No, I get that. However it has become much harder to get legislation passed if it has been calculated to be regressive, while progressive measures face less opposition. Thus tax inequality faces a ratchet-like system in which movement will likely only go one way.
Again, I don’t see payroll taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes being political footballs as much as income taxes are. (The latter perhaps but mostly as a protectionism debate, not a revenue one.) Income taxes are therefore both “where the action is” and the bit that people hear most about, and those who pay none will have an incentive to jack them up further.
Read the damn citations. That’s a complete misrepresentation of the marginal tax rate. If you’re in the “33% tax bracket” you are not paying 33% of your income in income taxes. In fact, according to my earlier cite, even the top 1% of earners only pay an effective income tax rate of 19%.
And per my earlier cite, it’s a complete falsehood that people don’t contribute. The bottom quintile has an effective federal tax rate of 4.3%. Even those few who do not pay effective taxes are subject to withholding and payment of taxes throughout the year only to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit.
As has been noted taxes on the rich used to be far more (just after WWII) than they are today.
Where is this “ratchet”?
And as has been noted cherry picking one means of taxation does not tell the whole picture. In the end, however you are taxed, it is money out of your pocket.
Here is a study (PDF – see page 2) of taxation in California which embraces progressive taxation of the wealthy. When you account for all taxation then as a percentage of income the bottom 20% pay a higher rate than all the rest.
I’m not saying they don’t contribute at all. Sorry if that point got lost. I’ve been talking about income tax, as I stipulated in my first post. So, why do you think a person should be freed of paying one tax and not another? Should the poor also be given a card exempting them from sales tax? Even if we agree that the poor should pay less, much less, than others, I still think they should pay something (yes, income tax). THAT is my point. Why should I have to provide labor to the government and not others?
Well if you’re going to be hyperanal and needlessly critical of where the fungible tax monies come from, I will be too.
Those people that “don’t” pay income tax “do” pay income tax. They receive, however, offsetting tax credits (not a refund of their income tax, mind you) that results in money being refunded to them.
I’ll save you the trouble: your bickering point would be that that chart includes “luxury taxes” from consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, of which poor people consume more of as a percentage of their income.
Rumor_Watkins, this whole “debating” thing sure is much easier when you just argue both sides yourself. I’ll leave you to it for now. Let us know who wins.
My point, which should be obvious by now, is that everyone should have the burden of paying income tax. Not just on paper, but in reality. It makes for an effort we’re all in together. The bar for raising taxes for something—anything—should be “Yes, we think it is worthwhile and want to pay for it”, not “Yes, I think it is worthwhile and want you to pay for it.”
If congress doesn’t fund the relevant tax credit that year that finds them receiving a rebate, they’re paying income tax. What’s happening on paper is that it’s more efficient for the gov’t to consolidate all your monies owed and paid into one transaction.
I can see you at the customer service desk at TJ Maxx: “no, you see, I’m going to return this item, you give me back my 5 dollars, then i’m going to give you this 5 dollar item, which only differs from the one I just returned in that it is a size smaller, you’re going to ring it up, i’m going to give you 5 dollars, and we’ll all be happy because TJ Maxx made two sales and I felt like I had a part in growing your company” :rolleyes:
If you want to debate the merits of the EITC, read up and start another thread. In it you should include citations on the correlations between income and party affiliation, and party in control vs. government growth. Until then you’re just speculating on imagined hypothetical scenarios.
I haven’t indicated that I believe any of those things. Stop making things up.
Also, care to back up your 33% tax bracket statement? Or would you like to admit that you don’t know how marginal tax rates work?
What the fuck is your problem? I was having an exchange with another poster about what HE said. You came after me for that. I explained why I said what I did, now you think I’m ascribing his thoughts to you. Uh, you may want to ease up on the caffeine.
Huh? What do you want me to back up? I was just throwing out a very simplistic example in order to make a specific point to a specific poster who raised a specific issue.
And check the thread title, wouldya. It’s about INCOME TAX.
Oh, come on. My point is that all people should feel the actual bite of the income tax. If you insist on being so intentionally obtuse as to not debate my actual point I’ll have to conclude you’d rather not have a discussion.
That’s post #27. Unless otherwise stated, when someone quotes a response and asks questions, it’s assumed that the questions are directed at the poster quoted. So when you said
I thought you were asking me, which was confusing because I had not said I believed that. In other words, you made it up.
I want you to back up the idea that someone in the 33% tax bracket pays 33% of their income in income taxes, or as you said:
I showed that to be false, and I would like you to admit that you were mistaken, and that your simplification betrayed your ignorance of the marginal nature of income tax rates.
Furthermore, I suggested a new thread because the premise of this one is unsupported. Neither you nor the OP has provided any evidence that income tax rates have any effect of voting, approval of taxation, party affiliation, patriotism, demand for services, or any of the myriad issues that have been suggested are influenced by how much income tax people pay. Instead of vaguely suggesting trends and assumptions, pick a specific topic and back a thesis up with citations.
:rolleyes: In Post 20 I was responding to Hilarity N. Suze. In Post 22 you jumped on me for no reason. In Post 27 I politely explained that all my posts up to that point were following up on my original post, which focused on the topic of the thread: income tax, and those who do not pay it. I explained that my previous posts were addressing specific points made by others and then sought to engage you in that discussion by asking “So, why do you think a person should be freed of paying one tax and not another?..” Maybe it would have been helpful if that sentence had began its own paragraph. Maybe not. Like I said, ease up on the caffeine.
No. I was using an intentionally simplistic formulation. In reality the numbers will change, but the point will not. I find it odd that you are unable to address the larger point. ::shrug::
Start any damn thread you want. I find this to be an interesting OP. If you don’t, start a thread you think would be a better discussion. If you’d like to continue the exchange here, I’ll ask you to change your tone.
When a person asks of another, “Why do you believe X?” It implies that the person being asked believes X. I have said no such thing, so I resent your implication. Please acknowledge that none of the “you” questions posed in a post quoting and responding to me were directed at me. Otherwise you were assuming opinions on my behalf, and I’d like you to admit that you have no basis for those assumptions.
All I’m asking is that you acknowledge that your simplistic formulation in no way reflects the US income tax, and that it is impossible for someone in the 33% bracket to pay 33% of their income in income taxes. I wasn’t challenging your point, I was correcting a commonly stated interpretation of the income tax.
I am unwilling to address the larger point when its assumptions are unsupported. I’m not going to dig up cites when my previous ones aren’t being read and understood. Neither you nor the OP has provided any correlation between income tax rates and anything else.
I’m not going to do your work for you. Make a specific assertion and back it up with numbers. If you care to continue your line of argument, I suggest you read the linked Wikipedia article on the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the heart of the OP’s discussion. I suggest a new thread when you finish reading the article in a couple of months.
Uh, you may want to ease up on the caffeine.