Slashdot Mirror

And the payments would be progressive (more paid by the rich, less or nothing paid by the poor).

Well, thats all well and good, however, in the US the rich don't pay taxes. So more paid by whats left of the middle class, the poor go to prison.

That's just not true. You can argue that the rich don't pay _enough_ in taxes, but they certainly pay taxes, and the bulk of taxes. "The progressivity of the federal tax system means that high-income taxpayers bear a high share of taxes. In 2012, the top quintile of the income distribution received 52.5 percent of income and paid 68.3 percent of federal taxes." http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/currentdistribution.cfm

His comment was in reference to Federal Income Tax, which is how the programs to which he was referring are funded. Payroll tax, the only federal tax in your long list, is unlikely to be paid by the poor, as the poor tend to not own businesses with employees other than themselves. Sales tax is a state tax used to fund state programs and, on top of that, not every state has a sales tax. Bus fares pay for buses and many municipalities have privately-run bus lines; this is direct payment for a service at the time of use and is not, in any way, shape, or form, a tax. Property tax is often a local tax and, if not local, is a state tax.

The only tax that actually matters for the programs he was referring to is Federal Income Tax. Period.

Furthermore, you may wish to actually read the first article you linked; I did, before I made my first post in this thread; it supports Romney's 47% number, with numbers from the Tax Policy Center, including a breakdown of who, exactly, is not paying income tax, and your perception of this group is dead wrong. I'm not even going to bother with the New Republic article, as I've already reviewed the actual numbers involved, so the opinion of some biased publication (and this is including CBS and Fox) is of little value to me, as I'm perfectly capable of forming my own.

Again, Romney was factually correct in the context of the general welfare programs to which he was referring, whether or not you support where he's coming from which, for the record, I do not.

The 47% number is nearly dead-on the 46.4% number for 2011, as stated by the Tax Policy Center. The numbers on that page now are for 2012 and it looks like 44.3% didn't pay income tax last year. Supposedly, according to a quote from the video attached to this article, they're looking to push that number down below 40% by the end of the decade. That article also contains some other numbers you may find interesting (including the 2011 numbers from the Tax Policy Center page I linked to).

Are you sure you're not confusing Medicare and Social Security with Income Tax? I paid those, too, for the entire decade that I was making $16k/yr, but those don't go into funding general welfare programs and, so, aren't relevant to the topic Romney was commenting on.

You have cherry picked your timeline there my friend. I know for a fact, that corporate taxes were much higher in the 50s

I have not, I've specifically picked a more relevant period. The 50s aren't applicable. They had barely any "social security taxes or medicare taxes" (~2% as per http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/content/pdf/ssrate_historical.pdf) that were "Tacked on", yet never included when discussing the taxes that people pay. It's like the great 90% myth -- just because a tax bracket was at one point 90% didn't mean anyone ever paid it. The number of deductions one could take back then was also far FAR higher than it is today. "Total taxes" is the relevant number, not some arbitrary income tax percentage. In truth, the fairest test is to simply compare the share of taxes the rich are paying, and that's at an all-time high.

Hopefully you can agree that money should absolutely not be a part of political campaigns.

I do agree.

Also, tax revenue is the lowest it's been since 1941, so complaints about taxes being unusually high are also wrong.

Not at the federal level. Government spending rarely goes down. In the past 60 years it's gone now in the following years:
1954, 1955, 1965, 2010 and 2012. Every other year it's gone up. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

But perhaps, we should be talking about tax revenue, not spending since that is what was asked, and in the past 60 years, revenue has gone down in years: 1958,1959,1971,1983,2001,2002,2003,2008, and 2009.

Better than gross revenue, it would be best to compare gross revenue adjusted for inflation per capita, but I don't have those numbers, but perhaps someone else does. Even better would be gross revenue adjusted for inflation paid per member of each income group, but again, I don't have those numbers.

Social security, and welfare existed long before the 60's. Food stamps and medicare are from the 60's, however, welfare was scaled back decades ago when Clinton was in office. So your notion that the safety net has exploded is patently false. That said, the costs have certainly shot up. Medicare has skyrocketed due to the crazy increases in medical costs. Social security has shot up in spite of the fact that the benefits have been reduced because people are living longer. Welfare and unemployment are up because unemployment is up.

That is patently false. Almost the entirety of the growth in the Federal budget since the 1960s is due to Medicare/Medicaid, then Social Security, both as a percentage of the budget and in raw dollars. Basically, everything we've gained in 50 years from cutting defense spending by 60% since the 1960s has been consumed by growth in those two social programs, and then some.

Medical costs in this country are beyond screwed up. The amount spent by the Federal and State governments on health care exceeds that of Canada on a per capita basis. That's right, the Canadian government spends less per person on health care than the U.S. government does on average. And they cover nearly all of everyone's medical costs (some people still buy supplemental insurance there), while U.S. government spending averages out to about half of everyone's medical costs. So don't go trying to blame it all on private health care. Both private and public health care spending are to blame.

You cannot look at isolated taxes, some go up, some go down. The tax take as percentage of GDP went up steadily for all of Clinton years in office.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205

So did revenues. That was the only time in recent memory that the USA posted a budget surplus.

The United States does not have low taxation,

Yes, it does.

It is fundamental that you can't spend more than you take in indefinitely.

It's not quite true... Due to inflation, increase in GDP, etc., the debt from N years ago becomes irrelevant, where N isn't all that large. If you look at the history of the revenue vs. spending, you'll see that US had a deficit pretty much every year since 1940s:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

You'll also notice that in the 1980s, the deficit was about the half of the percentage points of GDP that it is now, and it's already peanuts compared to the current GDP and current revenue. The World War II deficit was 3x the current, per year, yet by the time 70s came around, it was equivalent of 2% of GDP.

So, yeah, if your economy is growing, then you can keep spending more than you make. Many growing companies do that all the time, as it's cheaper to take out debt then to make money in other ways.

results of your search are very mixed. the saddest thing i found when going through the google results is that I could tell what the article was going to say based on the source, ie all seemed partisan. Do you have any economic papers or non mass media sources that back up your analysis? This seemed to be the best source (on page 4 of hte results). But it seems to say the bush tax cuts were unsuccessful in their goals.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/bush-tax-cuts/index.cfm

You numbers are *way* wrong.

Look at the tax policy center historical data: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=456

The top quintile dropped from 27.1% in 1979 to 23.2% in 2009. The top 1% dropped from 35.1 to 28.9%.

And this is just tax bracket, it says nothing of all of the loopholes that the wealthily employ to drop their actual rates to 20% and below. (http://www.accountantbyday.com/2011/09/22/how-does-a-billionaire-pay-less-tax-than-his-secretary/)

You quote Average tax rate not the social security tax which is what matters. Please see these data. Which show that, in fact, the highest quintile of earns pay a much smaller percentage than the second to highest. As this quintile makes the most money we are effectively taxing the most money less. More precisely you do not pay SS tax on monies earned over a fixed number.

I think you are mistaken unless you are not speaking about the US which would be odd. The marginal tax rate has been relatively stable and dramatically decreased on the highest earners over the time period you to which you refer (see this article). This is in fact generally true of the average tax rate and most other specific taxes (excluding SS which has remained stable) as can be seen in the data here. So why do you believe that we are being taxed currently at historically high rates?

the second half of your post appears to have no relationship with the first half.

is it just a rant you attach to every post?

minor side note, I don't have data for the last couple of years but:

top 1% 1979, average effective federal tax rate: 35.1%
top 1% 2009, average effective federal tax rate:
28.9%
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=456

Please educate yourself... You need to expand beyond rhetoric and 30 second political commercials for your information.

Romney paid 14% in federal taxes. That was just over 3 million dollars.

Here is what the average american pays in federal taxes as a percentage of their income..

Bottom fifth of earners: -12.3 percent
Second-to-bottom fifth: -4.2 percent
Middle fifth: 4.1 percent
Second-highest fifth: 8.2 percent
Highest fifth: 17.3 percent

Do you know who paid a higher federal tax % then Romney? Not the bottom 80% of earners, the top 20% did. Who is sucking the juice? The bottom 80% of earners. Look at the negative percentages too.

Total payroll taxes instead of federal taxes s a little different but not much.

Here is the raw data:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3277

Here is a story with an explanation of that data
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/09/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-most-americans-pay-higher-tax-ra/

It meant abandoning all my mods on this story but this intrigued me and I had to look up it up. In fact, while the number of smokers may have dropped the TAX REVENUES from smokers has been increasing steadily and at pace far faster than inflation. I think that lends some good evidence to sls1j's assertion that taxing pollution will lead to government dependence on that taxation. Obviously smoking and pollution aren't exactly the same but I think there's a good point made there.

>>So what has happened to drive the debt up?
>>Try TAX CUTS

No.

Spending has skyrocketed, whereas revenue has stayed mostly stable (though it took a hit during the last couple years by a couple points).

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_gov_spending_history_1902_2010.png

It's a spending problem, stupid.

An actual tax burden of 43% (excluding sales tax, property tax etc.) would be very high in the US. 50% is about average for the Nordic Model countries.

Something like 75% of working Americans are taxed exclusively in the 15% income bracket or lower for federal income tax (before any deductions. Mortgage interest, student loan interest, tuition, medical expenses, and various other things can be deducted.

Almost half of Americans end up paying no federal income tax. This is mostly due to low income combined with deductions and credits for children.

We do have lots of other taxes (property, sales, etc.) that increase the tax burden (especially for the poor), but personal taxes are still very low compared with most other developed nations. However, we have no pensions, a miserably failed SS system, nonexistent public transportation, bad primary and secondary schools, and expensive healthcare and post-secondary education.

That's only true if you stop the bar at 1 million... past there the rate drops. By 10 million income, it's down to 22%. At the top it's 17.5%. At Romney's level it's apparently 13%.

Your link doesn't agree with this one:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/key-elements/poor/households.cfm

I am talking about the total tax load.

-6% Federal + 6% Social Security + 12% state and local taxes (a high % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)

vs
18.5% on the top 1% + .8% social security + .03% state and local taxes ( a tiny % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)

compare the total tax load for both groups.
12% for the poor.
19.6% for the top 1%.

And it's lower for the top .1%.

You can't take more money from the poor. State and local taxes have already put them below the poverty line. There would be no point in working if you took out income taxes from them and the result would be civil unrest and violence with coresponding increased incarceration costs ($31,000 to warehouse a prisoner vs $18,000 a year for Welfare-- it's literally cheaper to give them money than force them to turn to crime).

Romney has a clearly laid out plan for what he wants to do. You may not like the plan, but he has one.

As numerous sources have pointed out, his proposals do not work mathematically. Coming to even this conclusion is problematic because Romney maintains his budget proposals cannot be scored". I don't think this satisfies a common-sense definition of a "clear plan."

Meanwhile Obama and Democrats in general have failed to produce a budget for THREE FUCKING YEARS. How can you vote for that kind of nonsense?

The OMB submits a budget recommendation every year. The House also passes a budget every year, the last one was passed under the Budget Control Act.

You're confusing a knock against Senate Democrats with a knock against Barack Obama, a complaint which is itself baseless and relying on semantics.

Without businesses paying property taxes, sales taxes, business license fees, etc, the government would not have been able to build those streets.

Clearly, by your logic, the businesses which have evaded paying taxes [1] for the past several years should get no credit at all.

Fact: The majority of taxes is paid for not by corporations [2], but people. Go figure.

[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/09/460519/major-corporations-no-taxes-four-year/?mobile=nc
[2] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm/

If you want to know why your taxes are so high

Taxes in the US are almost the lowest in the developed world. So, I don't really want to know more about something that isn't true.

This doesn't look like a tax to me -- it looks like a government-imposed profit fee for Amazon. Perhaps they should dispense with the fee entirely.

The US's taxation vs GDP (or here if you want a nice chart is far lower than it should be for a first world country - in fact, it is lower than some third world countries (so no, it isn't just Socialism or Communism). There is no reason the country can't afford to pay its debts, buy spacecraft, and fund Social Security and Medicare (personally I say get rid of 'em, but 49% of US citizens have no private retirement savings, and that 49% would probably slam a 24 pack of Budweiser and go shoot up the white house if those programs end) - we just need to change tax codes to start collecting first world taxation.

They didn't pay 8.3b in taxes.

8.3b is the "provision for income taxes". It's an accounting term for the estimated impact from taxes for a given year, (even if that impact doesn't happen for years, or doesn't happen at all).

3.3b is the "Cash paid for income taxes, Net" which is on the cash flow statement. That's the actual money that leaves the company and goes to taxing authorities.

Also, US doesn't tax the income twice. That is wrong. The US wants to /know the amount/ of income overseas. A heavily simplified example: if you owe say $100k to the US based on that income, but you already paid $50k to the foreign country, the US acknowledges that by giving you a credit and will only expect you to pay $50k to the US when the money comes back to the US. A total of $100k.

External ref:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/encyclopedia/Foreign-Tax-Credit.cfm

"Although foreign tax credit is available to individuals with foreign source income (including wages earned abroad), the great bulk of foreign tax credits goes to U.S. corporations with operations abroad. U.S. corporations earn foreign source income by operating branches abroad and by operating or investing in affiliates incorporated abroad. Foreign source income earned through a foreign branch is subject to U.S. tax in the tax year in which it was earned. The tentative U.S. tax is simply the U.S. tax rate times the income of the branch. A credit is given for foreign income taxes and for any foreign withholding taxes that are levied when the branch remits the income to its U.S. parent. Losses a foreign branch incurs can be deducted from the corporationâ(TM)s domestic income to reduce the corporationâ(TM)s U.S. income tax. However, if the branch becomes profitable in succeeding years, its income is treated as U.S. source income, and no foreign tax credit can be claimed on it until the U.S. Treasury recovers the reduction in tax revenue caused by the branchâ(TM)s initial losses."

The US has the highest corporate rates of the G7

Sure, highest supposed rates and 3rd lowest effective rate in the G7, thanks to loopholes you can sail a cruise ship though.

Plus some of the most profitable ones get subsidies.

The US has the highest corporate rates of the G7

Sure, highest supposed rates and 3rd lowest effective rate in the G7, thanks to loopholes you can sail a cruise ship though.

"It is not a tax problem, it is a spending problem".
Taxes collected swing with the economy, but spending gets ratcheted up and never swings down. Especially here in California - the spenders see a bubble of income and they lock-in spending like the party never ends. LA is broke, but a bunch of employees are getting a 10% raise - are you getting a raise? Why public employee unions are even legal, I don't know. Talk about a conflict of interest...

The US has the highest corporate rates of the G7

... despite the fact that in my grandfather's day only the rich paid federal income tax.

Your grandfather must have lived in the roaring twenties then. Through most of the middle of the 20th century that wasn't the case, but, surprisingly, income taxes are more generous to the bottom quintile. The income tax rate in America has gotten more and more progressive over the last few decades with the introduction of the EITC, as the bottom quintile receives more and more money

Reagan instituted the largest tax cut in American history in 1981. In the next three years, respectively, we lost $38 billion, $91 billion, and $139 billion in revenue as cuts phased in on schedule.

Federal revenue:
1981: 599
1982: 617
1983: 601
1984: 666

Just keep making shit up.

I'm sick to death of seeing knuckle dragging Neanderthals (who have voted the way their television told them to) have as much say as myself (if I don't understand what the vote is on, I'll make sure I read up on it).

There are a bunch of flaws with this sort of thinking:
  * If your sources are not providing useful unbiased expertise on the subject, then your vote is no smarter than the "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals". For instance, if the main issue is tax policy, you'll get wildly different answers depending on whether you check with the Tax Policy Center, Americans for Tax Reform, FairTax.org, or the Cato Institute.
  * If it's an issue like "Should we approve this school tax levy?", checking the sources won't help you make several value judgements (Should there be a well-funded public education system? Does the improvement in home values that comes from having a good school district outweigh the cost of the higher tax? What effects, if any, will the tax change have on local businesses?)
  * For candidates rather than ballot issues, you may find yourself in the position of "I agree with Smith because of ABC, but disagree with him about DEF, while I like Jones' position on GHI but dislike JKL." Again, you're making value judgments which have nothing to do with level of education or research.

taxes are historic high.

May I refer you to this, which documents top marginal tax rates at or above 70% for the nearly five DECADES preceding Reagan, even exceeding 90% for over a decade.
Or has inflation rendered this meaningless, with yesterday's 90% tax rate being "lower" than today's 35%?

...afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.

Riddle me this, Batman:

What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?

Answer that, and you'll understand why the people who aren't so upset about that particular factoid see you as the one seeing a distorted world through a "political lens". (As it happens -- the Tax Policy Center, who made the 46% estimate, has a much more level-headed assessment).

The issue isn't how much they make, or how much they pay, but that they do pay... something. Get a little skin in the game. If there was a fair/flat tax system place, the 46% that currently pays no taxes would have to weigh the consequence government spending.

If, for example, there was a bill to ensure all pet owners can visit the vet to have their pet spade/neutered and one free checkup per year (call it the Bob Barker bill)... If it costs you nothing, sure! Go for it! It will help those cute puppies and kitties! But, if they say "Your taxes will go up 1% to pay for this", I bet more would say "No, that is part of pet ownership, it's up to the pet owner to pay for it!"

Wasteful spending and government goes hand in hand, and getting more people to get a little skin in the game will help promote a more frugal government. Spending other people's money is easy. Watching others spend your money makes you a bit.... grumpy.

...afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.

Riddle me this, Batman:

What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?

Answer that, and you'll understand why the people who aren't so upset about that particular factoid see you as the one seeing a distorted world through a "political lens". (As it happens -- the Tax Policy Center, who made the 46% estimate, has a much more level-headed assessment).

If you declared a law that everything over 200k a person makes would go to the government it would be about 2 trillion dollars or enough to run the country for less then 2 months

OK, there is a lot wrong with this statement. First of all, Federal outlays in the 2011 budget were $3.6 trillion, so the $2 trillion you cite would last 6.6 months.

But the $2 trillion is wrong (the other way). Those earning over $200k made 17.5% of the total US income of $7.723 trillion, or $1.35 trillion. That amount of money would last us 4.5 months.

But the most egregious part of your statement is the implicit assumption that taxing all of the income over $200K would replace every single other source of revenue for the federal government. No one is suggesting reducing the income tax rate for under $200k to 0%. Not only are those suggesting higher marginal rates for the very rich not suggesting lower marginal rates for the rest, they are also not proposing cutting non-income taxes and revenue.

Federal income tax makes up about 45% of total Federal revenue. Payroll taxes make up the second biggest chunk of revenue at about 36% (perhaps lower with the current holiday), while corporate income tax (which some say should be higher) makes up 12%. These other sources would continue if we raised taxes on the rich.

So, not only do you use inaccurate numbers to make your argument, you are arguing against a strawman.

A sensible debate on this issue would reveal that we need to have a comprehensive approach to solve the deficit and debt problems we face. Cutting spending alone, or raising taxes alone, will not solve the issue. The combination of decreased tax revenue (due to the Bush tax cuts and the deregulation of the financial industry which directly led to the bank bailouts [increased spending] and recession [decreased revenue], and the increased spending due to the War on Terror (not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but also DHS) has out us in a fine mess, and we need to reverse course on both those fronts to climb out of the hole we are in.

With all the inflation created by the Fed to feed the ever hungry Treasury, why bother with the IRS? Here is a cost cutting for you: abolish the IRS and just keep counterfeiting. There is no difference. IRS is just a token dep't, existing for the sake of existing, today, that government only collects a small part of its expenses in taxes and borrows and prints the rest.

In FY 2010, the U.S. collected $2.1 trillion in taxes, and borrowed $1.3 trillion, I would hardly consider ~2/3 to be a small part.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

I refer you to the top marginal rate for the fifty years preceeding the Reagan administration.
No, the wealthy are not already taxed. They used to be, up until 30 years ago.
Amazing how even a 94% tax rate on the "job creators" didn't seem to result in a dearth of jobs, isn't it?
For the years 1950 through 1963, the top marginal rate was 91% or higher. There was a minor recession (about 10 months) around 1953-1954, but this was a result of the Fed increasing interest rates.
I wonder why the current 35% tax rate is too high for today's "job creators" to, you know, create jobs.
To say that the wealthy are taxed, while technically true, is bullshit.

The U.S. Government's biggest income not counting income tax is sales tax and export duty on weapons sales.

Wh-wh-wha? Citation needed! It doesn't show up here: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm

Ignoring some of the more blatant forms of stupid in that response, I'll just point out that while it's possible to traffic in bootleg cigarettes, enough people find it easier to just pay taxes on the legal version that they generate in excess of 16 billion dollars in tax revenue per year. Source: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=403

If you hit even a small fraction of that, it would still be a pretty significant amount of revenue for cash-strapped state governments.

That makes sense, but the US government seems to have an infinite credit limit.

Wow. Actually, no. It doesn't. It just feels like it right now because Europe is even more messed up financially than the U.S., but if the U.S. doesn't change things, it will become the next Greece with Treasury Bonds being near junk status and having to pay huge interest rates to attract investors. Also note that the Federal Reserve is actively buying Treasury Bonds to keep long term interest rates low (helping to feed your illusion of infinite credit). The net effect will be higher inflation (forcing interest rates up).

Even with rock bottom interest rates, interest on the U.S. national debt for FY2011 was $454,393,280,417.03. Tax revenues (estimated) for FY2011 were at $2,173,700,000,000 -- so with extremely low interest rates, 20% of the tax revenue has to go to just service the debt.

Corporations shouldn't be taxed, period. Money that comes OUT of that corporation through stock dividends and wages and bonuses and perks should be taxed. And that should all be taxed as plain old income, not special kinds of income like "capital gains" that has lower rates to compensate for corporate taxes already taken out.

Which more or less ignores the fact that the old-timey notion of paying a stock dividend which even approaches net corporate profits gave its death rattle in the 1990s and has not come back despite record corporate profits.

Instead, corporations choose to amass extremely large liquid asset positions for purposes that are questionable even by modern business standards.

Yet you propose to eliminate taxes on corporate profits while increasing taxes on corporate dividends and long term capital gaings (note: capital gains are irrelevant unless attributable to a stock buy-back, since other stock appreciation is merely an increase in the price that another buyer is willing to pay a seller). That would tend to silo even more wealth into the de facto treasuries that have grown up in the 90s and 00s, as opposed to directing wealth into the hands of individuals (the beneficiaries of the funds typically holding stock) and, partially, the government.

I'm reasonably certain that corporations benefit from and directly use government services. There is no philosophical reason why a corporation that is earning a long term average profit should not be subject to taxation in order to pay for those benefits and services, yet natural persons earning non-trivial incomes should. The "fair share" argument has very little to do with anthropomorphisis, and quite a bit more to do with a sense that the seemingly accelerating trend of externalizing the corporate share of the costs of running our society cannot continue.

What you're advocating is that "everything" (yes, not literally everything) be paid for by personal income taxes or consumption taxes as opposed to personal income taxes, corporate taxes, and sales taxes. What you're failing to consider is the effect on investment and wealth distribution. Point to a non-trivial nation that has implemented anything close to what you're advocating and look at the effects on that society. Note that the tax havens that spring to my mind, like Bermuda, are trivial nations in the sense that the corporate revenue that is being complained of is more or less disconnected from acutal corporate economic activity in that nation.

Well there are a few ways, if that 50B was foreign income they do not have to pay taxes on it. Also the amount of tax revenue collected from corporations is tiny, only 12% of all taxes http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm, even if you doubled the taxes of corporations you would not do anything for revenues or the deficit and it would bankrupt most companies. As for taxing the rich it is worthless, even if you tax the rich 100% you are not going to hardly put a dent in the deficit, the only way to do it meaningfully is to raise taxes on the middle class, which are by far and away the largest tax source. Again all of these solutions are going about it wrong, we do not need higher taxes for anyone, we need to cut spending across the board 50-75%, and lower taxes for everyone.

We don't have a wealth tax in america, we have a bracketed income tax. The "tax cuts for the rich" mantra is pure feldercarb. You have exactly the same loopholes and tax strategies available to you that the "wealthy" do. There is no "escape" from taxation. Corporations however do have a whole bunch of tax advantages that regualar citizens do not since (theoretically) the result of letting a corporation fail (or even make less profit) would be a reduction in job force and overall competitiveness resulting in a net loss of tax income due to the loss of employee income tax and additional unemployment benefit burden. Now that effectiveness (particularly in a global economy) is debatable (and complex). You can see by this paper (and the included chart) http://taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001547-Why-No-Income-Tax.pdf that very few of the "rich" are "escaping" taxes, and fully half of the population is paying no federal taxes at all (and they aren't the rich).

Are you sure it wasn't Bush's decision to slash taxes when we were running a surplus for the first time in modern history and on course to pay down the deficit?

Few corrections to your statement:

1. The Bush tax rate cuts were a response to the Clinton recession, and later 9/11. And they dramatically increased actual taxes collected - in absolute and inflation-adjusted dollars. Far from a tax cut, they were, in fact, a tax increase as total taxes collected increased.
2. President Bush never had a surplus. Never. Check the facts - every year since 1957 the Federal debt has increased. Including the Clinton years. I know it's "common knowledge" that Clinton had a surplus - but the fact is, he didn't. This is a case of common knowledge that is actually common myth - it never happened.

As far as Republican Administrations creating the debt, please review the Constitution about who writes the budgets. It's the Congress - not the President - who allocates funds. And I remember Tip O'Neill famously quoting that every single proposed budget from Ronald Reagan was DOA - the Democrat controlled House created the budgets with the large deficits.

As far as Federal revenues as a percent of GDP, historically post WWII tax revenues have been at ~18.5% of GDP. Go ahead and collect another 4% of the GDP today, to bring up tax receipts to that historical level - that's an additional $560 billion in taxes. We'd still have a ~$1.2 TRILLION deficit to deal with. It's the spending that is the vast majority of the problem, NOT revenue.

The Bush tax cuts were to stimulate the economy after 9/11 (they failed to do so)

And yet, Federal tax revenues increased by 30% from 2000 to 2007 (and then began dropping in 2008 as the Housing Bubble burst).

And this in spite of the recession immediately post-9/11, which saw tax revenues drop 10% over a two year period.

Sorry, the Bush tax cuts are not a good example of the idea that tax cuts supposedly lead to greater revenues.

First, adjusted for inflation (2005 dollars), revenues were about $2.3 trillion in 2000 and $2.4 trillion in 2007. That's only 5% growth, less than 1% annually. If we hadn't cut taxes, revenues would have grown much more.

Second, most economists don't credit the Bush tax cuts with more than a small part of the growth in GDP. There's a lot more going on in the economy than tax rates. The total revenues collected over that time period would have been much greater without the tax cuts. And our national debt would be trillions of dollars less.

Finally, why stop in 2007? That's an arbitrary number that you picked because it fit your argument best. Inflation-adjusted tax revenues in 2009 were BELOW levels in every year since 1997. 2010 was only slightly better.

I'm all for reducing budget deficits, and for tax policy reform. Almost everyone should be paying higher taxes right now.

Source: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

I was actually talking about over the last 100 years, not the last 15.

US gdp from 1900-2008
Highest marginal income tax rate 1913-2011

Just looking at the numbers, from 1913-1934 there was a fairly gradual increase, but nothing amazing with one dip.

During that time period, the tax rate was increased very high for a period of 5 years (which did not significantly impact growth one way or the other), but for the most part was at either close to our level of taxes or lower. Note that the periods when it was lower, 1913-1915 and 1925-1931 also did not show significant fluctuations in growth.

In 1932 there was a sharp increase in taxes, from 25% to 63% which was raised to 79% in 1936 and yet AGAIN in 1940 to 81%, 1942 88%, and 1944 to 94% (I want to raise taxes and still, wtf?).

During this time period, there was a pretty damned sharp boost in growth. Well, except in 1944-1951. But that's probably a result of the INSANE tax rate out of nowhere. It was pushed down to as low as 82% in 1948 then raised again to 91% in 1950 through to 1964. In this period of time? Damned consistent growth that was pretty damned high.

The tax rate then dropped to the 70s from 1964-1981. In this time period growth remained consistent until a hiccup at the end there at 1981. From 1982-1986? 50% and pretty damned good growth. 1988-1991 was dropped again to the low 30s/high 20s and growth had another hiccup where the GDP went down.

Following that the tax rate stayed consistently at 40% for still quite good growth. Then from 2000-2002, continued with a slight tapering at the end...which came back from 2003-2007 until the crisis of 2008. That's right when Bush was getting out and 2003 on was part of the Bush tax cuts (Which seemed to contribute to pretty good growth until the end there.)

From what these numbers seem to say, it seems like taxing the rich a great deal means we result in far LESS of a bubble/downshift then when we have tax rates low. Further, taxing the rich doesn't seem to hurt GDP in any significant way provided it's either gradual, or shown in contrast to a stupidly high rate. Jeez, I'm not even saying we need a 70% tax rate or a 90% tax rate, I'd just like them to get back to the 40% tax rate. The longest period of CONSISTENT growth seems to have been back in the 1948-1973 70-90% tax rate though...

Historically, the US government has not managed to collect more than 19 or 20 percent of GNP in tax revenue.

Err, kind of. It collected ~27% of GDP in 2006 (1, 2), and it collected north of 30% in 2000 (3). It'd be more accurate to say that, since the second world war and excluding the past five years, the US government hasn't managed to collect less than 19 or 20 percent of GDP. The fact that the tax take is now ~15% (ref) is a large part of why the US government has a bit of a problem, fiscally speaking.

It's also worth pointing out that even 30% would be low compared to most other developed countries; the OECD average is 35%, and going even higher than that would not be completely unreasonable. Places like Germany (37% tax take, 3.6% growth last year), Finland (43%, 3.1% growth), and Sweden (46%, 7.3% growth) aren't exactly struggling at the moment. This obviously doesn't mean that a high tax take implies a healthy economy (e.g. Spain (37%, 0.8%), Italy (44%, 1.1%), Portugal (35%, 1.4%)), but it does at least show that a tax take above 20% of GDP is not automatically an economic disaster.

(Admittedly, I'm using GDP rather than GNP, which makes the numbers slightly different. I'd argue that GDP more accurately approximates taxable activity in the US than GNP, since there are so many tricks which corporations can use to reduce US taxes paid on foreign earnings. In any case the difference is only a couple of percent and doesn't invalidate the point that a 20% effective tax rate would be unusually low for the US, and exceptionally low compared to other rich countries.)

Do you realize that the current President argued on the Senate floor in 2006 AGAINST raising the debt ceiling?

Do you realize that with the exception of the stupid tax on jet airplanes (remember how well that worked for yachts?) the Democratic party wants MORE money to solve the problem of OVER-spending by BOTH sides of the aisle?

How this is a "Tea Party" fucking with the budget is frankly tilting at windmills... convenient scapegoat because of their fringe (that you so acutely documented)...

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

Sorry this is from a fringe group:
http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/federal-government-revenues

http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

One of the things I love to mention, and this is from a great President (JFK)... he LOWERED the marginal rate for the top bracket and actually INCREASED revenue... because if you change the marginal rate upwards, you freeze the money over that amount into savings or bonds or something that doesn't generate revenue (he has a great speech about it somewhere... I forget where I read it.)

But let's be frank... people who complain there is a revenue problem because of lower tax rates forget the difference between MARGINAL and EFFECTIVE tax rates... It's a spending problem. It has been since the last years of the Carter Administration....

But never let facts get in the way of a good partisan rant...

So the /only/ OECD country that pays less taxes then the USA is Turkey (by a slim margin). Taxes are almost /double/ in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Italy, and these countries are nothing like North Korea. In fact, Norway as a /higher/ GDP per capita then America.

Do you have any empirical data that already shows that paying less taxes will somehow improve the economic situation? I am not talking about shoot-from-the-hip theories, but actual data.

They are getting refunds because our elected officials decided to promote some economic activity (i.e. increased oil well drilling, etc.) by giving a deduction. Now we can argue if that was a good idea (many of them are not), but don't pretend that removing the deduction will only result in more taxes and have no other affect. This is a dynamics problem not a statics problem. Every decision that is made has a ripple effect and often unintended consequences. Every dollar taken in taxes isn't available for investment. Those Exxon and GE stockholders are making profits and unless they are putting them underneath their mattresses, those profits go somewhere (that they won't go if they are taken in the form of taxes). Frankly I've NEVER believed that taxing corporations would work. They either just raise their prices to cover the taxes and in effect, the customer pays the tax anyway or they lobby for loopholes that get them out of the taxes altogether. I'm a big fan of the flat tax put forth by Senator Shelby many years ago (http://heraldnewsmedia.com/content/?p=2012), but that didn't go anywhere because 50% of the people on the low end aren't paying any taxes now (and they don't feel the responsibility to contribute at all) and there is another group on the high end that aren't really paying a fair amount in taxes (this we agree on, but even if they did we won't fix the problem). BTW-Corporate income taxes only represent 12% of the total collected (2010 http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm) so if you could double them (which you can't) it won't even come close to the shortfall.

What evidence do you have that taxes are going up in the USA ? I found this pretty quickly and it shows the opposite.