More taxes coming........

[Loss Leader]

Money is created out of debt, fractional banking. We pay interest on the money we are loaned by the FED reserve, which we shouldnt have to if we were to print our own money.
If we didnt pay interest on this money created with a ledger entry doesnt that mean that we wouldnt have a national debt to the bankers that loaned us the money?

Why cant we have a10% flat sale tax???

Most of the taxes we pay do nothing for our "services" anyways.

No more taxes. We dont need them. Anybody(liberal or conservative) that thinks we do does not understand the money system and how its a transfer of wealth..

After the first sentence, literally nothing else you wrote is in any way true.

Also, the reason not to have a flat sales tax, to me, is that it would be regressive. The poor spend a far, far greater percentage of their earnings than the rich, so you're impact on the poor is going to be greater.

Furthermore, everyone of every income needs certain basics of food, shelter, clothing and transportation. The rich may upgrade from the basics considerably, but there is still some amount that they would have to spend just to stay alive. Taxing these necessities unfairly burdens the poor.

 

[Finn McR]

...{quote shortened by Finn}... Taxing these necessities unfairly burdens the poor.

Surely this is a moral argument? In the sense that morality is not absolute? What is the judgement that we do or should use (two different things) to resolve what individuals owe to the government for the benefit of all? Is it true that police or fire services respond faster or better to the rich than to the poor? Should the amortized cost of defense and social spending (education, medicine, etc.) be spread out on a per-person basis or on a per-wealth basis?

I'm pretty much median income, etc. but can sympathize with the apparent feeling that the somewhat wealthy are being unfairly squeezed (the *really* wealthy should be able to afford good accountants to cheat the system, right?). Pragmatically the answer is to squeeze the wealthy a bit above fairness levels. After all, that's where the money is. However, decrying per-person based tax burden as unfair seems like moralizing.

 

[Loss Leader]

Surely this is a moral argument?

It can be. But, in that case, any argument for any tax is a moral argument. A flat tax, or a nat'l sales tax, are both based on some moral justification or other.

However, I think I could make an argument against a regresive tax on non-moral grounds. In order for a state to be successful, it's citizens have to work. They have to convert their labor into capital. This increases the wealth of a society. A country where no one went to work would be a sad place full of starving people with nothing to watch on TV (because the cast of Glee is refusing to show up at the studio to work).

It appears to be the case that not all labor is equal. The largest portion of the populace will end up in the employ of a small minority. The owners need the workers to make the food, work the assembly line, etc. And the workers need the jobs because, let's face it, not everybody has the skills to be a doctor, lawyer, or industrial tycoon.

By instituting a flat tax that has a greater impact on the poor than the rich, the government is disincentivising unskilled labor. But unskilled labor is necessary for society and it's the only work many people can get. You'd be punishing the people who make up the musculature of your society. That drives down happiness, which drives down productivity, which harms the owners, which creates less wealth for the nation.

So, moral argument or not, a flat tax seems like a bad idea.

 

[Sceptic-PK]

Money is created out of debt, fractional banking. We pay interest on the money we are loaned by the FED reserve, which we shouldnt have to if we were to print our own money.
If we didnt pay interest on this money created with a ledger entry doesnt that mean that we wouldnt have a national debt to the bankers that loaned us the money?

It is awfully kind of you to announce that nobody needs to waste their time discussing things with you anymore. Thanks!

 

[jimtron]

Related tax threads here (for reference):

It seems we already have a flat tax

Is a flat tax regressive?

What does fair mean when it comes to income taxes?

 

[lomiller]

Surely this is a moral argument?

I wouldn’t consider it a moral argument; rather it’s a simple value equation. If you are poor and can either afford to eat or pay taxes to support a large military, which is more valuable to you? If you are rich enough to afford reasonable food/shelter/clothing then the value of the military goes up because you have things they are helping defend, while the pain of paying for it is decreased because you can afford it.

In point of fact, if a country needed to tax to it’s lowest common denominator, IE it only provided services that the poorest of it’s poor considered important enough to forgo some daily necessity in favor of the service, it would not provide the services it’s more wealthy citizens expect.

Is it true that police or fire services respond faster or better to the rich than to the poor?

For the rich man the fire department protects a mansion, for the poor it protects the cardboard box he shelters under. Why should they both pay equally?

Should the amortized cost of defense and social spending (education, medicine, etc.) be spread out on a per-person basis or on a per-wealth basis?

What do the poorest need with defense spending, what is it they would lose if there were none? Even if they stood to lose something of value would it be more valuable then food?

Better educated and healthier populations supply more productive workers that make their employers the richest people in the world. How rich would Bill Gates be if no one had the education required to use a computer? On the other hand when faced with the choice between food or education people all over the world rightly choose food. Sure education it great for the future, but it doesn’t keep you from starving to death now.

 

[Chucky]

I wouldn’t consider it a moral argument; rather it’s a simple value equation. If you are poor and can either afford to eat or pay taxes to support a large military, which is more valuable to you? If you are rich enough to afford reasonable food/shelter/clothing then the value of the military goes up because you have things they are helping defend, while the pain of paying for it is decreased because you can afford it.

In point of fact, if a country needed to tax to it’s lowest common denominator, IE it only provided services that the poorest of it’s poor considered important enough to forgo some daily necessity in favor of the service, it would not provide the services it’s more wealthy citizens expect.



For the rich man the fire department protects a mansion, for the poor it protects the cardboard box he shelters under. Why should they both pay equally?



What do the poorest need with defense spending, what is it they would lose if there were none? Even if they stood to lose something of value would it be more valuable then food?

Better educated and healthier populations supply more productive workers that make their employers the richest people in the world. How rich would Bill Gates be if no one had the education required to use a computer? On the other hand when faced with the choice between food or education people all over the world rightly choose food. Sure education it great for the future, but it doesn’t keep you from starving to death now.

If I may be so bold as to add a couple more points to lomiller's post: the rich probably use the courts to provide and protect contracts far more than the average person. They likely use more electricity and use more water than the poor to run their factories. They probably chew up the roads more because of trucks loaded with their goods going to market. lomiller mentioned military protection, they probably have greater needs (arguably) for policing the facets of their wealth more than the average worker. They need an educated work force that's mostly publicly educated. They simply use far more government provided resources than the average person and as such, why would it be unfair for them to pay more for it?

I've heard that the top 5% of the wealthiest individuals in this country own about 50% of all its wealth. Should that be the case, shouldn't they pay 50% of the taxes? If you want fair and moral, shouldn't tax breaks and loopholes go to those with the least and more of a straight up, no-breaks rate go to the top 5%?

 

[thaiboxerken]

If we cut all taxes then the economy would recover, world peace would occur and we'd live in utopia.....

 

[Puppycow]

Personal opinion: Taxes should be increased until the budget is balanced. This should be written into law. If people feel taxes are too high, then they can decide on where spending should be cut.

I'm don't think that's a good idea. It makes it impossible for the government to stimulate the economy in a recession. Or respond to emergencies.

You don't want to have tied yourself to the mast when the ship catches on fire.

 

[wastepanel]

Yeah, but Federal withholding is the largest portion that they take out of my check!!!!

Do you normally get a refund?

 

[sthomson]

Yeah, but Federal withholding is the largest portion that they take out of my check!!!!

Then you are (probably) voluntarily withholding too much, especially if you receive a refund when you file your taxes.

 

[drkitten]

A politically-biased report from over 20 years ago is insufficient evidence for your current assertion that 5/6th of your tax withholding is used to pay for interest on national debt.

Yeah. A more recent (and less partisan) set of numbers -- Wikipedia's article on the US budget -- suggests that "Budgeted net interest on the public debt was approximately $189 billion in FY2009 (5% of spending)."

Since Medicare and SS account for 19% and 20%, respectively [ibid] of the expenditures, but are taxed separately, interest on the debt accounts for 5%/(100-39)% of brantc's tax expenditures, or just over 8% of his total tax burden from Federal withholding. While he may not like paying $55/month in interest payments, that's a far cry from "500 a month of my money goes to paying the interest on the national debt." He's off by nearly 90%.

... and if he gets a refund or is otherwise overwithholding, the amount he pays in interest drops even further, because he's overestimating his tax burden.

Of course, the real problem is that I don't think there's a single correct sentence in the Grace commission report, and even in 1984 there wasn't a single correct sentence in it. The three major findings that anti-tax kooks love to quote have never been replicated or confirmed by any third-party sources.

 

[Finn McR]

It can be. But, in that case, any argument for any tax is a moral argument. A flat tax, or a nat'l sales tax, are both based on some moral justification or other.

However, I think I could make an argument against a regresive tax on non-moral grounds. In order for a state to be successful, it's citizens have to work. They have to convert their labor into capital. This increases the wealth of a society. A country where no one went to work would be a sad place full of starving people with nothing to watch on TV (because the cast of Glee is refusing to show up at the studio to work).

It appears to be the case that not all labor is equal. The largest portion of the populace will end up in the employ of a small minority. The owners need the workers to make the food, work the assembly line, etc. And the workers need the jobs because, let's face it, not everybody has the skills to be a doctor, lawyer, or industrial tycoon.

By instituting a flat tax that has a greater impact on the poor than the rich, the government is disincentivising unskilled labor. But unskilled labor is necessary for society and it's the only work many people can get. You'd be punishing the people who make up the musculature of your society. That drives down happiness, which drives down productivity, which harms the owners, which creates less wealth for the nation.

So, moral argument or not, a flat tax seems like a bad idea.

I agree with most of what you wrote (though certainly not the choice of the word "disincentivising" - you should be horse-whipped for that abomination of language ).

I did not mean to support a pure flat tax (though the text of my post could certainly be read to imply that). In terms of moralizing on what is fair, I currently think that a flatter base tax rate plus national sales tax and some sort of luxury tax is the best system. As you can tell by my gross generalizations, I'm no economist.

There are probably also good arguments for setting a lower-limit cut-off on income ("poverty level" or whatever), and imposing a set tax rate for all income above that.