It’s really quite amazing how far he’s come since his arrival here.
Not sure this is what he has in mind… but unintended consequences are kind of a given… so it might be a fairly accurate picture.
I don’t think I ever claimed that capital gains were ever taxed at 92%. I was saying that WITHOUT a lower capital gains rate, a lifetime of savings inside a business or something would get taxed at the ordinary rate of 92%.
Not even then. A lot of really wealthy still need to figure out what their income is. Its not the math that takes all the time and effort.
Why is it that when someone proposes a tax plan that raises taxes on 90% of taxpayers, and lowers it on the top 10%, that people see it as a solution to the perceived problem that taxes are too high?
“Well team, we are down 1. We can kick for a tie or risk a two point conversion for the win. My plan is to give the ball to the other team”.
You are buying into the first part of the craziness. Graduated tax brackets to do not make taxes more difficult than a flat rate. The hard part is determining what your income is. Once you have done that you just look up your liability in a table.
Isn’t it the media’s job to point and laugh when candidates say inane things? How does this nonsense get propogated.
Does it not make sense that when there are higher taxes on corporations, they will leave the money in the business and expand? When they can take a pile out and pay small taxes, they are more likely to do so.
The problem is, though, that they leave the money in other countries - ones with lower tax rates. I worked for a US/UK company and we certainly did everything we legitimately could to maximize profits in the UK (versus the US) because the tax rates are lower.
For many corps, there is no cheaper spot. lots of our largest corporations pay zero tax or get money back. They are among the largest and most successful on the planet. The 35 percent is a canard. Nobody pays it.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67196.html If you are a Perry fan, here is his latest “presidential type” speech.
There’s an estimated trillion dollars or so of money made overseas that ain’t coming back at current tax rates.
Not exactly “nobody”, but I do agree that many large corporations can avoid/minimize tax - especially those who can get their tame politicians (i.e. recipients of donations) to insert loopholes for them.
Good God no.
Yes, exactly! He went on about simplicity when he unveiled his plan, and smugly remarked how his plan would make life easier by enabling tax payers to file on a form the size of a postcard. Great – but somehow the plan coexists with the current tax code, so while it may be a no-brainer for the rich to accept the 20% flat tax, people like me would still have to tabulate taxes owed under two systems if I wanted to pay less taxes. He doesn’t actually make anything simpler, except for saving money if you’re wealthy. What an ass.
Perry’s done, but if he started rebounding at all, his tax plan would enjoy the same level of scrutiny that 9-9-9 did when Cain started polling decently. No one paid attention to 9-9-9 when it appeared that Cain would go nowhere, and similarly, increasing likelihood of landing the nomination will put Perry’s flat tax plan, which really isn’t all that flat, under a microscope.
And people like me who already have to calculate in two ways (regular and AMT) would have to do it three times.
I’m pretty sure that Perry’s flat tax would basically mean an alternative maximum tax that is actually less than the current alternative minimum tax, although perhaps not for all brackets. One advantage of being poor is that I’ve never needed to look into what the AMT is in detail. One [del]insane[/del] unusual twist to the plan is that, as I understand it, you can’t leave the flat tax once you switch to it. So, if you get paid well one year, you have to hedge your bets about which tax plan will be in your best interest in future years as well. Sounds simple to me.
Here’s a quick look at what rates people would end up paying compared to current law. For some reason, it ends up with the $100,000–$200,000 range paying the highest rate at 20%, with higher incomes paying a lower rate, with the $1M range down at 15%.
The Tax Policy Center calculated the revenue this would bring:
So, basically, a trillion (with a T) dollars less per year than a world where Congress lets the Bush tax cuts expire. Maybe Heritage can give the numbers for the Republican alternate universe where tax cuts on the rich unleash massive growth. Actually, are there any real economists defending this plan? Honestly, how is our country in the midst of a massive economic crisis, and we have serious contenders for the Presidency coming up with tax plans that aren’t even remotely serious?
This shit reminds me of senior year of high school, when I had to write a 19 page paper for US History. I hated the teacher, who focused more on current events than history (we made it from Columbus to the Civil War, and completely skipped the War of 1812), and I was in that awkward stage of a bright teenage boy’s life after he discovers Ayn Rand. I slapped together a flat tax paper, with substantial plagiarization, over the course of the last night I could possibly still hand it in overdue and still graduate. I got a D, which, having already been accepted to the college of my choice suited me fine. That paper was probably a more serious flat tax plan than Rick Perry’s.
Crap, bullshit and snow, you say?
Hmmmm… <thinking>
You wouldn’t happen to know the exact location of that old term paper would you? Are you sure it has not gotten into the wrong hands?
I’m not a big flat-tax person but I think the sum of their argument is more, “It’s hard for me to look up OTHER PEOPLE’S taxes on the table and I think they aren’t paying, so I have too many incentives to cheat and too many ways to hide it. But a flat tax seems basically fair and could be more fairly implemented.”
Now, there are flaws with that argument as well. But I don’t think it’s about “I can’t figure out my own taxes.” It’s a bit more realistic than that.
Corporations pay dividends on after tax income.
Hence the complaint about double taxation.
Most countries do not tax worldwide income like we do. I always felt like tax competition between developed countries was a bit of a race to the bottom (competition ebtween states is cannibalism).
It ain’t coming back period. Bush cut thet ax rate to 5% one year so you would imainge that anyone that was going to repatriate would have done it then.
No, the argument for flat taxes has always been to widen the base and lower the rate. In other words, in exchange for getting rid of all the loopholes that rich people enjoy, we should lower their tax rates so that you don’t really have disparity between rich person A who can avail himself of a lot of deductions and rich person B who cannot. So you widen the base by subjecting more income to taxes and OBVIOUSLY you MUST lower the rate to make up for the elimination of looholes. And in the process you might end up increasing the tax burden on some not so rich folks but fuck em, you also end up collecting less taxes (every single one of these plans incorporate fantastical assumptions about how much the economy will be stimulated by this tax cut).