If it really, and honestly creates negative incentive for workers...why are there so many people trying their damndest to get rich?:shrugs:
Obviously you haven't been around much to see all of the people NOT trying hard at all to get rich. Matter of fact, there is a substantial proportion of the population on welfare who are making absolutely NO attempt to change that.
And no, there are not as many people a you would like to believe who are trying HARD at all to better themselves. Heck, talk to REAL people who have quit doing two or more EXTRA jobs simply because they figured out that nearly all of the extra income they were earning went into taxes and decided to heck with that. That is what is known as "negative incentive".
It is fair to calculate a specific tax based on what is being taxed. You are not buying a service, article, or material good. You are paying a tax. By definition, a tax is a percentage of the basis. Sales tax is a percentage of the sale. Property tax is a percentage of the property value. It only stands to reason and logic that income tax be a percentage of your income.
Oh really? That might be YOUR definition of "tax" but that certainly doesn't make it universal, now does it?
tax
–noun
1. a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.
2. a burdensome charge, obligation, duty, or demand.
–verb (used with object)
3. (of a government)
a. to demand a tax from (a person, business, etc.).
b. to demand a tax in consideration of the possession or occurrence of (income, goods, sales, etc.), usually in proportion to the value of money involved.
4. to lay a burden on; make serious demands on: to tax one's resources.
5. to take to task; censure; reprove; accuse: to tax one with laziness.
6. Informal . to charge: What did he tax you for that?
7. Archaic . to estimate or determine the amount or value of.
–verb (used without object)
8. to levy taxes.
Only one of the above variations of the definition mentions anything that could be construed as being related to a percentage, and even then, it prefaces that with "usually", not "absolutely", as you seem to imply.
And needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) it does not stand to EVERYONE's reason and logic that any tax MUST be proportional to anything, since the goal is for the taxing agency to extract money from you and I and push come to shove, they will use whatever method they wish to in that pursuit. This point of view I am holding is the FAIRNESS and EVEN HANDEDNESS of the methods currently employed.
And income tax is directly and proportionally based upon your gross income. How can you think it fair that someone making $20k pay the same amount as someone making $200K? Someone owning one acre paying less than someone owning 10 acres is fine by you. Someone spending $10 paying less than someone paying $100 is just peachy. How does it not stand to reason that someone earning $10k pays less than someone earning $100k? It's the exact same principle.
It's very easy to think of it as being unfair. Quite frankly, I can't see how anyone can NOT see it that way. Your taxes are paying for the services that the government supplies by using that money to pay for them. It is no different than paying a plumber for services. Would you think it fair for that plumber to check the tax records of your house to determine your net worth and charge you 10 times the amount he would charge for someone else in another section of town where the home values are less, yet he is doing the same exact work at both residences? You would be OK with pulling up to a fast food chain and because you drive a Mercedes you would pay much more for your happy meal than the guy in front of you driving a Hugo?
The biggest trouble now is loopholes, credits, sliding brackets, tax breaks, and all the hoopla that accompanies the mathematics.
Yes, and a TRULY flat rate based on a dollar amount rather than a percentage would pretty much eliminate that. A "flat" tax based on a percentage will still have people cheating and lying on their tax forms trying to claim that they are making less because the percentage would mean less money being paid if they were able to show that they were making less, whether true or not. All of the problems now present in the present tax system would eventually migrate into such a new "flat" rate percentage based taxing system.
Surely you don't think that you would be able to work, earn, purchase, and keep your material wealth without a system of government in place, do you?
Why, yes I do. The government will only become workable if they are accountable and closely scrutinize by the people who are paying the taxes. People will be much less inclined to be resentful of taxation if it were demonstratably fair. Someone working multiple jobs to be able to earn much more having to PAY much more for their efforts just is NOT fair, in any reasonable viewing of the issue. Heck, even now, people will complain when they get a raise only to find out that it pushes them up into a higher tax bracket and even in some unfortunate circumstances, wind up paying MORE for taxes than they were before the raise. Well this "flat" tax rate will produce that very same phenomenon. Yeah, a raise will mean more money, but it also means PAYING more money as well. If the amount of money being paid before the raise was sufficient to fullfill the obligation of paying taxes, why does that same person with no other changes involved in their lifestyle suddenly making more money have to pay MORE taxes with no subsequent increase in what they are getting from the government for the increased money they have to pay? How in the world can that be considered as FAIR?
Of course...you could have a true capitalist society, wherein there are no catchfalls, no government, and no taxation. But then...only the biggest fish in the pond survive. Since that is only 5% of the population, the other 95% just die? Cease to exist? Starve, freeze, and get eaten by others? What do you propose?
Sounds fanciful, at best. We are talking about a truly flat tax rate whereby everyone pays the same $$ amount in taxes. Please explain to me how that produces the scenario you paint with that 95 percent being driven into extinction and only that 5 percent survive. Quite the contrary, I believe. With a lot more money in their pockets, I believe that 5 percent will recycle that additional income into expanding their business, filtering down the money to hiring more employees, adding new facilities, and generally filtering down that money to others in the lower pay scales. Heck, businesses CLOSE all the time because taxes and regulations become too burdensome, or else they wind up taking the entire business offshore, thowing lots of people out of work and therefore now devoid of ANY income. Seriously, has no one seen this phenomenon taking place RIGHT NOW in the USA?
Again...you aren't purchasing a good or service, you are paying for an operational government that allows you to live the life you have become accustomed to. If you don't think you're getting your money's worth, by all means, I'm sure you can move to a country of your choosing and start fresh. It only takes some hard work and effort.
Oh, and how do you define what it is that we get from our government if not a "service"? And I believe it has been shown earlier that many people in that top 5 percent are doing exactly what you are proposing here. Taking their wealth, and the business that creates that wealth for them, and going to another country where the tax rates are much more attractive. And then what happens to all of the employees left here stateside when they no longer have an income and no matter what type of system used to determine their tax rate is a moot point because they no longer have an "income" to have taxed? Yeah, THAT sure works well, not doesn't it?
Really? No need for any government? Just let the strong survive, and the weak get trampled underfoot?
So how did you get that concept between the lines of what I wrote? I certainly did not advocate NO government, as you seem to be dreaming I said. I am claiming that a government that is FAIR and truly interested in the overall welfare and opportunity for personal and financial growth is really in this country's best interests. I don't see how any rational person can dispute that this would be the BEST government to have, and is far different from what we now have.
It is our government that allows individuals to become wealthy through hard work. Without our government, 95% of the population would be trampled and piled in a heap by the top 5%. No regulations, no controls, no environmental conservation, no law enforcement, no contracts. Kill or be killed. Conquer and move on or be conquered.
You seem convinced of this odd scenario that you want to paint. And you got all that simply from what I am stating about a more fair taxing system? And you TRULY believe that it is the government itself that through their actions ALLOWS and EMPOWERS the people to attain wealth through hard work? Seriously? Have you truly done any investigation at all about how the tax rates and regulations tend to do the exact opposite of what you claim? Everything from inheritance taxes, to escalating tax scales and innumerable alternative taxes, etc. etc., that are actually (whether by design or cockeyed planning invoking unintended consequences) are indisputably crippling and inhibiting to those trying to get INTO that 5 percent bracket. It's like slogging through progressively deeper and thicker mud. The more you make, the more the government extracts from you in any way possible. It's as if the goal of such a taxing scheme is to try to make everyone as equal as possible in their total net worth, regardless of their efforts to advance. And that is fair? Seriously, YOU think that is fair?
There are still places like that in the world. And most of those places are currently or have in the recent past been ripe for the picking by "The 5%". So far, it has been devestating for the countries, the people, the economy, and everyone except "The 5%". Sounds like fun
Really? Care to name some of these "places in the world" for me and sources of the information proving what you say. Wanna bet that any country that has done this sort of thing was because it was the GOVERNMENT itself that is that 5 percent, and they utilized the power and abuse of office to devastate those countries? It wasn't the general population at all using their own financial resources at all, as it would have been just suicide on their part, and quite likely THEIR finances and resources were "nationalized" by the government and that was what destroyed those countries.
I've no idea how to address this. So much of how this country is what it is is due entirely to government and government programs, that there really is no way to type a debateable reply to this.
And everything the government has done in your eyes is a GOOD thing and above reproach? The fact that the government has completely trampled the US Constitution and stuck there hands far and wide into areas that were never intended by our forefathers to allow them that access is OK with you? Do you even know what the Constitution was designed to do and why it was written the way it was to LIMIT the powers of a central government?
Infrastructure, public safety, law enforcement, environmental conservation, social welfare... So many things you have taken completely for granted from the government of this country. The money has to come from somewhere, and that is what "taxes" are all about.
Yes, and how many of those services and powers assumed by the government are actually and truly in compliance with the limits imposed on our government by the US Constitution? How much of our money is taken from us in order to support such programs regardless of the constitutionality of them and actually in defiance of the limits our forefathers saw as necessary for us to preserve our freedom from a government that would grow in power, offering us pseudo-security, as well as breads and circuses, in return for our surrendering our freedom in return?
I don't even know how to continue with a conversation like that. It seems that you think the government is entirely and completely useless and should be completely done away with. If that's what you believe, than no amount of debate will stand up to that line of thinking.
No, I don't believe that at all. I believe the government has gone WAY beyond the bounds of what is safe and prudent for the citizenry of this country. The government SHOULD be strictly limited to the bounds the US Constitution have been put into place in order to try to prevent the government from becoming the monster that our forefathers greatly feared when they set it in motion. Anyone who believe the government will govern itself is extremely naive. The government has become what it is today because we all allowed it to become so.
Is it fixable now? Well based on the subset I see of the people of this country, I seriously doubt it. I doubt even 10 percent of the people in this country have ever read the US Constitution once they graduated from grade school, and even then, most really never understood what it was talking about in the first place. Heck, I can remember in my grade school class the teacher telling the class I was in that the Second Amendment is completely obsolete because it applied only to the pilgrims of that day and age the document was written in relation to their ability to repel indian attacks. I'm sure the other aspects of the Constitution and Amendments were equally ridiculous, but scary in the thought that probably many have no clue what they mean and WHY those documents were created to guide this country.
