According to water’s EXCELLENT chart, that is exactly what your tax plan says. And no…I did not think it was self-explanitory. Hell, I’m surprised you wouldn’t want to sap them for more than they make…why not whittle down their fortune?
…forgetting the fact that if it wasn’t for the entrepreneurism of the guy making the big bucks that nobody would make a dime in the first place.
RugbyMan’s prior post said everything I wanted to say, and much more succinctly than I would have said it, but I did think that everyone viewing this thread should click through to this article, which describes Joe Eszterhas’s tax proposal and mentions the SDMB’s own Alan Smithee. And it’s really funny (at least, it will be to anyone arguing about tax proposals). 
Rugby and Cantip-
Your posts reflect an attitude that I am encountering with increasing frequency, and it frightens me.
Namely, the attitude that labor is of little or no value. That somehow the fact that you have enough capital for the start up of an enterprise entitles you to make, not merely a profit, but a killing, and the people who perform the actual, physical work necessary to make your initial investment profitable are entitled to approximately diddly squat. Add to this the fact that most of the multi-million dollar salaried executives in most major companies are not actual founders, but somehow are entitled to make as much as they do because of something called “talent”, and, well… The first time I heard this attitude voice out loud was when Rush Limbaugh, said, on the air, “Why should the workers be entitled to a share of the profit? They didn’t contribute anything!” But the executives who made the decision to cut the R&D budget, then lay off thousands of workers when the company couldn’t compete because other companies were creating better products and services made a big contribution. :rolleys:
As I stated in an earlier post, I think that the first million could reasonably be considered as earned, but beyond that, you’re making your money off of other people’s hard work and sweat.
I feel that the bulk of the tax burden should be borne by those best able to afford it, and those best able to afford it are the people with the highest incomes. I don’t think a person who is squeaking by on $10k a year, or trying to feed a family on $15 or $20k per year needs to have their pockets dipped into while someone making a couple of million gets tax breaks that are not available to people in the lowest income brackets.
Cantrip
:rolleyes:
I will preview before I post
I will preview before I post
Don’t sweat it, Thea. On Coldfire’s card, I think I’m listed as “Catnip” or some such. 
Let’s take a real life example - Jeff Bezos (who coincidentally was profiled on “Biography” the other night, or so my wife tells me). Jeff is a brilliant guy. He had a great idea (yeah, I know, Amazon has yet to make a profit). He worked hard to attract capital - he didn’t have $1 or $2 million lying around. He also worked hard to build Amazon from the bottom up. Why should he be taxed punitively so that the guy in the warehouse, who clearly adds something to the venture but something less than Jeff, can do better than he’s already doing? If Jeff isn’t paying him enough, he can go work for eToys, or UPS, or another outfit that values his physical labor more than Amazon.
BTW, much of Bezos’s wealth in in the form of Amazon stock - I don’t know how much he’s paid in cash, but the stock is risky. Amazon has yet to turn a profit, and its stock price is high only because people think that it will. If the market’s perceptions change, his net worth - and thus his compensation for creating what I think is a kick-ass company - will plummet. But the guy getting 9 greenbacks an hour won’t be affected, except that without the great idea, he wouldn’t have a job in the first place.
Another case - Steve Case. Built AOL. Took a lot of shit (America on Hold, etc.) a few years back. Had the ideas* and figured out how to implement them, so that AOL now has a dominant position and in fact is taking overTime Warner. Why should his compensation be limited by what some uneducated CD packager makes?
While I agree in principle with the idea that workers should have some guarantees, either of a living wage or other governmental safety net, limiting the compensation of entrepreneurs is not the way to achieve those ends. And as has been pointed out before, someone earning $10,000, $15,000 or even $20,000, particularly if they have a family, likely isn’t paying any taxes anyway. Except sales tax, which is tremendously regressive and which your proposal hasn’t even addressed.
OK, now who has to preview? :o
Cantrip-
I agree, sales tax is extremely regressive. What to do about it, I don’t know. Maybe eliminate it in favor of a “luxury tax.” Your Toyota Tercel wouldn’t be taxable, as basic transportation, but someone buying a Lexus with Corinthian leather seatcovers might just take a hit. Something along those lines.
As I stated earlier, I’m willing to allow a person’s first million as earned by hard work. Very few people just inherit that kind of money. OK, we’ll call it a mil a year earned. And don’t forget that Steve and Jeff would not be paying taxes on the first twenty thousand per year that they earned, just like all the rest of us. And actually fairly minimal taxes on the first hundred thousand or so. But I seriously doubt that the president of the company that owned the factory where I made minimum wage for the first five years of my working life suffers from back problems resulting from the constant bending, twisting, leaning hunched over machines where the chairs weren’t the proper height for the work station. And I quit that job a decade ago, and I still have problems. But I and my co-workers, many of whom also suffered job-related health problems, put a lot of money in the pockets of other people who drove luxury cars and lived large in big houses, while being barely able to support ourselves. And this was in an extremely tight job market, where few if any companies were willing to train workers for more skilled, better paid jobs, and family considerations, plus the need to put in a lot of overtime to make ends meet made it difficult for many to find the time to go to college or vocational school. How’s that for a run-on sentence?
Oh, BTW, when I was making $8000 a year for working full-time, (this was when minimum wage was $3.35/hr) I was in fact paying income taxes. Can’t remember how much, but I’m sure I could have found better uses for the money than the government could.
My chiropractor has her work cut out for her.
Thea, I was thinking of the EITC.
Frankly, rather than your system, I think the current system is just fine, with a few tweaks. Eliminate most or all deductions, exemptions, etc. (for example, home mortgage deduction, charitable deduction, pre-tax savings) Start the tax at $10,000. Lower the top rate so that, with the elimination of deductions, revenue generated remains the same. Elimiate all loopholes in the corporate tax system.
Effects? A dramatic reduction in charitable giving. Probably a reduction in net individual savings. An increase in the proportion of renters vs. owners. After all, why should the government, or rather the tax code, support someone’s desire to own a home? or to be charitable? or to save? Let the people have the money to do with as they want.
Most of the above is not serious. I think that, given the circumstances, the government does a reasonable job of redistributing wealth, both directly and in the form of tax breaks for behavior that we have determined to be worthy (e.g., home ownership).
Earning $8K/year, say all your taxes were eliminated. The extra $800 or $1200 (sorry, I don’t know how much you paid) would have been a substantial percentage of your earnings, but it wouldn’t really have helped all that much, would it (as opposed, for example, to free state-sponsored medical care)? Confiscating the wealth of entrepreneurs and reducing the size of government would just mean that there would be substantially fewer programs available to help those in need (WIC, etc.). AND because the wealthy would get no tax benefit from charitable giving, many of the charities that take up the slack would soon be out of funds.
And why do you think that $1 million a year is the right amount? Like him or not, Bill Gates has created literally billions of dollars in wealth in this country (not just his own). What’s the right level to set his salary? While you’re right that many CEOs are not the people who built the businesses that they head, why punish those who did build the business? And although Jack Welch was not the first CEO of GE, he indisputably grew the company substantially. What right does anyone have to set arbitrary limits to the compensation of them and people like them?
BTW, IIRC, there’s already a luxury tax on expensive cars, yachts, planes and the like (unless it was repealed when I wasn’t looking).
While I am not so libertarian as to want the government out of my life entirely, I am not so socialist as to think that the answer to this issue is to forbid the reward of initiative and hard work.