What Would Your Ideal Tax Plan Look Like?

Great Debates
81

Interesting…You seem to have just skipped over where this $80,000,000,000 is supposed to come from…Typical…We are in debt to our eyeballs (this is what you’re fixing right?), so the first thought, even before step one, is let’s spend 80 trillion dollars to get out of debt. You can’t spend your way out of debt. Imagine you have $60,000 charged up on the old visa…So you decide to go out and just give someone $40,000. Are you out of debt yet? It works like that.

Just have the government buy the car and house for them and the net effect then is to give people 1.85 milion, a new american car, and a house to be non-productive members of society.
You should be trying to get more productivity out of people, not less and especially not going in the hole 2 million dollars to get zero productivity!!!

An old proverb says if you find yourself in the hole, the first step is to stop digging. Works with being in a hole with money too. Stop spending.

82

That would raise even LESS money than a sales tax.

WHAT!?!?!

You’re going back to pre-Civil War periods to justify your ridiculous position on taxation?

Yeah I suppose if we are willing to shut down our military ENTIRELY (we had no standing army or much of a navy.

You would also have to be willing to default on all of our outstanding debt.

Renege on all our obligations to our veterans.

Eliminate payouts on social security and medicare.

Eliminate federal student loans.

Get rid of out nuclear weapons.

Get rid of meat inspectors and folks like the FDA and CDC.

Basically eliminate government almost entirely.

It does if you can’t reduce your spending below 1.9 million.

I’m trying to pay for a functioning modern government, what are YOU trying to pay for?

Replace the words "its too regressive with “its not progressive enough” if that makes it easier for you to proceed to the rest of the argument.

These are not “gotcha’s” non-compliance is always an issue and the solution is more enforcement.

No its not, plain and simple. Well, shoot, this IS an easier way to debate, I shoulda thought of it sooner.

Yeah they also put in a provision for amending the constitution. or are you under the impression that the constitution was perfect when it was first formed? (see references to 3/5th of a person).

83

Probably a bad analogy but in a democracy, the government represents the will of society.

84

10% flat tax under $50,000, 1% additional for every $10,000 up to a maximum of 30%. Allow deducts for health ins, home loans and medical exceeding 10% of income. Maintain dependent deducts.

85

I agree that every9one should bear SOME income tax burden and that the social security tax should have its cap removed. BUT… Taxes should ALWAYS reflect spending on an immediate or deferred basis. If you want lower taxes, then lower spending, don’t just lower taxes and tell people that it will result in higher revenues.

This is why I prefer tax and spend Democrats to cut taxes and spend Republicans. The Democrats are more accountable for their spending because they get immediate feedback for their spending because they raise taxes to pay for it.

FAIRTAX is a joke. A consumption tax might work but the FAIRTAX version of it, cannot.

86

I would eliminate the federal income tax entirely, along with all privately-owned banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies and any other business that makes more than 60% of its income manipulating capital. All financial institutions would become publicly held non-profits that would be required to capture 5% of revenue for overhead and deliver four fifths of that to the government.

Much simpler than taxation, the government would essentially earn its own revenue while at the same time tightening control of the exchanges. Of course, after this, a great many Americans would have to stop pushing pencils and go out and do actual stuff.

87

What does your reference to 3/5 person have to do with this? Just can’t miss an opportunity to get slavery into the conversation?
The point I was making was that the whole idea/concept behind this country was the same laws for everyone, which you seem deadset against.

How is it unfair, that if you earn twice as much as me, then you pay twice as much income tax as me? This just totally baffles me how you think that this is unfair.

88

It was a bad analogy and we don’t live in a Democracy.

89

Shall we take this on faith or are there reasons you believe this?

90

Hey, you’re the one that used the lack of an income tax in the original version of the constitution as evidence that income taxes are bad. I inject slavery to show that the folks who wrote the constitution weren’t infallible saints.

A progressive incoem tax is applied evenly to everyone. Everyone’s first dollar of income is taxed the same as everyone els’s and everyone’s one millionth dollar of income is taxed the same as everyone elses. Or at least that’s the theory.

Once again, please google the phrase “marginal utility” the entire concept of progressive taxation is rooted in this concept.

You must have a very narrow definition of democracy to believe we don’t live in a democracy.

A representative democracy is a democracy in its commonly understood sense, the fact that we don’t have referendums on every peice of legislation that comes before congress doesn’t mean we don’t live ina a democracy.

Which part? If you mean FAIRTAX, then the reason I say it wouldn’t work is because a 30% sales tax is not revenue neutral. In other words, we would not collect as much in revenues from a FAIRTAX as we would do right now. The sales tax rate would have to be closer to 45% in order to be revenue neutral (and that doesn’t include any of the revenue increases we need to close the structural budget gap).

It imposes a sales tax on the purchase of new homes but not on the purchase of a pre-existing home.

It assumes the collection of this sales tax on purchases made by federal, states and municipal government.

If you are worried about tax evasion from income taxes, you should get a load of the rate of evasion of sales taxes. You will see people paying for everything with cash all of a sudden.

Here is a brief synopsis of the criticism of the FAIRTAX. There are other much longer more involved papers written on the subject bu this one is one of the more easily digestable ones.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1998/03/taxes-gale

As regressive as the fairtax is compared to our current system (and the fairtax is undisputedly regressive on income compared to the current method while being progressive on consumption, every economist agrees on that), most of the reduced tax burden for the folks at the top end of the income scale do not come from shifting of the burden to the middle and lower end of the income scale but on leakage. Rich folks buying their expensive itens overseas.

91

income taxes are bad…
I’m pretty sure that I used 100 years of no income tax to show that they weren’t NEEDED to run the government, not to show the infallibility of the founders.

A progressive incoem tax is applied evenly to everyone. Everyone’s first dollar of income is taxed the same as everyone els’s and everyone’s one millionth dollar of income is taxed the same
So, 10% taxes for people named mmmbeer and 75% for those who are not could be applied equally also? You are setting a criterion, which applies one rate to one group and a different rate to another group, and it doesn’t matter what the criterion is. Applying the law equally means one rate for all, no matter what group they are in.

please google the phrase “marginal utility” the entire concept of progressive taxation is rooted in this concept.
To disagree is not to misunderstand, so continuing to point me to google for a definition isn’t going to change my mind.

You must have a very narrow definition of democracy to believe we don’t live in a democracy.
It isn’t my definition, it is the definition for everyone. That you choose to misuse it has nothing to do with me.

the fact that we don’t have referendums on every peice of legislation that comes before congress doesn’t mean we don’t live ina a democracy.
Yes, it does. That is why we call what we live in a republic, a democratic republic to be precise.

because a 30% sales tax is not revenue neutral.
Being revenue neutral is not a disqualifier. That assumes that the level of spending should be kept at it’s current level, so the drunken sailors of the beltway, (no offense meant to real sailors, it’s just an expression) can keep the spending party going.

I’m not advocating the FAIRTAX here, though I would support it over this crap we have now. It is a consumption tax.

The sales tax rate would have to be closer to 45% in order to be revenue neutral.
Pretty sure I read 17% for revenue neutral, though I haven’t checked it myself, not 30 or 45.

As regressive as the fairtax is compared to our current system
It isn’t regressive. For your and your likeminded pals straight from wikipedia:
A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.
You can understand progressive means the tax rate goes up as the income goes up, but just can’t grasp that regressive means the rate would come down as the income goes up?
Or is that just my narrow-minded definition?

Are you suggesting that when you buy a book at barnes and nobles, they are going to charge you a smaller percent sales tax under the fairtax system than they would charge me based on our income levels? That is what regressive means.

The term you might be looking for is maybe non-progressive. Just trying to help.

92

I have been told that the way I’ve been posting is incorrect. Let me try again:

To disagree is not to misunderstand, so continuing to point me to google for a definition isn’t going to change my mind. And as was said to the Irishman in Braveheart, “just answer the fookin question” How is it unfair, that if you earn twice as much as me, then you pay twice as much income tax as me?

It was a bad analogy and we don’t live in a Democracy.

It isn’t my definition, it is the definition for everyone. That you choose to misuse it has nothing to do with me.

Yes, it does. That is why we call what we live in a republic, a democratic republic to be precise.

Being revenue neutral is not a disqualifier. That assumes that the level of spending should be kept at it’s current level, so the drunken sailors of the beltway, (no offense meant to real sailors, it’s just an expression) can keep the spending party going.
I’m not advocating the FAIRTAX here, though I would support it over this crap we have now. It is a consumption tax.

Pretty sure I read 17% for revenue neutral, though I haven’t checked it myself, not 30 or 45.
As regressive as the fairtax is compared to our current system
It isn’t regressive. For your and your likeminded pals straight from wikipedia:
A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.
You can understand progressive means the tax rate goes up as the income goes up, but just can’t grasp that regressive means the rate would come down as the income goes up?
Or is that just my narrow-minded definition?

Are you suggesting that when you buy a book at barnes and nobles, they are going to charge you a smaller percent sales tax under the fairtax system than they would charge me based on our income levels? That is what regressive means.

The term you might be looking for is maybe non-progressive. Just trying to help.