Here come the tax hikes

Ripmany's Avatar
  • Tiny
  • 02-27-2021, 10:08 PM
there will never ever be a clean break change to another system of taxation

there will only be additional streams of taxation

there may be a waning of one system in favor of another but the system of the income tax would remain to always be re-imposed in force or in part as desired

you can preach a consumption tax and its merits only to find you have been hoist with your own petard

some one here has wished social security and medicare done away with and then in the next breath wants forced withholding from paychecks for retirement savings and insurance and housing

I find that very curious Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought
Yes, replacing the income tax with a consumption tax is a fantasy. It will never happen. Same with replacing social security and Medicare, even though they’re Ponzi schemes and will bankrupt the country if nothing changes. But why do you insist on screwing up my fantasies. What are you going to tell me next, that I have no chance at boning AOC?

Yeah, I’m an admirer of Singapore’s Central Provident fund. Also of superannuation in Australia. They’re not Ponzi Schemes. It’s like having your own supercharged IRA, and, for Singapore, HSA too.

Maybe there’s some self interest involved. When it comes time to pay the piper (when social security and Medicare become insolvent) the politicians are going to expect people like you and me to pay for the social security and Medicare of every Tom, Dick and Harry who was spending every dime he made and didn’t see fit to save for retirement. If we’re still alive get ready for 70% tax rates, or maybe a Sanders/Warren “wealth” tax. I’d rather Tom, Dick and Harry pay their own way.
  • Tiny
  • 02-27-2021, 10:19 PM
So I suppose you were in favor of keeping our corporate tax rate highest among all 37 OECD nations, thereby blunting our international competitiveness and undermining our attractiveness as a destination for foreign investment? How does that create jobs?

Here's a graph showing where we stood before Republicans cut the corporate rate in 2017:


Originally Posted by lustylad
This shouldn’t be controversial. Obama and Biden wanted to lower the federal corporate tax rate too, but it wasn’t a priority. And it would have gone against the Progressive Wing of their party.
adav8s28's Avatar
https://youtu.be/kXCGbAv8YPw Originally Posted by Ripmany
+1

When you add in the Fica Tax and consumption tax the taxes are not really progressive at all. The curve is really kind of flat. Poor people are paying about the same tax percentage of their money as rich people. A very good video.
Ripmany's Avatar
+1

When you add in the Fica Tax and consumption tax the taxes are not really progressive at all. The curve is really kind of flat. Poor people are paying about the same tax percentage of their money as rich people. A very good video. Originally Posted by adav8s28
And he did not even include fines, fees, other legal expenses.
  • Tiny
  • 02-28-2021, 07:41 AM
The Vox video was probably based on “research” by two highly biased Socialist economists, Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Sáez. These are the people who designed Sanders and Warren’s tax plans. They are French. Their proposals are similar to what Hollande’s Socialist government attempted to implement, except that Hollande didn’t go nearly as far as Zucman and Sáez would with the wealth tax. Hollande had to back off because the high, steeply progressive taxation was hurting the economy and causing some of France’s most productive citizens to leave.

An economist working with the OECD, which is about as unbiased as you can get, said the USA had the most progressive tax system out of the 37 or so countries that are members of the OECD. Every large, developed country, save China, is a member of the OECD. THE OECD ECONOMIST INCLUDED EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE, SALES TAXES, AND VAT’s IN HIS ANALYSIS. The conclusion, the USA has the most progressive tax system in the developed world. This is the seminal study on the comparative progressivity of taxation in developed countries.

I did not read Zucman and Saez’s paper. But from the video, one obviously slanted assumption is including employer contributions to social security and Medicare in the tax an individual pays. I don’t know why you include social security and Medicare period - people should pay for their own retirement and medical care if they’re able.

If you gentlemen think the top 1% are going to be able to pay for everyone’s retirement and medical care, you’re wrong. They don’t have enough money.

http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/growingu...dcountries.htm
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-28-2021, 08:10 AM
. I don’t know why you include social security and Medicare period - people should pay for their own retirement and medical care if they’re able.

If you gentlemen think the top 1% are going to be able to pay for everyone’s retirement and medical care, you’re wrong. They don’t have enough money.
Originally Posted by Tiny
And the poor do not start wars or profit from them....the rich do...so the rich should pay for own wars.

How about this. Medicare and SS so far, has not run a deficit. No borrowed money to fund those programs.

Can you say the same about the military industrial complex?

Shall I get out my War Registry Graph showing the culprit of most of our debt?

If the wealthy actually had to pay for the true costs of military intervention and the costs of maintaining instead of Billionaires paying a paltry 750 dollars in income taxes for decades....Well you can see where I'm going with this.
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-28-2021, 08:25 AM
https://youtu.be/kXCGbAv8YPw Originally Posted by Ripmany
And he did not even include fines, fees, other legal expenses. Originally Posted by Ripmany
The Vox video was probably based on “research” by two highly biased Socialist economists, ] Originally Posted by Tiny
This is akin to "shooting the messenger".

The question you should be asking is : Is this factual. It sure backs everything I've read about combining all taxes and demonstrating how our taxes are rather flat.

I've made that same argument for decades. I remember doing so on aspd.
There were a group in favor of the flat tax....and I used to argue this very point. And I'm not French or Socialist.

I like to think of myself as from the nation of Reality and Brutality Honest as my political affiliation.
  • Tiny
  • 02-28-2021, 08:49 AM
Yeah, I can see where you’re going. The great American fortunes arose from waging war and from profits from sales to our military.

Billionaire’s don’t pay under $750 a year in taxes, crooks do. Billionaires on average might pay 25% or 30%. Add in the 40% death tax, property taxes, state income taxes, taxes on their businesses and they’re not getting off lightly.

As to social security and Medicare, How about this, Madoff Investments Ltd as of 2007 had never run a deficit.
  • Tiny
  • 02-28-2021, 08:52 AM
The question you should be asking is : Is this factual. Originally Posted by WTF
No
  • oeb11
  • 02-28-2021, 09:29 AM
wtf - when all else fails - denial and delusion

add - name-calling, scatology, and gay aspersions.



all to the greater glory of teh marxist DPST idiotology 'god' the DPST's pray to and are indoctrinated to Orwellian belief in regardless of FACTS and Truth!
Ripmany's Avatar
Some how people need to pay for government spending.
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-28-2021, 09:49 AM
wtf - when all else fails -

add - name-calling, scatology, and gay aspersions.



! Originally Posted by oeb11
Nothing has failed....and I have no need to add any of that to your parroting gay ass bullshit!
WTF's Avatar
  • WTF
  • 02-28-2021, 09:51 AM
No Originally Posted by Tiny
You have not proven it to be false as of yet.
  • Tiny
  • 02-28-2021, 09:05 PM
You have not proven it to be false as of yet. Originally Posted by WTF
I have proven it to be false in my post above. I'll be more explicit. The Vox video says they assumed the employer's share of social security and FICA, being 7.65% of gross wages, is actually borne by the employee. So they assume all employees pay a 15.3% payroll tax.

How much sense does that make? The 7.65% is a cost that's actually mostly passed onto the consumer who pays higher prices. And it's the employer who pays his share of the tax, not the employee.

You take 7.65% off the tax rate paid on salaries and wages by people making less than $142,800 per year (social security income cap) and that curve in the Vox video is going to look a lot more progressive.

It would make a lot more sense to add the 7.65% to taxes paid by the billionaire businessmen. And small businessmen in the top 1%. If they have a lot of employees, those payroll taxes will exceed their adjusted gross income (AGI), that is, their pre-tax income on their tax returns.

And those businessmen pay sales taxes to the state too. How about moving that number around so that you show it being paid by the businessman too, instead of the consumer.

Some of these billionaire businessmen are paying many times their AGI on payroll taxes and sales taxes alone. So we've got a crazy progressive income tax system where many businessmen pay multiples of their AGI in taxes while most of the rest of us get off pretty lightly.

Does this make sense? Well, I don't know, but it makes more sense than saying the employer's contribution to FICA and social security is borne by the employee.

This is probably the tip of the iceberg. Saez and Guzman undoubtedly twist the numbers around any way they can to try to make their case for making America a second rate country through sky high taxation.