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Federal Income Tax. You Pick the Rate.

Federal (Income) Tax. You Pick the Rate.

  • 5%

    Votes: 11 26.2%
  • 10%

    Votes: 7 16.7%
  • 15%

    Votes: 4 9.5%
  • 20%

    Votes: 6 14.3%
  • 25%

    Votes: 5 11.9%
  • 30%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 35%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 40%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 45%

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • 50% and higher

    Votes: 2 4.8%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .

zimmer

Educating the Ignorant
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What do you consider a "fair" rate of taxation.
Flat Tax or Consumption Tax.
Same rate for all.

No graduated taxation in this poll.
 
10% seems fair, especially if you allow for a persona exemption that will reduce the burden on the poor.

For 2008, I paid 3.93% in Federal income tax (line 37/ line 61)
 
5% across the board would cover all Constitutional federal outlays.
 
A non-graduated income tax is a pretty terrible idea, so the only way this could even conceivably work is if it were a consumption tax with credits for the poor.

Even so, it would be horribly inefficient and subject to more gaming and fraud than the current system.
 
What do you consider a "fair" rate of taxation.
Flat Tax or Consumption Tax.
Same rate for all.

No graduated taxation in this poll.

A flat tax or consumption tax would not be fair at ANY rate.

When the recession ends, I would favor having the marginal rate of the top bracket revert to 39-40%...as it was prior to the Bush tax cuts. I would also favor the creation of a NEW top bracket for income above $3-4 million per year, which would be taxed at 42-43%.
 
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A flat tax or consumption tax would NOT be fair at any rate.

When the recession ends, I would favor having the marginal rate of the top bracket revert to 39-40%...as it was prior to the Bush tax cuts. I would also favor the creation of a NEW top bracket for income above $3-4 million per year, which would be taxed at 42-43%.

Instead of raising the top rate, a more efficient system would just be to keep the rates where they are, and do away with some of the deductions on the higher brackets.
 
If we had to stick to an income tax, 10%, the church only asks for that and we have a government asking for around 35% in the top tax brackets, that being just federal, when you add state taxes and fees and then local some areas have citizens paying somewhere around 47-51% of their income in taxes and then there are the hidden ones, plus specialized taxes on certain items after you've paid everything else. I'd rather just a national sales tax on every new purchase, used being exempt, with the pre-bate for poorer families, that would be the most fair taxation because there would be some form of choice for taxation, the rate stays the same, and the wealthy would pay more taxes, but I feel happily so because the principle of choice exists, they don't get robbed of their earnings via the 16th amendment.
 
Instead of raising the top rate, a more efficient system would just be to keep the rates where they are, and do away with some of the deductions on the higher brackets.

I disagree. That would be less efficient. The reason that deductions exist is because we as a society have deemed that there are certain uses of income which somehow benefit society, and therefore shouldn't be taxed.

If spending on charity or medical bills or education is good for society when poor people do it, then it also holds for rich people. On the other hand, if we as a society no longer feel that certain deductions are worthwhile (e.g. mortgage interest), then they should just be eliminated from the tax code entirely...instead of getting an even more complex system where some people can deduct them and others cannot.

If it was up to me, people would be able to deduct all out-of-pocket medical expenses (including their share of insurance premiums), all out-of-pocket education expenses, and all charitable contributions. Little else would need to be deductible, and it would apply to everyone regardless of income.
 
I disagree. That would be less efficient. The reason that deductions exist is because we as a society have deemed that there are certain uses of income which somehow benefit society, and therefore shouldn't be taxed.

If spending on charity or medical bills or education is good for society when poor people do it, then it also holds for rich people. On the other hand, if we as a society no longer feel that certain deductions are worthwhile (e.g. mortgage interest), then they should just be eliminated from the tax code entirely...instead of getting an even more complex system where some people can deduct them and others cannot.

If it was up to me, people would be able to deduct all out-of-pocket medical expenses (including their share of insurance premiums), all out-of-pocket education expenses, and all charitable contributions. Little else would need to be deductible, and it would apply to everyone regardless of income.

The problem is that anytime you have a wide disparity between the stated tax rate and effective tax rates, then you have a very economically inefficient tax.

Its a problem with corporate taxes as well. We have a very high corporate tax rate, however our effective corporate tax rate is fairly low. This encourages economically inefficient actions on the part of the individuals and companies being taxed.
 
The problem is that anytime you have a wide disparity between the stated tax rate and effective tax rates, then you have a very economically inefficient tax.

Its a problem with corporate taxes as well. We have a very high corporate tax rate, however our effective corporate tax rate is fairly low. This encourages economically inefficient actions on the part of the individuals and companies being taxed.

Oh I definitely agree that we need to simplify the tax code by eliminating lots of unnecessary deductions, which certainly alter economic behavior and create that wide disparity . I just question whether it makes sense to have deductions that only apply to poor people and not rich people.

I think I could rewrite our entire income tax code to fit on a page or two.
 
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I disagree. That would be less efficient. The reason that deductions exist is because we as a society have deemed that there are certain uses of income which somehow benefit society, and therefore shouldn't be taxed.

If spending on charity or medical bills or education is good for society when poor people do it, then it also holds for rich people. On the other hand, if we as a society no longer feel that certain deductions are worthwhile (e.g. mortgage interest), then they should just be eliminated from the tax code entirely...instead of getting an even more complex system where some people can deduct them and others cannot.

If it was up to me, people would be able to deduct all out-of-pocket medical expenses (including their share of insurance premiums), all out-of-pocket education expenses, and all charitable contributions. Little else would need to be deductible, and it would apply to everyone regardless of income.

For simplicity sake wouldn't it be better if the government, instead of giving you deductions for those things, just made them free instead? Free health care and free education?
 
For simplicity sake wouldn't it be better if the government, instead of giving you deductions for those things, just made them free instead? Free health care and free education?

I support public health care and public education. But I see no reason to tax people who want to go above and beyond that. If someone wants to get medical care on their own or send their kids to a private school, I don't think they should be taxed. It's just one more expense that the government would otherwise have to worry about themselves.
 
For simplicity sake wouldn't it be better if the government, instead of giving you deductions for those things, just made them free instead? Free health care and free education?

We have free education.

Simplicity has nothing to do with it. Free computers would simplify business deductions, but that doesn't mean the government should take over Microsoft and Apple.
 
One of our Founders, maybe it was ol' Ben, said something very like: "Any government that would take as much as ten percent of the people's income is a tyrant." Well, we're way past that now.



For simplicity sake wouldn't it be better if the government, instead of giving you deductions for those things, just made them free instead? Free health care and free education?

There is no such thing as free. Somebody has to pay. If the government offers you freebies, it taxes someone to pay for them... you, if you make a decent income. There are also the hidden costs, things that are passed on as the cost of other products, or a loss of quality from disencentives like price controls.

Free health care means the gov't pays the doctors, nurses, techs, hospitals and so on, out of taxpayer money. Hideously expensive. Price-fixing is likely, as in Medicare... and when being a doctor (after 8 yrs of expensive schooling, an internship, debt and hardship) falls below a certain level of profitability, the number of doctors will decline, probably along with the quality of care.

Thirty years ago, when we had something closer to a free market on health care, it was FAR less expensive and I'd even argue the service was better.


G.
 
I support public health care and public education. But I see no reason to tax people who want to go above and beyond that. If someone wants to get medical care on their own or send their kids to a private school, I don't think they should be taxed. It's just one more expense that the government would otherwise have to worry about themselves.

Why not? If the government offers you health care and you want additional coverage, why should you get an ADDITIONAL credit? You already get a credit by having your basic medical covered.
 
For simplicity sake wouldn't it be better if the government, instead of giving you deductions for those things, just made them free instead? Free health care and free education?

Instead of food stamps, why not free food?
Instead of mortgage deduction, why not free housing?

Why don't we just make everything free? It can't possibly fail!
 
My vote is for a 10% flat tax,and no deductions for anyone.
 
Flat tax, 10% or less if it must be income tax. Everyone pays their fair share and fair share is equal percentage for all. No discrimination. And none of this riding on the backs of others bull****.
 
A flat 10% isn't enough. Even if you only payed for things explicitly required in the constitution, like the military and the census and interest payment on the debt, it still wouldn't be enough. Taxes need to reflect spending, and its impossible to cut spending to the levels needed to sustain a 10% tax rate unless you truly gutted the military.
 
A flat 10% isn't enough. Even if you only payed for things explicitly required in the constitution, like the military and the census and interest payment on the debt, it still wouldn't be enough. Taxes need to reflect spending, and its impossible to cut spending to the levels needed to sustain a 10% tax rate unless you truly gutted the military.


I disagree. We spent about 529 billion dollars on military spending alone last year, not even counting the trillion or so we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also spent about 300 billion on the war on drugs last year. Dramatic cuts in spending by ending our overseas empire, bringing our troops home, closing costly bases in countries that we don't need to have troops in, and legalizing drugs will allow us to cut the income tax and still raise enough money to cover our expenses (except for interest on the debt, but I'll address that below).

Why isn't 0% an option? There should be no income tax, it is unconstitutional. If we cut spending, there would be no need for an income tax. An income tax makes the assertion that the government owns your wages, and allows you to keep a percentage of it. If we cut the income tax to 0 right now, we would raise the same amount as we had in our budget in 1997. I wonder if it's possible if we cut out spending for our overseas empire and ended the "War on Drugs", we could easily cut the income tax and give people much more money in their pockets at a time when we desparately need it.

We also need to end the Federal Reserve system responsible for the interest on the debt and the inflation. Inflation is the hardest tax on the poor and middle class, and is essentially a tax. Of course at a time when the government is firing up the printing press every day for another billion dollars to give bonuses to corrupt CEO's, it is very hard to believe a period of even worse (perhaps even pre WWII Germany hyper) inflation.
 
I disagree. We spent about 529 billion dollars on military spending alone last year, not even counting the trillion or so we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also spent about 300 billion on the war on drugs last year.

From where did you get that statistic? As wasteful as the war on drugs is, I think it strains credibility that we spend THAT much...

SicSemperTyrannis said:
Dramatic cuts in spending by ending our overseas empire, bringing our troops home, closing costly bases in countries that we don't need to have troops in, and legalizing drugs will allow us to cut the income tax and still raise enough money to cover our expenses (except for interest on the debt, but I'll address that below).

Wishful thinking. The income tax brings in $1.4 trillion of revenue. Even if we completely eliminated the Department of Defense (which we obviously can't do), that would only cover HALF the cost of eliminating the income tax.

Legalizing drugs would be some small, insignificant fraction of that cost.

SicSemperTyrannis said:
Why isn't 0% an option? There should be no income tax, it is unconstitutional.

Uhh we have a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing it. If something that has been specifically authorized isn't constitutional, then there REALLY isn't much that's constitutional.

SicSemperTyrannis said:
If we cut spending, there would be no need for an income tax. An income tax makes the assertion that the government owns your wages, and allows you to keep a percentage of it. If we cut the income tax to 0 right now, we would raise the same amount as we had in our budget in 1997.

Our government doesn't generate enough revenue to pay for itself NOW, let alone if our revenue base was reduced to 1997 levels.

And cutting spending during a severe economic contraction would be devastating.

SicSemperTyrannis said:
We also need to end the Federal Reserve system responsible for the interest on the debt and the inflation.

Because the gold standard did such a great job preventing wild economic swings? :roll:

SicSemperTyrannis said:
Inflation is the hardest tax on the poor and middle class, and is essentially a tax. Of course at a time when the government is firing up the printing press every day for another billion dollars to give bonuses to corrupt CEO's, it is very hard to believe a period of even worse (perhaps even pre WWII Germany hyper) inflation.

The main monetary problem we have to worry about right now is DEFLATION. Under the circumstances, I really don't mind the government firing up the printing press every day, as long as they don't overdo it. It will help counteract the deflation.

Obviously this would be unthinkable under most economic conditions, but right now it's not such a bad idea.
 
Yeah that was a typo, it's 30 billion a year on the war on drugs. Added a 0 by accident. Still, 30 billion is a boat load of money. We could easily cut that 30 billion and then tax drugs, which would work out as a great profit for the government.

Our debt is owed mostly to the executives who own the private Federal Reserve bank. The Fed prints money and loans it to the government at interest. We pay for our money at interest, a brilliant philosophy. If we ended the Fed, or at least gave the power to print money to the government like it says in the Constitution, we could eliminate the vast majority of our national debt (except for the few billion owed to Chinese banks and the Saudis). That billion dollar stimulus package Obama just signed, our great great great grandkids will still be paying the interest on that to the Fed. The only consolation is that our fiat currency will not last that long, so maybe we can wipe the slate clean with a new currency. The gold standard doesn't stop market fluctuations, that's mostly the businesses and consumers, all it does it provide an honest money system. Money is backed by something with intrinsic value, which prevents a total and absolute collapse of the economy and dollar system, like what we will experience one day (probably sooner than later).

The 16th Ammendment has been ruled by several state supereme courts as being unconstitutional. One judge even remarked that the appropriate number of signatures needed to pass the bill was never achieved. The bill was passed when Congress was on Christmas holiday and it was written all by private central bankers, not by Congressmen. Why do you think there was such a struggle historically to keep central banks out of the United States before 1913? The Fed was responsible for the Great Depression and the Fed is responsible for this one, but they try to blame it on free market capitalism.

I'm not worried about deflation at all. Prices are supposed to go down when the market dictates it. What the Fed does by artificially propping up housing prices and artificially lowering interest rates on mortgages is create a bubble, kind of like what we just experienced. Even Keynesians know that. You have the let the market fluctuate, it is the only fair system. Plus, by printing so much and saturating our market with too many dollars, it will make our currency worthless toilet paper. When we declared Bretton-Woods dead in '71, we promised we wouldn't print too much money and lower the value of the dollar. Pretty soon the rest of the world will get a clue and realize we have no idea what we're doing over here and stop buying our treasury bonds as security. Then we'll really be screwed.
 
Our debt is owed mostly to the executives who own the private Federal Reserve bank. The Fed prints money and loans it to the government at interest. We pay for our money at interest, a brilliant philosophy. If we ended the Fed, or at least gave the power to print money to the government like it says in the Constitution, we could eliminate the vast majority of our national debt (except for the few billion owed to Chinese banks and the Saudis).

I don't think that's how it actually works.

That billion dollar stimulus package Obama just signed, our great great great grandkids will still be paying the interest on that to the Fed. The only consolation is that our fiat currency will not last that long, so maybe we can wipe the slate clean with a new currency. The gold standard doesn't stop market fluctuations, that's mostly the businesses and consumers, all it does it provide an honest money system. Money is backed by something with intrinsic value, which prevents a total and absolute collapse of the economy and dollar system, like what we will experience one day (probably sooner than later).

Gold's only value comes from the fact that people desire it. People also desire US currency. There's no difference.

The 16th Ammendment has been ruled by several state supereme courts as being unconstitutional.

Setting aside the fact that state supreme courts don't get the last word on federal constitutional questions, no, it hasn't. Did you read the link I showed you?

One judge even remarked that the appropriate number of signatures needed to pass the bill was never achieved.

Link?
 
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