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Revisit - Tax Reform

Tax Reform


  • Total voters
    28

TheGirlNextDoor

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Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.
 
I think we need to reform taxes. We need to eliminate loopholes and simplify the tax code to prevent businesses and high wealth individuals from legally dodging taxes. I think income taxes are too high and should ultimately be lowered to a max rate of around 15% for individual income, but this should also be done after spending has been drastically cut (which isn't really a tax issue). I think we need to make tax rates fair for single and married people, everyone should file as a single individual. Progressive taxation is a necessary evil in my book until there is a system that better handles taxation without a progressive system. However, I think that the progressive ladder should be lowered where the max rate is 30% and only applying on the top 500k+ in income, the lowest bracket should be 15% with that starting at the 15k income level mark (anything under 15k should be tax free).
 
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I'm just tagging this for later discussion.
 
Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.
Go strictly fair tax. The more you purchase, the more you pay in taxes. No IRS, no liberal busybodies, just automatic deposits into government accounts after purchases.
 
Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.

Taxation enforced by threat of violence and imprisonment is theft. You can argue all day long about how useful the money is, but it was still stolen under threat of violence and imprisonment.

Taxation should be voluntary, just like everything else. If I think the public education system isn't good enough, I shouldn't be forced to contribute to it, and you certainly shouldn't use money you stole from people to educate your children, as it clearly sets a terrible example for them.

Of course, Voluntaryism is only possible if governments cease to artificially monopolize public services industries. Then you can simply exclude those who refuse to pay taxes from gaining the benefits.
 
Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.

It sure does! Any system you ever desire would always and always take its place! I voted as per your suggestion too! :cool:
 
Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.

It most assuredly needs reform. Even the adviser experts on the IRS telephone help lines don't understand it, as evidenced by the disclaimer that nothing they tell you can be taken as "the law."

Politicians use revisions in the tax code to garner political contributions, socially engineer behavior, and reward their cronies with tax breaks. Bad ideas keep getting worse: the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was designed to target very wealthy taxpayers who, through use of legal loopholes, paid little or no income tax. It was enacted in 1969 to target 21 gazillionaires who, because of the legal loopholes and myriad deductions, paid no Federal income taxes. Today, it's estimated that 15% of taxpayers earning between $75K and $100K must pay AMT -- up from just 2% ten years ago.

Want to know if you have to pay it? Read through 9 pages of IRS instructions and then call your accountant.

Flat tax or fair tax or consumption tax. Easy-peasy.
 
Flat tax.

Flat rate theft rather than individually customized theft is still theft. Are your public services really so crap that you think I won't want to use and pay for them without threatening me with violence and imprisonment? That's just sad. Build good services and people will pay for access to them voluntarily. If people aren't getting their money's worth, let them use other services and quit forcing them to pay for yours.
 
Laid out in the Loft - Negative Income Tax to replace all welfare spending, flat tax on all income above 200 percent of the poverty line in order to make income taxes perfectly progressive.
 
"Realistic" is the hard part. We don't know what will become realistic ten or fifty years from now.

A benign evolutionary sequence would look something like this, from where I sit:

(1) elimination of loopholes and deductions, dramatic simplification, flattening (from the bottom); focus on the national debt reduction puts breaks on further experimentation;

(2) transition to a national consumption tax (food, home fuel and drugs excluded),

and, assuming substantial success of (1) and (2), including elimination of national debt -

(3) phasing out individual taxation, replacing it with a mix of: income from the sovereign wealth fund(s), user fees (which may be in form of consumption tax retained for particular items), lotteries, tariffs etc.
 
Does our taxation system need an overhaul - and if so - which system could realistically take its place.

I like the idea of flat tax.It would probably hurt me but everybody should pay.

If they did a deduction of 3000 or whatever would be fine.Don't know what dollar amount
would be needed.
 
The current system should be abolished, and the why is obvious. Since we still have to fund govt somehow, the only fair way is to make every citizen pay an equal amount, much like we do at the state level for property owners (though it based on value, which is wrong).

-Every person above 17 who has a social security number owes X dollars per year, which they can have deducted from their paycheck, or pay in a lump sum
-We would obviously have to have a graduated scale for those too poor to afford, perhaps a way to provide a service to govt instead of dollars (ie military should not have to pay)
-at our current spending level, this is about 12k per person (which is coincidentally what I already pay)

Obviously this wont work because liberals would not put up with the rich being treated equally, so I would need to move to a Libertarian run island with smaller govt and thus smaller tax cost (where we murder puppies).
 
Go strictly fair tax. The more you purchase, the more you pay in taxes. No IRS, no liberal busybodies, just automatic deposits into government accounts after purchases.

While its a better solution, its still technically unfair because some people are paying more for the same services. For example, if you simplify govt down to providing everyone equally with security and justice, then everyone should pay equally for that service. As in everyone pays the same amount for water for example, regardless of how rich or poor you are (unless your poor and get subsidies, but you get the point).
 
While its a better solution, its still technically unfair because some people are paying more for the same services. For example, if you simplify govt down to providing everyone equally with security and justice, then everyone should pay equally for that service. As in everyone pays the same amount for water for example, regardless of how rich or poor you are (unless your poor and get subsidies, but you get the point).

Actually the rich use much less government services and thus should pay much less. They tend to use private services which are more effective. We should have regressive tax rates that go to zero right around the upper middle class. Moreover, when the rich pay for private schooling, protection, etc., they should get a tax refund.
 
Actually the rich use much less government services and thus should pay much less. They tend to use private services which are more effective. We should have regressive tax rates that go to zero right around the upper middle class. Moreover, when the rich pay for private schooling, protection, etc., they should get a tax refund.

True, but I was just going on an ideal where govt services benefit everyone roughly equally.
 
I want it to be difficult and complex as all hell. Just like the stockbroker probably was disgusted with e-Trade, I'm disgusted with people who think that I can be replaced by Turbo Tax.

If I didn't have a dog in the hunt, I'd go for flat/Fair tax.
 
True, but I was just going on an ideal where govt services benefit everyone roughly equally.

That's just bleeding heart liberalism. I say if I have to pay a million USD in taxes and some low-life minimum wage earner doesn't have to pay any, then I should get back a million USD in benefits and the minimum wage earner nothing.
 
That's just bleeding heart liberalism. I say if I have to pay a million USD in taxes and some low-life minimum wage earner doesn't have to pay any, then I should get back a million USD in benefits and the minimum wage earner nothing.

Wrong. You misunderstood. It libertarianism where the govt only provides services that benefit everyone equally, like security and justice. And services that only some people use are fee based.
 
Flat tax. No deductions, no exceptions. No 'progressive rate. Everyone pays the same 'PERCENTAGE' of their income. No tax on income gained from the investment of money that had already been taxed. No inheritance tax, no death tax.

And all elected officials (Fed. State. local) shall be taxed an additional 5% over the standing rate. That will be motivation to keep the rate where it is, or maybe even lower it.
 
I'm for a progressive income tax.

5% for everyone under $50,000, no deductions.
For every additional $50,000 you earn, you pay another .1% up to a maximum of 20%, again no deductions.
 
Yep - that's the real catch if you decide to forego deductions.

Exactly. Of course any system has that same issue except for a fee based one. If its a sales tax, then they will come up with all sorts of exceptions as to what a sale is. Thats why I think a fee based system is the simplest and fairest. Everyone owes X dollars in order to get benefits. You could even have the states pay the fee, and then collect from their citizens however they choose. So, based on population, california owes the federal govt X dollars a year, for which they get continued membership in the Union, and all the services it provides like common defense. With the added benefit that if you dont like what the federal govt is doing, or how much it costs, you can terminate the contract.
 
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