here. There are other threads for that. I am simply using one portion of it to show the logic. I'm sure that everyone could find parts of bad bills that they would like, even if they believe that the bill as a whole would cause more harm than good.

The logic of having a prebate instead of exempting each individual's purchases up to a certain amount (the poverty line) is the simplicity of not having to track each individual's purchases, as we do now with their incomes. If you have no exemptions but then provide the money to cover taxes on purchases, You actually eliminate a lot of paperwork and tracking.

But in the end, unless the employee really botches on their exemption status, the federal government is not really taking out those taxes. They stay in the treasury. Simply because the paperwork shows what those taxes are, the only money that physically comes out of the treasury is that from the cashed check which is the post taxed amount. In fact, if the federal employee does his exemptions correctly, the treasury will not have given out enough money to the employee.

Good explanation. Evidently, it would only really work if we had a flat tax such as the one Gingrich is proposing.
 
No, obviously the government has other sources of revenue. But why do we have the redundancy of federal employees paying back federal income tax? It makes no sense at all.

Would they stop filing a tax return?
 
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