# The poor shouldn't have income tax.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 22, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633 "2017-06-22T20:01:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/21 "2017-06-22T20:55:12Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> I believe that income is always taxed (particularly if I am reading the below link correctly). If you’re under the threshold, you will get a full refund in Spring, so you are also not-taxed, depending on how you want to interpret it.
>
> [How Much Does an Employee Have to Make Before You Have to Withhold Federal & State Taxes? | Small Business - Chron.com](http://smallbusiness.chron.com/much-employee-make-before-withhold-federal-state-taxes-730.html)
>
> Personally, I think that this little bait-and-switch deal is just a waste of time and effort and serves no purpose beyond creating a flush market in Vegas in Spring of every year.
Do you understand the difference between withholding, and paying?
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### Author:  [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/22 "2017-06-22T21:00:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Like, the value? As in, what I get for what I pay?
Yeah, I’d like to hear your valuation of what you get out of your taxes.
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### Author:  [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/23 "2017-06-22T21:16:20Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> If you’re under the threshold, you will get a full refund in Spring, so you are also not-taxed, depending on how you want to interpret it.
Thanks to refundable tax credits, with EITC being the major one, on average the bottom two quintiles get “refunded” more than was withheld in the first place. That’s why those two income groups face a negative effective tax rate. EITC is a direct government distribution of aid annually. It’s one of our major tools for poverty mitigation among the working poor. It produces less disruption to our economy than minimum wages and has little administrative overhead since it’s handled in the already existing tax system. It’s just fairly invisible because the aid is rolled into what we call a refund check.
The OP is a bit like wanting to aid the poor with buying food and proposing the first step should be cutting SNAP (aka foodstamps).
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/24 "2017-06-22T21:16:42Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#):
>
> I’m saying 100% of people making under 20k a year or making less than X amount of money in anyway whether it’s capital gains or donations they should not be taxed at all.
The 47% encompasses most of those folks.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/25 "2017-06-22T21:23:20Z")
If you don’t want to pay or withhold federal income taxes, and **are certain that you will not owe taxes** , you can check the box that says “exempt” on your W4. If your situation changes and you forget to correct this, it can screw you though.
You can’t normally get out of FICA as this is a regressive tax. You can go to grad school (so, stay in poverty). I didn’t pay any social security or medicare except (IIRC, and maybe only one of them) in the summer. I still don’t pay social security as it goes to a pension instead.
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### Author:  [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/26 "2017-06-22T21:40:28Z")
Everyone should pay in, but the system should be more dynamic, more human.
I am not exactly sure how to do that on a large scale.
I do not know about people now days perhaps, but used to be that a poor person was very proud to be able to say they paid in taxes.
Maybe i remember the wrong century?
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/27 "2017-06-22T21:51:27Z")
For the lower income, I would expect sales tax and gas tax to have much larger impacts to their net available cash than any income tax. Perhaps the OP wants to debate the merits of exempting the poor from those taxes?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/28 "2017-06-22T21:54:54Z")
> [@Weisshund](#):
>
> Everyone should pay in, but the system should be more dynamic, more human.
> I am not exactly sure how to do that on a large scale.
>
> I do not know about people now days perhaps, but used to be that a poor person was very proud to be able to say they paid in taxes.
> Maybe i remember the wrong century?
You remember the wrong century. The poor have never paid federal income tax in the US. In fact, when it first debuted in 1913\*, only those making over $20K (in 1913 dollars!) paid any tax at all.
\*The modern Income tax, after passage of the 16th amendment
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/29 "2017-06-22T22:03:59Z")
> [@USCDiver](#):
>
> Yeah, I’d like to hear your valuation of what you get out of your taxes.
The short version is: not enough for what I’m paying. I’ll try to do a longer, more detailed analysis later, but I’m heading out of town shortly so I don’t know when I’ll get to it.
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### Author:  [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/30 "2017-06-22T22:06:08Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#):
>
> The way our tax system works is oppressing the poor.
But of course it is. The tax system is set up by the government. The government is run by rich people for the benefit of rich people, and they’re _all about_ robbing, exploiting, and getting over on poor people any way they can get by with. Most of them do thus because that’s where the wealth comes from in the first place and how it is maintained; a substantial plurality do thus because they _really enjoy_ fucking with the less fortunate, and if doing so makes them even richer, then so much the better!
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/31 "2017-06-22T22:07:56Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> For the lower income, I would expect sales tax and gas tax to have much larger impacts to their net available cash than any income tax. Perhaps the OP wants to debate the merits of exempting the poor from those taxes?
That might be what he’s getting at:
> [@Barack\_Obama](#):
>
> A poor person will manage to get 5 dollars for a number 7 from mcdonalds. However depending on where the mcdonalds is located the taxes might end up costing them a dollar or two more. That dollar or two more makes a huge impact on these peoples lives. We need to stop that.
(Never mind the…example, this being about as well thought out as the last two threads)
And of course that’s a state and local thing. I had state, county, and city sales taxes in TX. No income tax. But if you have no income…
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/32 "2017-06-22T22:20:33Z")
I feel more sympathy for the people making between $30k and $50k per year who do pay taxes, but do not get the benefits of government assistance. That’s a damn hard range right there.
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### Author:  [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/33 "2017-06-22T23:04:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> You remember the wrong century. The poor have never paid federal income tax in the US.
Never is a very long time, has it ended now?
Depending on how you rate poor, they pay it now.
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### Author:  [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/34 "2017-06-22T23:08:10Z")
> [@UltraVires](#):
>
> I feel more sympathy for the people making between $30k and $50k per year who do pay taxes, but do not get the benefits of government assistance. That’s a damn hard range right there.
Question…
What benefits might some average joe making 20k to 30k be entitled to that he doesn’t know about?
Aside from the people gaming the crap out of the system of course.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/35 "2017-06-22T23:17:33Z")
They may know about it, but at that range (30K - 50K) you often get excluded from things like the EITC, but you still make pretty much squat because you don’t have many deductions and likely can’t afford a house.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/36 "2017-06-22T23:22:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> The short version is: not enough for what I’m paying. I’ll try to do a longer, more detailed analysis later, but I’m heading out of town shortly so I don’t know when I’ll get to it.
I can provide some stopgap analysis: you pay less in taxes than pretty much any other major industrialized country, and all you get is the best country on earth. What a ripoff!
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/37 "2017-06-22T23:28:37Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> Do you understand the difference between withholding, and paying?
I’m going to make a guess that in the first, the money is withheld, and in the latter, the money is paid. If that is not the case, then I would argue that the terminology was deliberately misleading, but I would accept that it’s possible that someone would have done something entirely differently than what the words should mean.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/38 "2017-06-22T23:42:25Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> I’m going to make a guess that in the first, the money is withheld, and in the latter, the money is paid. If that is not the case, then I would argue that the terminology was deliberately misleading, but I would accept that it’s possible that someone would have done something entirely differently than what the words should mean.
There’s some nuance there that I’m not sure is totally clear. The article you reference speaks mainly from the perspective of the employer. In that regard, it is true that all income is subject to withholding. However, from the employee point of view is different. It is true that by default if the employee does nothing, even if they earn very little dollars, they will have taxes withheld and then when they file their return they will get a refund as you describe.
But there are ways to have these small wage earners be taxed less, or not at all. If a person is truly exempt from taxes due to whatever circumstances apply, they can make this declaration and their employer will then not withhold income tax. The employee can still be subject to OASDI which doesn’t have the same thresholds for non-applicability.
So, you’re not wrong, and what you said earlier is correct, however there is a bit more nuance that may add clarity.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/39 "2017-06-22T23:44:08Z")
> [@Ravenman](#):
>
> I can provide some stopgap analysis: you pay less in taxes than pretty much any other major industrialized country, and all you get is the best country on earth. What a ripoff!
Yeah, it totally sucks. 😛 Maybe we can all get a refund…
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-poor-shouldnt-have-income-tax/789633/40 "2017-06-22T23:46:48Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Like, the value? As in, what I get for what I pay?
Yes. But also, are you actually qualified to make such a determination? Are you an accountant or economist? Do you have access to the sorts of datasets that you would need to determine the cost effectiveness of things like using CIA operations to ensure that the US gets first priority on oil shipments, the effectiveness of social programs for the poor in preventing them from becoming a drag on the health system or the criminal system, the value to subsidizing corn in the US versus importing it, etc. Can you run simulations of different use cases that incorporate human nature and known data models to evaluate the trade-offs of different situations?
You’re saying, for example, that you’re paying too much. Scandinavians pay more and yet have a higher rate of life satisfaction. Why does your opinion on this matter hold any weight versus that provable reality?
This isn’t to say that I think that our legislators have done much to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of their choices, instead relying on partisan politics and beliefs. But we can certainly say that if the goal is to have a happy populace with freedom of choice as to their personal lifestyles, lower taxes are not a necessary component. Other countries have proven that you can achieve that with higher taxes than we have. And I think that it’s almost certainly true that our current tax rates are based on a pretty reasonable amount of data and expert advise, partisan politics corrupting that as it might (and sometimes corrupting it for a lower rate rather than a higher one).
A real analysis wouldn’t care about the actual dollar amount or percentile, but rather the breakout and questions like whether it’s sometimes worth accepting worse but smaller government simply as a component of individual liberty, on the basis that the world is a better place if modern nations offer a variety of lifestyles and we have the freedom to choose which to live in, rather than all of them seeking to have a “best average for the greatest number” approach.
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