Do The Rich Pay Too Much Federal Income Taxes

TurtleDude said:

if you actually pay attention you will see that the system is going to fail sooner or later.

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How many decades will I be forced to hear that prediction before it actually comes true? The income tax was implemented in 1913. It was graduated when it started. Even fewer people paid income taxes when it first started and the highest rate was 8%.

vasuderatorrent said:

Today is April 15. I thought you were implying that you paid your 2013 taxes today with a check for $200,000. I was going to pull the BS flag. Nevermind. Carry on.

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Oh I paid some for 2013. You see my estimated taxes for 2013 were based on what my taxes for 2012 were and since I made more in 2013 I have to pay some extra-no penalty of course since I am only required to pay based on 2012. So I had to pay a quarterly payment for 2014 and another amount for 2013 since my income from 2013 went up about 10% from 2012

vasuderatorrent said:

How many decades will I be forced to hear that prediction before it actually comes true? The income tax was implemented in 1913. It was graduated when it started. Even fewer people paid income taxes when it first started and the highest rate was 8%.

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we have less people as net payers now percentage wise. same with SS it seems you won't listen until it happens

then you will be hoping people like me are around/ People who are well armed and well trained

Gipper said:

I believe so. Depending on your state of residence, you could be paying almost half your total income to the taxman.

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Wouldn't they typically deduct their state taxes from their federal taxable income? Given the number of deductions, tax shelters, credits and so on, I would think paying nearly half your income in taxes would be very rare. You would have to fall into the alternative minimum to even get anywhere close.

TurtleDude said:

a democracy falls apart when the masses learn they can vote themselves the content of the public treasury.

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Why aren't welfare programs like AFDC, WIC, food stamps, EIC, CTC more lucrative? Why haven't the poorest 51% of the population made a law that requires the bottom 51% to get an annual check for $100,000 per year?

I would guess that we are at least 1,000 years away from that. Otherwise, how do you explain the very low payouts of government welfare programs? Why is the pay to these influential voters so small? It doesn't add up. Why are these payouts to the poor so meager?

vasuderatorrent said:

Why aren't welfare programs like AFDC, WIC, food stamps, EIC, CTC more lucrative? Why haven't the poorest 51% of the population made a law that requires the bottom 51% to get an annual check for $100,000 per year?

I would guess that we are at least 1,000 years away from that. Otherwise, how do you explain the very low payouts of government welfare programs? Why is the pay to these influential voters so small? It doesn't add up. Why are these payouts to the poor so meager?

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opinion noted not shared.

TurtleDude said:

we have less people as net payers now percentage wise. same with SS it seems you won't listen until it happens

then you will be hoping people like me are around/ People who are well armed and well trained

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How many decades should I wait? I am already 35. Statistically I'll be dead in 37 years. The doom of America has been coming for 237 years. It still hasn't come. Besides. Let's say the end of America is tomorrow. What am I supposed to do about it?

TurtleDude said:

opinion noted not shared.

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Do you have an explanation for the low payouts of welfare recipients? Your logic would result in extremely lucrative payouts for welfare beneficiaries. What is your theory?

vasuderatorrent said:

We all spend our money on things that we like. It seems like you like to pay for the luxury of sleeping at night and living with yourself. Not every business owner thinks these things are important.

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Seriously?

vasuderatorrent said:

It's your money. You can spend it on whatever you like.

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Not according to the progressive tax supporters.

vasuderatorrent said:

If you want to pay uneccessary employees, then pay uneccessary employees but don't expect me to feel sorry for you. Some companies fire uneccessary labor. You are paying them by your own choice. Nobody is forcing you to pay them.

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Unnecessary? Man. Do you own a company? In a small company, no employee is unnecessary. Maybe in a huge gargantuan company, but not in a small business. Small businesses can't afford to have people sitting on the bench waving their hand saying "Hey coach, put me in." Small businesses are more susceptible to economic turns. When it's good, it's great. When it's slow, it's dead.

If you understood basic business practice you would understand the following without me having to write it out for you:

Small businesses live on the fine edge between failure and success. That edge can make then tip one way or the other, in a very short time period - usually weeks, if not days. Also, all business is cyclical and small businesses have to make choices as to survival or failure with each fluctuation in the cycle. Some choose to lay people off hoping that they can be replaced when the cycle turns (this is a recipe for failure), and most choose to weather the downturn and keep their work force as close to intact as possible. The smaller the business, the less people they can afford to loose in the bad down turns. Why? Because there would be no way to retool the workforce and get up to speed to take advantage of any upturn in the market. This is even more true in advisory professional services, like attorneys and consultants (such as myself). The business models that are taught in college and are talked about on CNBC et al, are not applicable to small businesses that are reliant upon a singular or limited number of income earners.

Your flippant regard to my posts shows that your understanding of business, especially small business is lacking. I don't mean that as an insult, just as an observation, so that you don't make demonstrative statements like the ones you made to me that anyone that understands business economics and survivability would find lacking.

Beaudreaux said:

In a small company, no employee is unnecessary.

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Then what's the problem? You were complaining about paying them earlier.

Beaudreaux said:

My money is in the bank, mostly in the accounts of my employees. What is left in my account, has to be conserved to maintain job security for my employees. When hard times hit and the income slows down, the payroll still has to made, expenses still have to paid, and the benefits packages for my employees still has to be maintained.

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Just in case you claim that you never said that.

vasuderatorrent said:

Then what's the problem? You were complaining about paying them earlier.

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Complaining? Maybe you should read the thread again and see what was actually stated. I feel you implied for me, rather than listen to me.

My comments in this thread are in reference to the tax burden of those of us that pay the lions share of the taxes. Not anything else, and not complaining about my employees or their expense to me. The reference to them was in reply to why I had to keep so much money in the bank, that I couldn't use or touch, that still gets taxed at an unreasonable progressive rate and with AMT, at a punitive rate. I'm punished for making more money, get not one thing more from the government for that effort and taxes I pay than anyone else in this country receives. In fact, I get less. I don't get EIT credit, or SNAP, or Section 8 housing support, or WIC, or public health services, or many other things because I make too much money. I can't even get unemployment because I'm the owner. In fact, many of the tax deductions that most everyone else gets, I cannot get because of AMT. Not only do I have to pay more percentage wise, I have a minimum that I have to pay, and I can't deduct my state or local income taxes, medical expenses, education expenses for my kids, or many other things that the average guy gets to deduct.

Now, I wouldn't have a problem with doing away with all tax deductions. In fact, I have supported that for years.

But, let's do away with them all - for everyone.

Let's all pay the same rate. Not the same amount, but the same percentage rate.

Everyone pull the wagon.

In fact, my back is aching from pulling it with the few of us that are strapped to the damned thing.

I don't want in the wagon, I just want some of the folks that are, to get out and help pull for a while.

vasuderatorrent said:

Just in case you claim that you never said that.

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What part of that was complaining? It was stating facts, in a broader context of a larger discussion.

I think the fundamental misunderstanding here is over who is and is not rich. $450,000 a year is not rich on the same level as the few hundred elite billionaires who most often incur popular ire. The former generally pay their fair share. The latter are getting away with looting entire nations.

Paschendale said:

I think the fundamental misunderstanding here is over who is and is not rich. $450,000 a year is not rich on the same level as the few hundred elite billionaires who most often incur popular ire. The former generally pay their fair share. The latter are getting away with looting entire nations.

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that may have merit. if you are making between 400K and several million, you are the group that pays the highest effective tax rate and you are way overtaxed.

some billionaires perhaps not though they pay far more actually dollars than millions of Americans combined

The Very Rich Are Different--They Pay A Lower Tax Rate - Forbes

TurtleDude said:

that may have merit. if you are making between 400K and several million, you are the group that pays the highest effective tax rate and you are way overtaxed.

some billionaires perhaps not though they pay far more actually dollars than millions of Americans combined

The Very Rich Are Different--They Pay A Lower Tax Rate - Forbes

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Not overtaxed. Fairly reasonably taxed, and still enjoying incredible benefits for what they're paying. The billionaires should be paying more dollars than millions of Americans combined. They have more dollars than a hundred million Americans combined.

RiverDad said:

This is a crock of **** distraction tactic that you're using. Most of the taxes that we pay are used for INCOME REDISTRIBUTION and not for providing PUBLIC goods, like roads, schools, border control, national defense, policing, courts, etc.

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Your in the wrong country if you don't believe in progressive taxes. The founders saw it as a way to stop the wealthy from gaining undue influence over govt. Something they feared because of the European model at the time. The made no mention of "income redistribution" They just thought it greedy to want so much more than you needed to prosper and as Ben Franklin so aptly said......

"All the Property that is necessary to a man, for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species, is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the publick, who, by their laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the welfare of the publick shall demand such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire and live among savages."

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iguanaman said:

Your in the wrong country if you don't believe in progressive taxes. The founders saw it as a way to stop the wealthy from gaining undue influence over govt. Something they feared because of the European model at the time. The made no mention of "income redistribution" They just thought it greedy to want so much more than you needed to prosper and as Ben Franklin so aptly said......

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If the FOUNDER(S) believed that then they should have incorporated those principles into the founding documents.

Here's some other things that the Founder(s) believed:

Gipper said:

I believe so. Depending on your state of residence, you could be paying almost half your total income to the taxman.

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...ah, NO! This is a common misconception derived when you add a bunch of numbers that do not add together. NO ONE is paying anywhere near 50% of income in taxes. The biggest taxpayers pay more like 30-35%

RiverDad said:

If the FOUNDER(S) believed that then they should have incorporated those principles into the founding documents.

Here's some other things that the Founder(s) believed:

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.​

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."
--Thomas Jefferson--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.​

"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."
--Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts, Proclamation of a Day of Fast, March 20, 1797.​

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
--Alexander Hamilton, Famous American Statesmen, p. 126.​

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
Patrick Henry--The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.​

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Apparently the notion of Theocracy might well have been a gleam in those folks eyes. I hold reservations for....like say Jefferson. I guess they weren't in the same train of thinking with James Madison who said that he was keenly aware of what religion did to Europe the previous 500 years, which he called a blood bath.

Yea for James Madison and other members of the founds who exercised a little logic and reason.

Removable Mind said:

Apparently the notion of Theocracy might well have been a gleam in those folks eyes. I hold reservations for....like say Jefferson. I guess they weren't in the same train of thinking with James Madison who said that he was keenly aware of what religion did to Europe the previous 500 years, which he called a blood bath.

Yea for James Madison and other members of the founds who exercised a little logic and reason.

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And yet almost all liberals wax rhapsodic about Europe and wish we were more like Europe. Funny that.

RiverDad said:

If the FOUNDER(S) believed that then they should have incorporated those principles into the founding documents.

Here's some other things that the Founder(s) believed:

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.​

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."
--Thomas Jefferson--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.​

"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."
--Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts, Proclamation of a Day of Fast, March 20, 1797.​

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
--Alexander Hamilton, Famous American Statesmen, p. 126.​

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
Patrick Henry--The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.​

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There is nothing more outdated than 250 year old opinions on religion. Most westerners today are not very religious. You might as well quote the founders opinion of blood-letting as treatment for disease. Did you know that George Washington died from too much of that "treatment"?
What does stand the test of time is their hatred of the wealthy aristocracy. They knew that too much wealth in too few hands would be dangerous to the Republic.

iguanaman said:

There is nothing more outdated than 250 year old opinions on religion. Most westerners today are not very religious. You might as well quote the founders opinion of blood-letting as treatment for disease. Did you know that George Washington died from too much of that "treatment"?

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Can you remind me of who it was upthread that thought the opinion of one man living 250 years ago was so important to this issue? Go after that person and really lay into him for dredging up out-of-date ideas that have no relevance to the issues of today.

TeleKat said:

But who will build the roads?

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There should be a nationwide system of road tolls to be set up. This way those that use infrastructure are the ones who pay for it.

And I think all income taxes should be eliminated. The gubmint shouldnt take money that people earn.

Gipper said:

Are you serious?

Making your OWN money makes the state a dependent by default? Hell, why not just rob everyone's paycheck and just trust the "state" to do the right thing?

I can't believe so many people think liberty is a sin.

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Progressives are statists. Pocket dictators. They know exactly what you need to do.