Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes in the United States?

teamosil said:

More dependent on the government? What are you talking about kiddo? You're just babbling. You lose every single point and then just ramble off in another direction babbling random sentences. It's pathetic. Aren't you ashamed by how badly you lose every debate?



Kiddo, you seem to think that people in poverty just get all their money from the government, but obviously you understand that isn't true, right? Why do you keep posting things that you know are false? What is the matter with your brain?

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teamosil said:

More dependent on the government? What are you talking about kiddo? You're just babbling. You lose every single point and then just ramble off in another direction babbling random sentences. It's pathetic. Aren't you ashamed by how badly you lose every debate?



Kiddo, you seem to think that people in poverty just get all their money from the government, but obviously you understand that isn't true, right? Why do you keep posting things that you know are false? What is the matter with your brain?

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PirateMk1 said:

So where do the poor get their money?

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TurtleDude said:

I find it compelling that someone paying 100K a year in taxes is getting far less value for his tax payments than someone paying 1000 dollars a year in the same income taxes.

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TurtleDude said:

I find it the attitude that ability to pay (which is so loaded a term that it is worthless) is the only factor that should be taken into account is pernicious because those who claim they don't have much ability to pay will demand more and more from the government while arguing others should pay the bill.

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TurtleDude said:

a consumption tax requires far less government involvement and control

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TurtleDude said:

if someone making 25K a year and still decides to have two kids, maybe they will be less likely to want a government that requires them to pay 20% of their income in taxes than the current system does where they can vote for big spenders who want people like me to pay more and more

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TurtleDude said:

that's gonna cause some serious sidestepping

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PirateMk1 said:

So where do the poor get their money?

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PirateMk1 said:

Maybe it will motivate them to make some money and accumulate some wealth.

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TurtleDude said:

I am honest in what i post-you just don't accept anyone not buying into the from each according to their ability bs.

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TurtleDude said:

Lose debates? LOL-according to whom? the parasite enablers' society? the welfare socialist tea club?

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molten_dragon said:

I sort of disagree with this. Someone who only pays $1000 a year in taxes probably gets more direct benefit from what he pays than someone paying $100k a year. The person paying $100k a year is benefiting a lot more indirectly from the system that his taxes pay to maintain than the person paying $1000 a year does.



You're partly right. There are a lot of people out there not paying any income tax that should be. And a lot of those people would falsely claim that they don't have the ability to pay any. That doesn't change the fact that there are people out there that don't have the ability to pay any taxes without affecting their ability to provide themselves and their families with the very basic necessities. I'm talking about food, shelter, clothes, transportation to a job.



I don't see how. Collecting a sales tax with a few simple deductions isn't inherently any simpler than collecting an income tax with a few simple deductions.



Or maybe they didn't choose to have two kids while making 25k a year. Maybe they chose to have two kids while making 50k a year, and one of them lost their job. Are they just supposed to put the kids up for adoption?

And you've yet to answer, why is it okay to have exemptions for cost of living with a sales tax, but not an income tax?

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molten_dragon said:

I sort of disagree with this. Someone who only pays $1000 a year in taxes probably gets more direct benefit from what he pays than someone paying $100k a year. The person paying $100k a year is benefiting a lot more indirectly from the system that his taxes pay to maintain than the person paying $1000 a year does.



You're partly right. There are a lot of people out there not paying any income tax that should be. And a lot of those people would falsely claim that they don't have the ability to pay any. That doesn't change the fact that there are people out there that don't have the ability to pay any taxes without affecting their ability to provide themselves and their families with the very basic necessities. I'm talking about food, shelter, clothes, transportation to a job.



I don't see how. Collecting a sales tax with a few simple deductions isn't inherently any simpler than collecting an income tax with a few simple deductions.



Or maybe they didn't choose to have two kids while making 25k a year. Maybe they chose to have two kids while making 50k a year, and one of them lost their job. Are they just supposed to put the kids up for adoption?

And you've yet to answer, why is it okay to have exemptions for cost of living with a sales tax, but not an income tax?

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teamosil said:

How can it be honest to present arguments, over and over, which you obviously know are false because you're presented them many times before, had them debunked many times before, and never been able to defend your position?



You understand that when you make a claim, somebody posts a counter argument, and you just ignore it and repeat your initial claim, you lost the debate, right? You claim to be a lawyer. You tell me. If the other side argues that there is a problem with jurisdiction or whatever and you just pretend you didn't hear and go babble about something unrelated, who wins? Same deal.

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PirateMk1 said:

The reason a consumption tax is better for everyone, is that everyone has more control in how much tax they pay. If the only exemptions are food, medicine and previously used items, then people are really only adversly affected when they buy an item other than those. The other big reason is it is easier to collect a consumption tax because business does it for the government. There are far fewer businesses then people hence easier to spot fraud. It is less intrusive in private citizens lives. And the best part if it goes up people know about it.

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TurtleDude said:

a sales tax won't allow the many to vote up the rates of the few, an income tax does when it has different rates. but that was a fairly decent post

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TurtleDude said:

1) debunked-teamosil speak for "i don't like them

2) lost-teamosil speak for I don't like your opinion

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TurtleDude said:

3) teamosil talks about my profession-what does teamosil do

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molten_dragon said:

A sales tax could be made just as progressive as an income tax. Just have a different tax rate for 'luxury' items, and you have a progressive sales tax. So realistically, a sales tax could be used to allow the many to vote up the rates of a few just as easily as an income tax could.

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teamosil said:

No kiddo. There is no subjectivity in it. When you fail to come up with any defense at all against arguments against your position, you lost. Period. You know that obviously. Everybody over 6 years old knows that.



I actually do what you claim to do. Except I do it at a more prestigious firm than exists in your state. Remember that embarrassing string of incidents where I quizzed you on basic legal questions and you were unable to answer?

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molten_dragon said:

This is one of those common fallacies that gets brought up whenever taxes and the poor are discussed. There seems to be this common belief that because anyone in America can become wealthy and successful (and I truly do believe that), that everyone can. And that simply isn't true. We need janitors, and gas station attendants, and store clerks, and burger flippers in this country. We need a lot of the, but because it's all unskilled labor, we don't pay those people much. There will always be those people, in fairly large numbers. Not everyone can be a CEO, or even an engineer, lawyer, or doctor.

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TurtleDude said:

again its idiocy to assume that taxing the rich more is proper

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teamosil said:

Obviously you're wrong though, right? That's why you're unable to come up with a defense against all the arguments being presented against you. Well, at least that is the most flattering of the possible explanations for why you're unable to come up with defenses.

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molten_dragon said:

A sales tax could be made just as progressive as an income tax. Just have a different tax rate for 'luxury' items, and you have a progressive sales tax. So realistically, a sales tax could be used to allow the many to vote up the rates of a few just as easily as an income tax could.

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PirateMk1 said:

So where do the poor get their money?

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Keridan said:

Wow! A very busy thread where very few points were discussed in great detail. Instead of picking out specific posts, I'm going to address some of the highlights with my take on the subject.

First, the idea that business owners choose what taxes they pay is ridiculous. I say this as a person who owns his own business and who has several family members who have made their own businesses, as well. You have your gross revenue. Then you are allowed to spend that revenue on certain things and won't be taxed on those. This includes such luxuries as paying your laborers and buying office supplies. Unfortunately, groceries don't seem to count as office supplies to the government. When you have spent the money you are allowed to spend tax-free, you have the money left over. That is your income, or pay for doing your job. This is taxed very similarly to other income because it's the amount you get to keep after keeping your business alive. Alternately, you can keep it invested in the business, but not spend it, but that includes not spending it on yourself and is therefore not income. When you use it to buy a car, you have to call it income and pay taxes on it.

Next, progressive/regressive/fair taxation. We have covered in great detail previously the differences between FIT, FICA and state taxes. Those who talk about the whole tax burden are not being dishonest, but they are lumping together hugely different subjects.

FICA is not progressive because it was designed to provide a return based on the investment you make. It is supposed to replace retirement planning. It is not progressive because the idea was to get a return value based on your investment. It caps at 106k because the theory is that if you make more than that, you don't need more help when you retire. I agree that the burden is higher on lower incomes, but so is the reward. If you raise the input, then fairness would demand you raise the return and the same thing applies.

State taxes have a hugely varied application. Some are more fair than others. The key here is that it is NOT the job of the federal government to compensate for state taxation. There are 51 governments involved here. You can pick on certain states, sure, but putting it on the federal government makes it pointless to have states since they would then have to provide some balance to the state government. What's to keep NC from taxing at 50% if the federal government will just give the money back in a sense of "fairness"?

Then you have FIT. This is a progressive tax that, by itself, is absolutely progressive. It increases based on higher incomes. The wealthier pay considerably more than the poor. This is the tax I refer to when I speak about fair taxation because it is the only one applying nation wide that was designed to be progressive.

Capital gains is a different beast. The thing about CG is that increasing the rate rarely increases the revenue. If you treat it as normal income, people will change their investment approaches to make sure the government gets less. Which is more important here? "fairness" or total revenue?

Inheritance and gifts, imo, should not be taxed again. The thing about it is that there wasn't a trade. Also, they have already been taxed as income. Yes, we pay multiple taxes on the same income all the time, but it shouldn't have the same tax applied multiple times. I know the argument that the person receiving the money has not paid taxes on it yet, but I personally feel that we leave things to people because it's something the GIVER wants to do. They are still paying taxes on it twice.

Then we get to the thing that bugs me the most. People are too focused on getting more money in the government's hands to misspend. Currently, the government gets $2,301,743,014,779 a year that is manages to do very little with. They need severe cuts to spending. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. The government should easily be able to survive on 2.3 trillion dollars. That is also not including state governments who use the money to care for roads, schools, emergency services and more. Those things don't even fall on the federal budget!

Another annoying thing to me is the statements about the wealthy benefiting more. I'm not sold on it. In fact, I feel the opposite is true. I am fine with helping people who really do need it, though. However, the problem is that so many factors are ignored. In whatever way they supposedly benefit more, they pay more taxes already. More use of the roads? Well, they paid more sales taxes for the goods they are shipping, the trucks that ship them, and the employees they hired to move the stuff. Benefiting from the education of their employees? They also pay higher wages, which means more taxes. Also, those employees are benefiting and paying more because of the education, too. Additional emergency services (police protection)? Well, they pay higher property taxes and purchase taxes for those properties. They also don't get welfare, government funded healthcare, or anything else the poor receive from the government. Let's stop acting like they are getting these things for free and the average worker is paying for it.

Long post, but I came in late and saw lots of things I wanted to comment on.

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