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

Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share?

  • Yes

    Votes: 58 48.3%
  • No

    Votes: 62 51.7%

  • Total voters
    120
You must be getting your info somewhere else than I am.

This site says that the highest bracket in 1913 just after the passage of the 16th amendment paid 7%.

Did ANY return actually pay that 7% rate? I was under the impression that the highest ACTUALLY paid was 3% in the first year.
 
You've posted this a million times so I'll address it. Change the deduction to 4x the poverty level and adjust the tax rate as needed to fit.

4x the poverty level is WAY too high. The poverty level for a family of 4 is $23,050. 4x that would be $92,200. A family of 4 living on $92,200 should absolutely be paying taxes. 1.25x or 1.5x the poverty level would be FAR more reasonable.
 
Did ANY return actually pay that 7% rate? I was under the impression that the highest ACTUALLY paid was 3% in the first year.

No idea. I don't know what sorts of deductions were available to reduce the effective tax rate. And I don't know if the definition of 'income' was the same when it was first passed as it is today.
 
Nope, they sure dont.

this ought to be an interesting claim to expand upon

paying almost twice as much of the income tax burden as their share of the income is not enough?
 
Not true at all. I simply wish to be left the **** alone, but since I'm in a certain tax bracket, some people just won't rest until every dime my family has belongs to the government. Those people can eat a bowl of dicks.
The "logic" of the tax hikers is such that as long as anyone has disposable income after expenses that should be subject to more and more taxes as long as others "cannot afford" the level of government the liberals think those people deserve


a major component of taxes ought to be based on what you get in return not merely what you can "afford" to pay because the parasitic left will always claim if you have money to invest, you can afford more and more taxes
 
Then find an island.

the usual response of those who demand others be taxed more and more. Why don't you just pay for what you use and let others do the same? Your existence is not a just claim on his property
 
Define 'receive'. Is there some magic gifting program from the federal money fairy that is 'giving' the 1% their income? Or the top 7%? Cuz...funny...I thought we EARNED it.

many on the left side of the aisle think that the government has the first and best claim to all wealth and that those who are wealthy are wealthy merely due to the government allowing that and thus the government should merely stop allowing it. More than a few of them figure that anyone making more money than THEY do must have engaged in dishonesty to gain the wealth because the rich are "no smarter" than they are and the government needs to even things up
 
You're delusional if you think that local, state, and federal governments put together can get by on a combined tax rate of 10%.


if the governments were limited to what they were intended to do, then it would be possible. of course those who whine the most for more taxation (of others usually) are the ones who demand more and more government.
 
How do you think they passed the 16th amendment? They promissed not to go over 1% on the income tax.



the Income and death taxes never would have become law if people had any clue what was in store. same with the social security ponzi scheme.

its why one is an idiot to trust the government when they claim they will cut spending if we just pay more taxes.
 
The Progressive tax has been accepted by both parties under our rule of law for the last hundred years. It is only the far-right that find it socialistic today.


slavery was once accepted by both parties as was women not voting. Politicians love the income tax because they can buy the votes of the many by only taxing more, the few.
 
"Top 1 Percent Control 42 Percent of Financial Wealth in the U.S." So by your reasoning, they should be paying a 42% tax rate.


i guess you don't understand the difference between an income tax and a wealth tax and lots of 'wealth' produces no income. why should someone who inherits (and pays taxes on) a tract of land that is not income producing pay taxes on that property as wealth each year even if it doesn't bring in income?

why don't people like you pay for what you want from the government rather than constantly making excuses why someone else should fund your desires and needs?
 
the Income and death taxes never would have become law if people had any clue what was in store. same with the social security ponzi scheme.

its why one is an idiot to trust the government when they claim they will cut spending if we just pay more taxes.

If becoming the leader of the free world is what is in store. If becoming the most influential culture is in store. If becoming a nation wit the highest standard of living is in store. Even when the aristocracy whines and complains about how abused they are. I'll take the afore and not the whinny butt aristocracy.
 
If becoming the leader of the free world is what is in store. If becoming the most influential culture is in store. If becoming a nation wit the highest standard of living is in store. Even when the aristocracy whines and complains about how abused they are. I'll take the afore and not the whinny butt aristocracy.

we had all that before we had confiscatory tax rates. bloated government taking too much money has not done anything good for this nation
 
we had all that before we had confiscatory tax rates. bloated government taking too much money has not done anything good for this nation

False. Our taxes today are much lower, especially for the rich, than they were when we first became a major world power and much lower than they are in other first world countries. Just blurting out that you think it is "confiscatory" is obviously just you being ludicrous.
 
False. Our taxes today are much lower, especially for the rich, than they were when we first became a major world power and much lower than they are in other first world countries. Just blurting out that you think it is "confiscatory" is obviously just you being ludicrous.

when do you claim we first became a major world power?
 
Uh that is not "obvious" we were a major world power by 1920 maybe 20 years earlier.

Depends on how you define it I suppose. In WW1 we had 4.7 million troops. That puts us seventh behind Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, the UK, France and Italy. And back in those days our troops were less high end than the troops from those countries. WW2 is where we rose to the top on par with or ahead of the USSR.
 
Depends on how you define it I suppose. In WW1 we had 4.7 million troops. That puts us seventh behind Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, the UK, France and Italy. And back in those days our troops were less high end than the troops from those countries. WW2 is where we rose to the top on par with or ahead of the USSR.


I don't think we'd have had much problem crunching Italy. by the turn of the century the USA was a world power financially, militarily and most importantly, industrially. At the end of the civil war, we had something that no other navy had, ironclads though the monitor styled ships weren't much good in heavy seas.

while those military powers might have been able to resist a US invasion, none of them could attack the USA successfully
 
I don't think we'd have had much problem crunching Italy. by the turn of the century the USA was a world power financially, militarily and most importantly, industrially. At the end of the civil war, we had something that no other navy had, ironclads though the monitor styled ships weren't much good in heavy seas.

while those military powers might have been able to resist a US invasion, none of them could attack the USA successfully

Well, regardless of how loosely or narrowly we want to define "major world power", certainly you agree that we rose in power rapidly and dramatically by the end of WW2, right? And that that was when we became the "the leader of the free world" as winston says. Right? So there you go.
 
Well, regardless of how loosely or narrowly we want to define "major world power", certainly you agree that we rose in power rapidly and dramatically by the end of WW2, right? And that that was when we became the "the leader of the free world" as winston says. Right? So there you go.


and the massive tax hikes were not the reason what made us a huge world power was the fact that all our competition was bombed flat
 
BS, provide the link. I believe that they toyed with the idea of a 10% max, but thought better of it, as the top rate originally was 3%, and thought that might simply encourage raising it that high unnecessarily.

In 1894, a Democratic-led Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff. This imposed the first peacetime income tax. The rate was 2% on income over $4000, which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any. The purpose of the income tax was to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions.[7] This was a controversial provision, and the law actually passed with the signature of President Grover Cleveland. {Wiki}

In 1909, fifteen years after Pollock, Congress took two actions to deal with their increasing revenue needs.

1. Corporate income ("excise") tax. First, they passed a corporate income tax, but labeled it an “excise tax.” The tax was set at 1% on all incomes exceeding $5,000. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this corporate “excise tax” as constitutional in Flint v. Stone Tracy Company, in which the court ruled that the tax was a special excise tax on the privilege of doing business.

2. Sixteenth Amendment. More importantly, in 1909 Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment, which would do away with the apportionment requirement of the Constitution if enacted. This amendment reads as follows:


The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.[11] {wiki}

Congress immediately enacted the first “constitutional” tax law, The Revenue Act of 1913. The tax ranged from 1% on income exceeding $3,000 to 7% on incomes exceeding $500,000. In effect, this statute introduced for the first time the notion of a progressive tax rate structure; the tax rate increases as the base, income in this case, increases. {wiki income tax history}

I was incorrect. Sort of. Got my facts mixed up. My appologies. Still 1% corperate and 1% -7% personal verses now...... :bs :?: hmmmmmm.
 
That's like a gambler saying he earned his Big Score. LOL!

No one is buying the crap so you may as well stop shoveling.

If you had a loan at any time in your life, then I am afaid sir, you already bought it. So sorry.:2wave:
 
You're misinformed on a couple things here.

First off, the income tax rate was never 1%. The lowest bracket was 1% in 1913, but it went up to 7% for the higher brackets. Income taxes existed as far back as the civil war, where the lowest tax bracket was 3%. As far as I know, from the time income taxes were first instituted, the rate for all brackets has never been 1%.

And second, a 1% federal income tax rate is a completely different animal than a combined total local, state, and federal tax rate (including tariffs, income tax, sales tax, property tax, etc.) of 1%.

Your right. However you can see that the tax rates are far less then what they are today. The total rates were actually less then 10% in a lot of cases. Big difference from now.
 
slavery was once accepted by both parties as was women not voting. Politicians love the income tax because they can buy the votes of the many by only taxing more, the few.

Just as we evolved socially beyond slavery, so did we evolve past regressive taxation. No doubt, some of less morally inclined rich would like to return to the days of the Robber Barons when there was no middle class. I think there is about as much chance of that happening as a return to slavery.
 
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