Why does the middle class pay the most crippling amount of income tax?

haymarket said:

NO. It his his assertion that



that was really easy to understand. I have no idea where you got the rest of your post.

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TurtleDude said:

so it is your learned argument that the top one percent

1) use more government services than the 47% who pay no income taxes

2) than the 90% of so who pay less of the Income taxes than the top one percent?

that is the issue

taxes paid versus services used

for your silly rants about the rich to have merit, you have to prove that all of those combined-who pay as much of the income tax as the rich use less services.

the top 5% pay 58% of the federal income taxes. that means the bottom 95% pay 42% of the income taxes. The top one percent pays 39% of the income taxes

that means the top one percent pays as much income tax as the bottom 92 or 93% of the population.

now that both groups pay the same federal income taxes for the rich to use more you would have to show that 1% uses more government services than 92%

I suggest common sense suggests that would be an idiotic assertion

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Catawba said:

Numbering your opinions may fly in Turtledude court, but on a debate forum they are still just your opinions, which mean nothing. :sun

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TurtleDude said:

Second, there is no persuasive support in the literature for the claim that higher-income people derive a disproportionately greater value from government protection of property than lower-income people. Some progression advocates have argued that government exists in large part to protect rich people from poor people, while poor people need no such protection. Thus, the value of the rich person’s protection is disproportionately greater than that afforded the poor. Perhaps this was true centuries ago in some feudal nations, but it is not now and never has been generally true in the United States. Others argue that insurance is priced according to risk as well as value, implying that high-value property is at greater risk of loss. While this notion has conceptual merit, it does not follow that property owned by high-income people is at greater risk than property owned by low-income people. In fact, the rich are more likely to engage in self-protection (e.g., build protective walls, install security systems, hire guards, etc.), which would result in reduced, not greater, risk. Seligman, Blum and Kalven, and others have examined the property protection arguments for progression and dismissed them as either untenably weak or without merit.

The Inequity of the Progressive Income Tax | Hoover Institution

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TurtleDude said:

I love how you ignore facts. its not my opinion that the top 1% pay more of the income taxes than the bottom 90% that is just a pure fact: facts that pretty much put the old womp stomp and giftwrap on the emotobabbling posts you spew

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Catawba said:

A conservative blog is not objective documentation. So, in other words, you couldn't find any credible source to back up your wild claim. :sun

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Catawba said:

A conservative blog is not objective documentation. So, in other words, you couldn't find any credible source to back up your wild claim. :sun

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[SUP]1[/SUP] The tax figures were calculated by The Shapiro Group, a Los Angeles tax accounting firm. The marginal rates and brackets are those applicable for the 2010 tax year. These figures are for illustration purposes only. They do not include the effect of certain tax credits (which some would consider transfer payments) that exist in the law. If these credits were included, Harry would pay a tax of $22,600, Dick would pay a tax of $3,700 and Tom would receive a refund of $7,100.

[SUP]2[/SUP] There are several other types of taxes levied by federal, state, and city governments, including taxes on capital gains, dividends, estates, sales, and property. These tax systems are outside the scope of this essay.
[SUP]3[/SUP] As defined here, the term aptitude is similar to but distinct from other terms used in the literature to describe capacity to earn: 1) “endowment,” which, in this context, is synonymous with genetic inheritance and is, therefore, too limiting; 2) “faculty,” which, like aptitude connotes capacity to earn, but is also used in the literature to describe financial wherewithal; and 3) “ability,” which, like faculty, is used to describe either capacity to earn or financial wherewithal.
[SUP]4[/SUP] Edward Blum and Harry Kalven, The Uneasy Case of Progressive Taxation (University of Chicago Press, 1953.
[SUP]5[/SUP] Edwin R.A. Seligman, Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice (Princeton University Press, 1908).
[SUP]6[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 14.
[SUP]7[/SUP] Some advocates of progression argue that a progressive income tax is needed to offset the putatively regressive nature of the payroll “taxes” that fund Social Security and Medicare. The conflation of these revenue streams is ill-conceived, inasmuch as each has a different purpose. Income taxes are used to fund a broad range of government services as described above, while payroll levies are collected for the express purpose of providing income supplements and medical care during retirement. More specifically, Social Security levies are a form of forced savings, and Medicare levies are effectively prepaid medical insurance premiums. Neither of them finances government services per se. Since Social Security benefits when paid out are tied to the aggregate amount paid into the system by each beneficiary, it is inaccurate to call the levies regressive. In the case of Medicare, the amount paid into the system is proportionate to income while the benefits (paid health care) are essentially the same for each beneficiary; consequently, the system is redistributive.
[SUP]8[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 38.
[SUP]9[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 37.
[SUP]10[/SUP] Arthur C. Pigou, A Study in Public Finance (Macmillan, 1951), 85-86.
[SUP]11[/SUP] Seligman, 219. *An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that Seligman was quoting Cohen-Stuart when he was in fact summarizing Cohen-Stuart’s arguments.
[SUP]12[/SUP] Seligman, 222-223.
[SUP]13[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 63.
[SUP]14[/SUP] John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their applications to social philosophy, Vol. II (D. Appleton and Company, 1894), 99, 401.
[SUP]15[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 72.
[SUP]16[/SUP] Gini coefficients cited herein come from The CIA World Fact Book 2010, the Census Bureau report on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009 and other U.S. government publications, and Eurostat, the official statistical office of the European Union.
[SUP]17[/SUP] Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation: December 2010.”
[SUP]18[/SUP] David S. Johnson, Timothy Smeeding, and Barbara Boyle Toney, “Economic Inequality Through the Prisms of Income and Consumption,” Monthly Labor Review (Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2006), available at http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/04/art2full.pdf.
[SUP]19[/SUP] Johnson, et al., “Economic Inequality.”
[SUP]20[/SUP] Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan, “Consumption and income inequality in the U.S. since the 1960s” (2010) working paper, available at http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/faculty/ web-pages/Inequality60s.pdf
[SUP]21[/SUP] Blum and Kalven, 75.
[SUP]22[/SUP] To be sure, there are people in America who are needy or disadvantaged, in some instances grievously so. For such people the most effective remedy would be through direct spending programs. But the funding for such programs should come from a tax system that is equitable.
[SUP]23[/SUP] Mark Robyn and Gerald Prante, “Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data,” Fiscal Fact 249 (Tax Foundation, October 6, 2010), http://www.taxfoundation.org/ news/show/250.html
[SUP]24[/SUP] Roberton Williams, “Who pays no income tax?,” Tax Notes (June 29, 2009), available at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF /1001289_who_pays.pdf
[SUP]25[/SUP] J. R. McCullough, A Treatise on the Principles and Practical Influence of Taxation, or the Funding System (The Lawbook Exchange Ltd., 2007), 143-145.

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TurtleDude said:

maybe it would be better if you would let catawba speak for himself. my point was made to him not the tribe

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Jerry said:

The blog was the reporting agent.

Here is the source documentation:

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Catawba said:

You have made you absurd claim to everyone, therefore everyone has a right to call your ass on it.

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Jerry said:

The blog was the reporting agent.

Here is the source documentation:

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Catawba said:

Source documentation for what? Which of these sources backs up the Turtledude's claim that the rich benefit less from government than the working class? I could find none of them that do.


I'll wait. :sun

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TurtleDude said:

yawn

you are put in the untenable position to advocate that 1 percent of the population (ie the rich) use more than 60-90% of the population

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Catawba said:

Source documentation for what?

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Catawba said:

Still nothing to back up your lame ass claim that the rich benefit less from government than the working class eh? What a surprise! :sun

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Jerry said:

Turtledude's link in post 174, which you quoted in your post 179, so no need to pretend you don't know.

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Catawba said:

None of the source references you posted for Turtledude's blog, backs up his claim. That must be why you ignored this part of my post you just responded to:

"Which of these sources backs up the Turtledude's claim that the rich benefit less from government than the working class? I could find none of them that do."

Still waiting. :sun

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Jerry said:

Turtledude's quote even says it, and his link directs you to the reference, which is referred to several more times throughout the article.

Edward Blum and Harry Kalven, The Uneasy Case of Progressive Taxation (University of Chicago Press, 1953.

A quick google search shows these results:


Google

...so, there's your documentation. You may proceed with the debate at your pleasure.

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Jerry said:

I don't try to force horses to drink, so you may be waiting for quite a while.

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Catawba said:

Where in the Google, does it back up Turtledude's claim that the rich benefit less from government than the working class?

Provide a quote with a link to back it up, if you think it is possible.

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Catawba said:

More importantly, you do not provide documentation to back up claims. Its alright, I knew you wouldn't be able to.

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Jerry said:

Such quotes with links directly to the requested supporting documentation have been provided. We're waiting for you to drink, though not holding our breath eace

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Jerry said:

I'm sorry you believe that. There may be something wrong with your browser if you are unable to use the several dozen hyperlinks provided. I understand that computer problems are always frustrating, and I hope yours are resolved sooner then later. I recommend Chrome over Firefox and anything over IE. Enjoy your evening.

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TurtleDude said:

massive lie on your part. I am not imposing costs on other people. I pay more in taxes than I use in government services. Most people do not

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