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To Fight $5.2B In Identity Theft, IRS May Need To Change the Way You File Taxes
coondoggie writes: Based on preliminary analysis, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates it paid $5.2 billion in fraudulent identity theft refunds in filing season 2013 while preventing an additional $24.2 billion (based on what it could detect). As a result, the IRS needs to implement changes (PDF) in a system that apparently can't begin verifying refund information until July, months after the tax deadline. Such changes could impact legitimate taxpayers by delaying refunds, extending tax season and likely adding costs to the IRS.
Let's fix the corporate tax evasion first please.
Let's fix corporate taxes first, so that there is no evasion.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Sorry, it's going to be a long time before anyone believes anything the IRS says again.
Get rid of the IRS and the fraud in one fell swoop.
How about we simplify taxes so there's no need to issue refunds in the first place?
In exchange for bringing all deployed troops home, closing all foreign bases, ending all foreign aid, and ceasing all foreign military contracts. It costs about $1 trillion in annual lost revenue in exchange for saving about $1 trillion in annual expenses.
Or is inversion simply legal evasion?
End income tax.
No more tax returns. Only tax based on use (i.e. Sales Tax) Problem solved in one fell swoop.
Tax evasions now impossible and you encourage people to invest rather than spend.
Oh wait, that's right, we have an entire industry run by blood sucking vampires that need the current system to remain as confusing as possible.
Fair enough. As an additional note, according to this article it is costing the U.S. $337 billion dollars!
http://www.theguardian.com/new...
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The IRS is raking in record income to the US federal government.
You aren't out of money because the IRS isn't taking it in... you're out of money because you're spending too much of it.
By all means... fix corruption... but while you're at it... balance the fucking budget.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I love how people actually think corporations pay taxes. Corporations write the check, yes, but pay taxes no. They either:
1) Raise their prices
2) Pass costs to their employees (less employees, less raises, less benefits,etc)
3) Reduce margins
4) Cut costs
#3 is last resort and many times not an option in tight margin markets
Corporate taxes are an indirect tax on everyone else
Let's fix the corporate tax evasion first please.
Let's fix corporate taxes first, so that there is no evasion.
Both. The US has very high corporate taxes (relative to other countries) but also has the most advanced system of tax loopholes ever developed by a corrupt legislature. States frequently offer tax incentives to big companies to move or stay in a state, while leaving the same unpalatable taxes (like business property taxes on machines and furniture) on everyone else.
Tax corps uniformly and quit with the loopholes and the same same income would come in at a lower tax rate, thus addressing both evasion and avoidance.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
We don't need more rules, more laws, more agents (that cost a shit ton of money at work and in retirement), more jails.
Just banish most taxes, simplify the system to a low rate transaction tax, don't deal with deductions or deciding which charities or legit or not (tax would be too low to matter in individual cases), stop caring if business are on shore or offshore or if couples are married:
http://www.apttax.com/
Of course, by nature, bureacracy always has to build itself up, never deconstruct itself, so don't expect to see it short of in the face of a revolution.
The near perfect reason to have a flat percentage of income based tax with no deductions.
Instead of expanding the IRS we could nearly dismantle it, the only part of the IRS that would
be needed is the section that collects the payroll deductions.
No refunds so there is no refund fraud.
Just FYI, as you sound like a solid capitalist, the liquidity of the world's financial market is strongly tied to readily available US debt. Tighten US debt enough and you freeze up the entire world economy. Do that hard enough and people will start looking elsewhere for a stable transaction medium further undermining US competitiveness.
10% flat rate on net income for everybody, no matter how big or small you are. No deductions of any kind whatsoever either.
If 10% is good enough for God (tithes), it's good enough for the government too.
Make 3 tax brackets for personal and corporate taxes: 0%, 10%, 20%
Remove all deductions, all loop holes, etc.
Balance government budget to meet short-term revenue losses. (Across the board, same rate decrease for everyone)
While this sounds reasonable, it'll never happen without term limits. Stop voting for the same people over and over again!!!
10% across the board. Corperate,personal,investments, etc. no loopholes, no deductions, no exemptions. A fair tax. Something the rich utterly hate.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You're mixing state and federal taxes. The feds can't act on state taxes without throwing out what little is left of the US Constitution.
A slow system that might harm legitimate users? They're implementing DRM!
Feel free to mark this OT, it is. I'm just surprised by the mods on this thread. My comment was not meant to be offensive or trolling.
As an American, I find corporate tax evasion much more important ($337 billion a year).
Other comments further down are also modded very strangely, with people at -1 for saying the same exact thing as people with +3, +4, +5.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The current IRS regulations effectively require people to overpay their income taxes, which results in nearly everyone getting a refund, which they want processed quickly, because somehow it's okay if the government is holding money you didn't actually owe, until you actually know how much they're holding. If, on the other hand, people have to mail in a check they don't care if it takes the IRS a few months to verify everything.
Simple solution: Eliminate the regulations that require overpayment, such as the regulation that penalizes you for underpaying if your withholdings are inadequate to cover your liabilities and aren't at lease as large as the prior year's withholdings. Some, perhaps many, people will still choose to overpay, as a sort of brain-dead savings plan, but many will reduce their withholdings, and those that still overpay will have no basis for complaint about a slower refund, since it was their choice.
But, then, I think the whole concept of mandatory withholdings is evil and wrong. It's just one of many ways that taxpayers are misled about how much they're paying. It's not the worst of such deceptions, but it's a significant one.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Exactly. We don't have a collection problem, we have an outradeous spending problem.
Federal Budget Death & Taxes:
2004
2007
2008
2009
2011
2012
I.e. The government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7 Million PER MINUTE and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money!?!?
Spending money to kill other people is NOT the solution to balance the budget.
No I'm not. I'm addressing both state and federal taxes. They both exist and are real and apply to any US based corporation. Any solution necessarily involves both.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
We wouldn't have this problem if we filed our taxes online. Turbotax has prevented that, because they want to charge us for doing what the government could do free, as it does in less corrupt countries.
We've discussed this on Slashdot before. It's like keeping marijuana illegal because the prison guards' unions want to keep their jobs.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/mon...
The Sleazy PR Campaign to Prevent the IRS From Making Your Taxes Simpler
By Jordan Weissmann
Slate
April 14 2014 3:41 PM
Theoretically, it should be far easier for Americans with simple finances to file their tax returns. Instead of making tax filers putz around W-2s and tax prep software, the IRS could electronically prepopulate their paperwork with the information it already receives from banks and employers, and tell filers how much they owe. If the final figure looked about right, you’d have the option to file. As Matt Yglesias wrote here last year, the whole process could be a five-minute snap.
Theoretically. But for years now, Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has fought tooth and nail to prevent automatic tax filing from becoming a reality, lobbying against bipartisan legislation to introduce it with the help of a powerful tech industry trade group and conservative anti-taxers like Grover Norquist. Intuit and its competitors in online tax prep don’t want the government cutting its market share. The tax-crusaders want to ensure that paying the government remains as much of a painful, resentment-generating slog as ever. And thus a potent alliance has been born.
http://www.propublica.org/arti...
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
by Liz Day
ProPublica, March 26, 2013, 5 a.m.
So why hasn't it become a reality?
Well, for one thing, it doesn't help that it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.
Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."
The disclosures show that Intuit as recently as 2011 lobbied on two bills, both of which died, that would have allowed many taxpayers to file pre-filled returns for free. The company also lobbied on bills in 2007 and 2011 that would have barred the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, from initiating return-free filing.
Intuit argues that allowing the IRS to act as a tax preparer could result in taxpayers paying more money. It is also a member of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which sponsors a "STOP IRS TAKEOVER" campaign and a website calling return-free filing a "massive expansion of the U.S. government through a big government program."
Sounds good to me. If people want their money sooner, they should adjust their withholding.
I love how people actually think corporations pay taxes. Corporations write the check, yes, but pay taxes no. They either:
1) Raise their prices
2) Pass costs to their employees (less employees, less raises, less benefits,etc)
3) Reduce margins
4) Cut costs
#3 is last resort and many times not an option in tight margin markets
Corporate taxes are an indirect tax on everyone else
You got it backwards.
Corporations are where the increase in value is created - that's why they CAN pay taxes. Employees and owners get some of that increase as income and they get taxed on that as well, but it came from the value created by the corporation. Ultimately, corporations indirectly pay almost all the taxation because that's where the value is created.
Yes, I know, some people are independent and create value directly through the application of their skills, but in the western world, almost all value is created by corporations.
If you are whining about US taxation rates you are clearly a poser that has never had any actual experience with this stuff. The US tax code specifically panders to corporations. The nominal rates are a pure fiction to distract ignorant RV dwelling GOP supporters.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I use TurboTax. I have for the last 10+ years.
I went to file my taxes this year. When I tried to e-file, the site hiccuped, and I tried to submit again. Then the site told me that I had already e-filed for this year, and could not submit a filing again. I thought at first maybe it went through the first time, but I logged out and logged in and it was showing my current filing as still unfiled.
I contacted TurboTax support. They informed me that someone had gained access to my account, and filed a return for me already, several days prior. I looked around in my TurboTax account, and could not find any evidence that it had been used to submit a filing this year.
I made extensive further inquiries, and eventually got the real story. Someone had stolen my ID and used it to create a new account with Turbo Tax. They never gained access to my real account. Turbo Tax just didn't block creation of a new account with my credentials.
I gave a talk about my experiences at Notacon 11 a few weeks after it happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
In the 1930's, the idea that a 9-digit ID number could remain a secret forever might have been plausible, but today it's quaintly broken. IRS absolutely does need to address this issue. The damage it does to individuals can be great. Institutions protect themselves and mitigating threats are a part of the cost of doing business for them, but for the individual victims who are affected by this, it can be a great inconvenience or even a life altering incident.
End the income tax and don't replace it with a sales tax. The US should revert back to the original taxing powers it had when the constitution was executed, and that is to tax the member states proportional to the population of that state. Then leave it up to each state to determine how to raise the revenue to pay the US. While we're at it abolish the 17th amendment, which allows the election of Senators and have them represent the state, or if people really can't get over that they aren't electing them, make it where they have to directly follow the edicts of the state legislatures. That restore the states to having the power to restrict the control of the US government over them.
They already have a simple and low cost solution for this problem. In fact it is currently being used for those that have had their tax refunds taken. All they have to do is mail a letter with a five digit pin code on it that links to your SSN. Different pin each year. Two factor authentication so simple anyone can do it with or without a computer. Don't complain about the cost of the mailing, because the big tax booklets were being mailed out for years and they just stopped that a few years ago due to the popularity of e-filing.
You can't get a solution like that. State taxes are the responsibility of each of the fifty states. You'd have to get every one of them to reform their own tax laws, amend the US Constitution, or violate state sovereignty. None of those are going to happen. IMO, none of those should happen. Tame the federal beast and let the states regulate themselves.
This problem with national systems being overly exploitable will only go away when every citizen of the United States has a unique ID that's impossible to fake.
Tell you what. You loan the US government 1 trillion dollars interest free per year and I'll sign off on your little plan.
Short of that, we're destroying ourselves.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Be careful what you wish for. Balancing the budget is trivially easy, but you may not find the result pleasing. Balancing the budget can just as easily be done by raising revenue as by reducing expenditures.
Ordinary People can only do so much to raise their revenue. They can cover big capital expenses Now, like house or car, by taking on debt in the form of a mortgage or loan, or by buying on credit. This of course adds additional expense Later in the form of debt service, and most people understand this.
The state, on the other hand, has apparently unlimited ability to raise their revenue. They "just" raise taxes to whatever level is necessary. The devil is in the details. If you raise corporate taxes, the corporations must either raise the prices of their goods and services, or cut expenses in the form of wages. Either way there is blowback. Raising prices beyond a certain optimum lowers unit sales too much, and therefore lowers corporate revenue, leading to lower profits, which means a lower tax base. Lowering wages tends to impoverish the public, which means ye friendly state loses personal income taxes. Finally, if you raise personal taxes, you directly impoverish the public, which tends to make them turn against those in power.
On the other hand, if the state doesn't balance its budget, it can borrow money. This has its obvious downside, with which all are very familiar.
So whether the budget is balanced or not, the consequence of overspending is pretty much the same. Impoverishment. You can play games favoring the present at the expense of the future, but you cannot avoid the consequence entirely.
Now, if you really think the state is going to balance its budget by controlling spending rather than increasing revenue, I have to ask, what's it like in paradise? Not much like the world I live in, I suppose.
This is sound reasoning and I'm inclined to agree.
Except if you actually pay attention to the tax code, it's already OK to underpay under normal circumstances:
1) Your underpayment is less then $1000
2) Your underpayment is greater than $1000 but your Adjusted Gross Income for the current year is greater than your AGI for the previous year.
If your underpayment exceeds either of these, then yes, you have to pay a penalty based on the amount and duration of your underpayment, to the tune of 5% interest. 5% interest. No questions asked, no loan application... it's the best deal in lending you can get for small to modest sums of money.
All taxes are regressive. The rich (and Corporations) will spend money to avoid paying taxes, leaving those that can't to pay the lion's share. There is no way to avoid this scenario, because taxes are punitive in function (e.g. Alcohol, tobacco etc) if not in practice. And while I agree that we need some form of taxes, they should be voluntary contractual agreements between Citizens and the government.
Unfortunately, the government doesn't really care about citizens, which is why our tax system is so screwed up, and why Political leaders are willing to screw it up more to get elected.
The easiest solution is to tax the velocity of money. Similar to VAT tax, but applies to all monetary exchanges of all types, from bank transfers to buy a house. The lone exception would be all cash (real greenback) transactions. Every Month, banking institutions would send an IRS statement, for each person to write a check on the transactions they incurred. It would be easy, clean and affect everyone, yet be completely easy, transparent and as taxes go up, people notice.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This was struck down by a court decision about a hundred years ago, but that should be overturned: allow the Federal government to tax all taxing bodies under its jurisdiction. Want to incorporate a city and tax the people? Fine, pay a percentage of revenues. A taxing body would by definition keep good records of its tax revenues - so who better to tax? Little states and cities etc can do all kinds of tax arrangements, but would have to pay a percentage of that income to the Federal government who defends them and backs their charter. Then income tax could be repealed.
...you're spending too much of it...balance the fucking budget.
Hey, don't you know there's a war on? Buy bonds, and turn off that light!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
yawn... you can't raise revenue any higher. They're already raising it as high as they can. If they raised it higher they'd get less money. We've already hit the laffer curve.
Which means we're looking at over 1 trillion in CUTS.
And as to the negative consequences of that... bring it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The IRS is a Treasonous organization only 100 years old, created and ran by the international banking cartel. It was created along with the treasonous federal reserve in order to enslave Americans to these international banking/global government interests.
The IRS was not the original way the founding fathers intended taxes to be levied. It was created without the best interest of the American people in mind.
And with the $500,000,000.00 the treasonous united states senate and congress just passed to Arm Syrian "rebels" against the "terrorists" the united states itself created. Again, taxes being used against the will of the people, taxation without representation. The terrorist propaganda videos that were the "reason" we are going into syria were completed fakes and disproven by many experts.
Now congress is taking a 7 week vacation? American people wake up, the revolution will be televised.
there is always a war... by that standard the dollar will collapse before they fix it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
..and really all of the "simple" solutions. It seems like a good idea - just don't spend that $1 Trillion and we can drop our taxes by $1 Trilllion. Except that economies don't really work that way. You can't add or subtract a trillion dollars like that and expect things not to spiral out of control.
Remember the recession that freaked out the entire world? Remember the job losses, the stagnation of the economy, and the general feeling that the world would end? We lost 8.8 million jobs, most of them paying $14-21/hr (if wikipedia is to be believed). Do you know how many jobs $1 Trillion dollars pays for? About 18 Million - more than double what was lost in the great recession.
"But wait," I hear you cry, "that trillion dollars would still be spent by the people who wouldn't have been taxed!" Oh, that's partially true. Understand that 40% of that money would go to multi-millionaires who's purchasing habits generally are not affected by their income. The other 60% probably would be spent, but that 60% would be spent on goods and services in an economy which has almost zero overlap with the manpower which would be idled by the drop of $1T in defense spending. Those are soldiers, intelligence report creators, bomb makers - not really things you purchase in your every day life. And because you can't train and re-purpose people fast enough to build the TVs and tablets and cars and hotel staff to pick up the increase in demand, the prices for all those products would increase. And because of the numbers, dropping the US income tax would result in a net increase in take home pay of about 4%-5% for most people in the middle class (Say, $60-80,000 annual household income) or about $50 a week.
So you're magical tax-free utopia would end up with 18 Million people out of work and without the skills needed to change jobs, inflation in the disposable goods and discretionary services market, and a net effect of $50 a week in the pockets of the people who still have jobs.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Let's just get rid of corporations. They've been a plague ever since the age of mercantilism.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Or you could just do a federal sales tax. Everyone pays, including corporations, so everyone has skin in the game. No loopholes. No moving out of the country to avoid paying your share. No April 15. No tax forms. No deductions or credits. Everyone knows exactly what they are paying. Everything purchased is taxed, period.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
We need even bigger plutocrats like a hole in the head. They already bought most the law makers; go for all?
Table-ized A.I.
The nation is also bigger than any time in history. It's not a good method to use the raw numbers, much better to use GDP or some per capita method. The deficit has been shrinking, we're cutting all our most valuable programs mostly because health care costs are rising and eating up the extra income. Defense obviously plays a big role, but recent cuts have reigned that in.
We basically have two options - get medical costs under control (something the GOP won't touch) or collect more (also something the GOP won't touch).
When the amount collected is less than the amount spent, it's a collecting/spending problem. As much as Republicans want you to think it's only one side that matters, it's basic economics that collecting more will help fix the issue better than collecting less.
As long as there is faith in American labor, the dollar has and will survive many collapses.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Stop calling them loopholes.
Loopholes are unintended.
Rich people spend less of their money and save more of it than poor people, simply because there's more left over after paying for the necessities. A flat sales tax only plan would significantly raise tax rates for the poor (who currently pay no income tax). So, it would be even more regressive than the current system.
>If you are whining about US taxation rates you are clearly a poser that has never had any actual experience with this stuff.
As a business owner who pays personal and business taxes, I'm all too familiar with them.
>The US tax code specifically panders to corporations.
Big ones. There are several types of corporation.
>The nominal rates are a pure fiction to distract ignorant RV dwelling GOP supporters.
They are a fiction because of all the other rules. You either didn't read or didn't comprehend the post you were so smugly responding to, where I suggested that applying the rates uniformly would achieve the same income at a lower tax rate.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The laffer curve is a fictional construct of corporate greed.It is laughed out of any conference of economists for it's absurd leaps of faith and lack of supporting evidence.
https://www.princeton.edu/~rvd...
http://scienceblogs.com/goodma...
http://business.time.com/2012/...
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/L...
http://economistsview.typepad....
Total federal income taxes are about 1,000 billion per year
Therefore, the estimated ID theft is in the range of 0.5% (error in that estimate is large)
Class assignment:
1) is 0.5% significant ?
2) Compare this to the amount of money Presidential Candidate M Romney failed to pay on his income taxes
for this, you may consider underpriced illiquid assets placed in the magic bean IRA; failure to accurately list role as passive or active investor; writing off Rafalca as hobby loss (he didn't have a reasonable expectation of a profit, as rafalca is an old mare); and..there were a couple of others that I forget right now
The corporation has a profit margin or they would not be taxed. if that profit margin is so large as to require massive taxes, there is plenty of room to wiggle. Maybe they would pay less in taxes if they stoppped conspiring to artificially drive wages down, or hired US employees that are readily available and fully skilled for the job instead of claiming there aren't any and bringing in cheap H1B workers.
You know, quit the bullshit they do to pad their profits, and instead be a decent and ethical part of society.
Easy method - instead of taxing individuals, overcome the court case about a hundred years ago that banned the Federal government from taxing state and city etc governments. The sub governments get their tax authority and military protection from the Feds so it is only right the Feds should be able to tax all sub governing bodies (states, cities, etc). This would mean 100% accuracy as the sub bodies all live on tax revenue and good record keeping, would disincentive general tax abuses, and would leave crazy tax schemes up to cities and states where they can be viewed as the experiments they are. Then get rid of the Federal individual income tax and IRS as it would no longer be necessary.
Rich people spend less of their money and save more of it than poor people, simply because there's more left over after paying for the necessities.
All money is spent eventually. Also, what do you think the bank does with the money people "save"? Banks loan that money to someone else and charge them a higher interest rate than they are paying the savings account. That is how banks make money. So the person who takes the loan will spend it, meaning it will be taxed. When the savings account is cashed out, that too will be spent, plus all the interest earned.
So, in this case, the same money is taxed multiple times. Also, all the money is taxed at the same rate. Currently, loan income is not taxed as income. But under a sales tax, the when the person taking the loan buys new office furniture, it will be taxed.
So, it would be even more regressive than the current system.
Currently, interest income and capital gains are charged a lower rate the standard income. This is how wealthy people pay such a ridiculously low tax rate (Warren Buffet pays less than his secretary). This would not longer be an issue with a sales tax.
Finally, all money is spent eventually. It doesn't matter if it was saved or invested at one point. Even if the person who earned it dies, eventually, all money is spent, even if by his heirs.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Stop calling them loopholes.
Loopholes are unintended.
Hmm... How about intended loopholes? :-P
The IRS could do a lot with a few simple checks:
It'll slow things down a bit when there's a problem, but it'll also let the effort be concentrated on returns with the highest chance of identity fraud.
And I mean, really. "Identity theft" is just a fancy new name for impersonating someone, and impersonation for the purposes of fraud is not new.
Corporations should handle 100% of tax liability. Stick with me here and I'll explain how it will be similar to what happens today. When income tax is withheld from your check what you have is the corporation paying it's money, that was set aside for wages, directly to the federal government. Except currently we have each individual do a separate tax form. Imagine there was only one tax form for the whole company. The company would still be paying it's money to the federal government instead of putting it in your paycheck except there wouldn't be this lie that it was ever owed to employees.
The result is a hyperbolic reduction in paperwork. Less paperwork, less burden on the IRS. Less overhead for the IRS would result in slightly lower taxes. Processing everything would be easier for everyone.
The amount of your take home salary could be the same but the corporation wouldn't have to lie about how much you were actually earning. There wouldn't be the silly tax bracket game for wage earners.
We could be honest about how much money it takes to run this country and we could be honest about who pays that burden.
Keep a stiff luxury tax for those who write their own paychecks.
Tax imports to encourage goods that are MADE IN THE USA. An extra tax could be applied to American companies that manufacture their goods overseas. This could lower the profit margin of outsourcing. That would create jobs and more tax money in America instead of paying the taxes of a foreign government.
Let's go back to feudalism!
Repeal the 16th Amendment (or just admit it was never legally ratified), reset the legal meaning of "income" from "money given in exchange for labor" back to "capital gains as a result of business profits," and BOOM!
Problem solved.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This is just one more example of crime not only harming all of us but also an example of crime controlling the behavior of the innocent, What we have now is a situation in which people often feel entitled to commit crimes and then when caught expect some leniency and a chance to have a reasonably normal life. These types of people are well aware that they can commit many crimes before being caught for one crime. They also normally have no honest intention of not committing crimes as opportunities arise. So far nobody has come up with any reasonable way to deal with these people. My suggestion is that they be assigned to a minimum wage job working a full forty hour week long term or perhaps permanently. If they fail to remain employed at minimum wage then they spend jail time until assigned to the next employer. Jobs such as lawn maintenance or grave digging in a grave yard could be their life long assignment. A certain amount of humiliation accompanies the long term poverty that a minimum wage job assures. And it gives people like school teachers local examples of young people assigned to such jobs due to one crime committed.
Ok, the IRS says that they paid out $5 billion. And they _say_ that they avoided paying $24 billion. But is that truth? What's stopping them from lying?
You pay based on consumption, not what you have saved. Owning a mansion gets pretty fucking expensive in a hurry once both land, building, and utilities are factored in! In Texas for example, we don't have a state income tax. However, that's offset by expensive annual property taxes.
The easiest solution is to tax the velocity of money. Similar to VAT tax, but applies to all monetary exchanges of all types, from bank transfers to buy a house. The lone exception would be all cash (real greenback) transactions.
Err, no. Your propose is going to push more pressure on middle class people. Most middle class people do not carry cash that much but credit card because they have credit (poor people likely don't!). If you force everything to be taxed but cash transaction, do you think rich people will not use with cash instead too? Your propose does not help but rather make it worse. Furthermore, your proposal would easily increase crime because people need to carry cash more and more. Also, don't you see that your propoal will create "double" or "triple" taxes because a transaction may not simply end in one process before it gets to the final destination...
My vote is:
1. Make the corporate tax zero, instead making all corporations pass-through.
2. Get rid of capital gains taxes, instead treating a gain as regular income.
3. Get rid of the "qualified" dividend rate, instead treating dividends as regular income.
4. Abolish "limited liability" for activist owners.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Another name for corporate tax evasion is 'compliance'.
regression is easily fixable.
Determine what the average sales tax a person at the poverty line would pay in a month and have the government send a check every month to every citizen for that amount - 5%. The minus 5% is because everyone should pay some taxes.
Warren Buffet gets a check for the same amount as the poorest person in Detroit.
Engineer your taxes so you don't get refunds. I calculate my deductions so that I end up owing something under $1K to the feds and a couple hundred to the state. That way, I'm never inconvenienced by late refunds, and the bills are small enough so they're not a hardship to pay.
Overpaying your taxes is not a savings account; you don't get interest on your investment.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think you meant "inversion" rather than "evasion"...
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
That's just asking too much. I know corporations are people and all, but we can't exactly expect them to have morals as well, can we?
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
As someone whom had their identify stolen and used to file a fraudulent tax return for 2013, I would suggest that the $5.2 billion paid in fraudulent returns might be used to tighten up the system.
Played very small part in the 2007 Financial Crisis, and I hope the FBI tackles this problem and goes after the perpetrators...
> The corporation has a profit margin or they would not be taxed.
FYI, that is factually false. Approximately half of all taxes on business re unrelated to profit, or margin. A few of the taxes I, as a small business person, pay each month or quarter:
Social Security and medicare ...)
Federal Unemployment tax
State unemployment tax
State training tax (in some states)
State workforce disability tax (in some states)
--Note all of the above are for hiring people. As the president has said, if you want people do less of something, put a tax on it.
Business personal property tax (Every year, I pay a tax for owning my 15 year old desk, my pens and pencils, my mouse pad
Franchise tax
Sales and use tax
Income taxes account for only 20% of tax revenue. 80% of the taxes paid are paid whether they bankrupt the business or not.
Call the IRS to report identity theft and they still tell you they're incapable of providing any information on people obviously using your SSN for illegal purposes due to the privacy rights of the criminal. Therefore, you are a slave to the system and the system should be destroyed and replaced in minimum favor of something that protects the law-abiding taxpayer first.
Repeal the 16th amendment and have the federal government bill the states on a population basis, leaving it up to each state as to how to cover their portion.
Then increase taxes to 100 percent or you're a moron.
The laffer curve is completely obvious.
On the one side you have 0 percent taxation where you get zero percent revenue.
On the other side you have 100 percent taxation where you get all the money.
If you take literally everything then you'll destroy the economy and get less money.
If we graph the line from point 1A to point 2A then what you should find is that revenue peaks in the middle and then falls off dramatically.
That is the laffer curve. And anyone that says it doesn't exist is right up there with fucktards that think gravity is a myth or that we didn't land on the moon.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Oh no, the IRS paid 5.2 bil in fake monopoly bullshit Federal Reserve private bank notes, which are actually the SAME COLORS as their equivalent monopoly dollars now with the new bill designs, and so they want us to file differently?
Piss off, IRS.
I tried to read your comment but your blatantly foreign misunderstanding of English spelling prevented me. Please stop random capitalizing words that aren't meant to be capitalized.
Sales tax? Seriously?
Sales tax is irrelevant. We pay 8.25% sales tax in Houston and that's still irrelevant when you talk about taxing purchased items versus actually taxing loan income.
If it takes the IRS six months to figure out last years refund, how is it even remotely possible they can provide any information to the ACA website for the purpose of determining subsidies?
Value is created by the worker, not by the corporation.
Right, because nothing in the real world is ever more complex than a quadratic function.
If you think the real world can be modelled that easily, you, like most economists, clearly have not spent any time in it.
The Laffer Curve can be proved valid trivially:
If the tax rate is 0%, obviously tax revenue are zero.
If the tax rate is 100%, tax receipts will be very close to zero, as nearly nobody will engage in the taxed activity for no gain.
Between those two endpoints, starting from 0%, the following behavior is observed:
Different activities have different curves. The reason for lower taxes on capital gains is the tax-yield curve for capital gains flattens out at a lower rate than the tax-yield curve for labor.
Right, because when obvious logic contradicts your stupid argument its suddenly acceptable to attempt to invalidate logic itself.
Good work. Your position is officially religious. Go get a book to chant over and stop bothering people trying to have rational discussions.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It seems like about half the fraud could be stopped if the IRS just called the number on your last year's tax return and said someone just filed a tax return for you claiming a refund. Was that you? No? I guess we will do some investigation before cutting a check and sending it to a PO Box in the Cayman Islands. If the IRS was a company, they might at least try to stop the fraud because they would be losing their own money instead of the taxpayers.
Every online dictionary I read says no such thing. Loopholes (the real ones) are intentionally built so you can fire on invaders so why wouldn't any derivative use carry that implication as well? You're being pedantic because...it's fun I guess?
You call flipping your shit and calling everyone idiots is your idea of a rational discussion? You're the one who sounds like an idiot. The fact that every is telling you that you're wrong and the fact that it seems to be pissing you off should be a clear indication that maybe you should just shut the hell up and go jack off one of your AR15s.
And replace it with what, exactly, you commie bitch!
(1) Our tax structure isn't going to change meaningfully anytime soon
(2) The IRS won't allow or enforce any sort of efile for everyone in the short-term
(3) The IRS does allow you to file Form 14039 which puts a flag on your account which will make it harder for someone to cheat you out of your refund because your account will go through extra checks (such as making sure that your address and other information hasn't changed from last year since most information breaches don't contain all of the information necessary to file your tax return) and will reject fraudulent looking returns
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf...
(4) The IRS might decide to, upon filing form 14039 or if you have experienced a fraudulent return filed for you, a distinct PIN which is like a PIN for a credit freeze
Morale of the story if you're concerned about not getting your refund
-file form 8822 when you change address and notify your employees and other agencies which file forms on your behalf to have your current address so all filings point to the same physical address
-file form 14039 to have the identify theft flag added to your profile
-always try to arrange so you owe a little money come tax time (but not so much that you owe a penalty) so your refund is not in purgatory in the event of a fraudulent return filed on your behalf
-if you do indeed get a refund, try to file as early as possible to beat out a fraudster
Evasion: Naughty and illegal ways of not paying tax
Avoidance: Legal ways of conducting your affairs to reduce or eliminate your taxes
The current political discourse is around moving inversion from being avoidance to being evasion
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The report wasn't clear on IDT detection measures, but I would think sending a refund to a new/different physical address or direct deposit account should be an easy red flag that could warrant an extra layer of screening.
A national sales tax could solve the problem too, except it would send the country into a depression from all the tax compliance related job losses.
No. The rational argument was above where I cited the laffer curve.
I continued that with an explanation of it and why its simply an obvious fact.
The insults are not my argument.
I am not saying that I am right because you are stupid. I am saying that I am right for these reasons and you don't understand because you are stupid.
The reasons and arguments are actually my point. The insult is my conclusion.
This obvious rhetorical fact is easily overlooked... if you're a fucking asshat.
Nothing productive can be had in this discussion. You're too willfully ignorant to participate in anything sensible.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Capital gains are as much about inflation as profit. I'm all for treating all income equally (one flat tax to rule them all), but you'd have to inflation-index cap gains (and who still trusts government inflation numbers?) There's probably also redeeming benefit in taxing long-term holdings less than short term (though the current 120 days for qualified dividends hardly counts as long term).
I don't know what you mean by "activist owners".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Let's fix corporate taxes first, so that there is no evasion.
Yes let's fix corporate taxes. If you make a hundred million dollars in sales in the US, you pay taxes on that amount. I don't care if you are using some quasi-legal sandwich dodge that claims that hundred million did not generate a single cent of profit. It's called a gross receipt tax and it makes a lot of corporate shenanigans ineffective (like passing any taxes on to the consumer through increased prices; paying the CEO tens of millions of dollars in salary each year in order to list that as an expense to lower profits; or incorporating in the Bahamas, Ireland, etc.).
I think before we worry about this we should worry about all the people jailed for not paying "income" tax. I put quotes around the word because the IRS lies about the meaning of income as defined by the Internal Revenue code. Technically, the definition hasn't been in the code for decades, it was removed long before we had things like the Internet to search it with. What is the proper definition of income when it comes to Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code, you ask?
It can be defined, at least partially, by the 4 words,"Foreigner's here, citizen's abroad." If a foreigner earns money in the US, at least part of that is income, and if an American citizen earns money from a foreign country, at least part of that is income. If an American earns money at a 9 to 5 job that is done here in America, NONE of that is income.
You ask,"Where's my proof?" The proof is in the code, which is searchable online. It is not fun to read the Internal Revenue Code, but understanding it isn't hard, especially when you have the critical thinking skills of most Slashdotters.
The government has lied to us all our lives, the 16th Amendment changed nothing, it is not an amendment of any sort. It's more like a weaselly worded smokescreen that the schoolteachers were then taught to lie about when they taught the school children about the US government. You think it's a coincidence that so few Americans can diagram a sentence? The 16th Amendment doesn't contradict any part of the Constitution that came before, it changed nothing.
The NSA is nothing compared to the crime against Americans from a misuse of of tax laws by the IRS. The IRS doesn't actually have any authority to tax an American citizen directly, they can't even track us directly if we're not willing to use a social security number, and social security numbers aren't required by law, that's a lie too.
Do the research, look at the code and see what you find.
There would be no identity theft when filing taxes if there was no IRS. The privately owned Federal Reserve bankrupted these united States in the 30's and we are still paying for it. Now, they're doing the same to the EU. GO BRICS!!!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
I'm not sure what you're going for on point 4, but the first three are at least interesting. If you could explain that, it'd be appreciated.
I'd expect that there would be a bunch of newly developed "hidden benefits," especially for those at the top of the larger corporations. An example would be the free housing and transportation that the executives and board would receive. That would need to be dealt with in some fashion too, but I like the start.
My comment is just a blow-hard edition of modding you up, but I don't have points.
This is what we do in Canada with the federal GST (or HST in some provinces). People with lower incomes get a quarterly cheque, roughly equivalent to what someone would spend on the tax during a quarter.
Except when they engineer their taxes so that all the profits are outside the country, and their taxes report only losses. GE did that to the tune of a billion dollars back from the government, even though it was a complete fraud.
As soon as this requirement is implemented, corporations will increase the price of their products and/or services to compensate, and guess where the actual expense lands? In the laps of their customers. Sure, tax receipts will increase. Because what you spend will increase, and because you buy goods and services with what's left after tax is taken from your gross income. Who is happy with this solution? Only the government.
I agree that we have to stop taxing everything multiple times while pretending it is only once; but you won't get there by focusing on corporate taxation alone. It'll just make things worse. Quickly.
Basic living allowance tax free, including providing a makeup amount to those under that line, flat tax on all purchases above that. It has its warts, but it's way better than the freaking incomprehensible intentionally game-able mess we have now.
What's a refund?
Let's abolish the personal income tax altogether, disband the IRS, and fund the government's very limited constitutional obligations by selling off the land that the federal government has no business owning in the first place.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm sure commenters based in countries with a VAT can talk about all the shenanigans that are possible.
But based on my experience in California, Income tax loopholes are much more clear and well defined than the incredibly convoluted rules around sales tax.
Cold food served in a delicatessen is not taxes, hot food is. All food sold in a restaurant is taxed. No food sold in a supermarket is taxed.
Fruit trees are not taxes, shade trees are.
Downloaded software is not taxed, software sold on media is (transfer of tangible personal property: the disk)
Architect and Engineering services are not taxable, unless client gets ownership of the drawings (why the blueprints of your house most likely say "property of XYZ A&E firm") in which case the entire value of the engineering job is taxeable.
Distilled Water. When the label on a bottle of distilled water does not include a reference to intended use or indicates the water is only for non-food purposes, the distilled water should not be regarded as sold for human consumption and its sale is thus subject to tax. When the label indicates that the distilled water is for drinking only or includes references to both food and non-food uses, the sale of that bottle of distilled water qualifies for exemption from tax under section 6359.
Edible Flowers. Sales of edible flowers are taxable sales. Flowers are ordinarily used in gardens or for decoration and not as food for human consumption. Section 6359(b) specifically provides that food products include "vegetables and vegetable products" and "fruits and fruit products" but does not list edible flowers as a food product. The fact that an item is edible does not by itself make the item a food product
and it goes on and on..
The IRS is raking in record income to the US federal government.
You aren't out of money because the IRS isn't taking it in... you're out of money because you're spending too much of it.
By all means... fix corruption... but while you're at it... balance the fucking budget.
Seems like the most sensible way to balance the budget is to cut waste, have a decent military that never gets used, increase spending on social programs, and increase taxes.
The US may very well be spending more than it has been in the past, but do we really want to return to the days of the robber barons? I suspect that a well-run government would probably spend a lot more than it does today.
You're seriously suggesting that we should both eliminate the earned income credit AND impose a 5% tax on people below the poverty line? That is a SIGNIFICANT change in taxes for many of them. Sure, "everybody paying their fair share" sounds nice on paper, but the problem is that the folks on the bottom can't even pay for necessities in the current system.
It would be far less regressive to just tax any financial transfer of any kind and all assets/property of any kind at a much lower rate, and mail everybody a check for $40k to make up for any hardships. In fact, most Americans probably would pay hardly any tax at all if you charged them a tax on their assets and issued a rebate on debts.
Just like the ridiculous corporate taxes and corporate tax avoidance schemes, isn't it nice how we are worried about costs all the time - from TFA:
"Such changes could impact legitimate taxpayers by delaying refunds, extending tax season and likely adding costs to the IRS."
Sure, changes incur costs...
But, before you worry too much about possible costs - how much of "(the IRS) paid $5.2 billion in fraudulent identity theft refunds in filing season 2013" would the IRS need to block in future tax years to more than offset that cost?
If they're losing $5.2 bn a year - don't you think any reasonable costs invested to prevent those "losses" might not be a good investment?
Seriously. States that make this distinction end up maintaining databases of foods and medicines that merchants have to consult.
Best Slashdot Co
Being Black in Ferguson is taxed, as 70% of their budget comes from traffic tickets and court costs and draconian fines such as being 5 minutes late to your kangaroo court hearing.
Only tax based on use (i.e. Sales Tax) Problem solved in one fell swoop.
Not even remotely. First off, the richest people don't actually spend a lot of what they earn. Sales taxes are by their very nature regressive taxes so your proposal is basically a proposal to reduce taxes on the wealthy and increase them on the poor. Furthermore, going to a single taxation method is a recipe for problems. Sales tax revenue can fluctuate quite a bit depending on what is happening in the economy but the end use of tax revenue cannot fluctuate as quickly. People still need public services regardless of how well the economy is doing and generally speaking good public services require relatively stable funding. That is why we tax on multiple sources including property, sales, excise, income and others. This keeps the tax revenues relatively stable through diversification which is a good thing. While sales tax should be an important part of the equation, going to a sales tax only taxation program is Bad Policy. It sounds like a good idea on a first pass but once you really think about and understand the issues involved you'll realize it isn't so simple.
Tax evasions now impossible
HAHAHAHAHA... Wait.. you were serious weren't you? Going to a strict sales tax would in no way, shape or form eliminate tax evasion. It would only change the tactics used to avoid taxation. The simplest tactics are to just buy less stuff or to buy it from people who don't collect and report the sales tax to the government. Congratulations, you've simultaneously hurt the economy AND de-funded public services.
"activist owners" = people I don't agree with?
Using your logic we just leave the uncontrolled growth of this kind of spending go on indefinitely for the good of the country. I am sorry but a gradual approach would work. The fact that our politicians are lawyers and only see black or white is the problem. They could create a graduated scale of real reductions (not reductions in the growth as they usually do ) over let's say 20 years.
I'm not sure what you're going for on point 4, but the first three are at least interesting. If you could explain that, it'd be appreciated.
Point 4 is not really 100% on-topic, but addresses a beef I have with corporations in general. In this context, I think that if people went to jail for fraud (in this case tax fraud) instead of companies being simply fined, fraud would be a bit less common. I actually like limited liability for passive investors (don't put me in jail for holding a mutual fund, please!).
I'd expect that there would be a bunch of newly developed "hidden benefits,"
I agree that this could be a problem. Of course, as I type this one of our VPs arrived in his company car... so maybe it is already happening and the change wouldn't be that large. If it became a huge tax dodge we could always legislate, but I'd like to start simple.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If we graph the line from point 1A to point 2A then what you should find is that revenue peaks in the middle and then falls off dramatically.
This is what's known as begging the question. In explaining why revenues are maximized by a tax "in the middle" of 0% and 100%, you refer to a graph of revenue as a function of tax rate that peaks "in the middle". Of course, this graph is based on the assumption that revenues are maximized by a tax "in the middle" of 0% and 100%. It's circular reasoning because you assume the conclusion to be true by stating it as one of your assumptions.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Capital gains are as much about inflation as profit. I'm all for treating all income equally (one flat tax to rule them all), but you'd have to inflation-index cap gains (and who still trusts government inflation numbers?)
I'm on board with an inflation-adjusted number for long-term capital gains. To get past government inflation numbers games, tie it to average savings account interest rates, money market accounts, or something like that. You just want to encourage people to invest their money instead of plopping it in a money market.
I don't know what you mean by "activist owners".
Activist owners are people who are actively involved in running the business, as opposed to passive investors like most owners of common stock or holders of mutual funds. As a for-instance, if you find out that GE has been dumping acid into a river, you could go after the individual fortunes of the board of directors, but not the state pension fund that happens to hold a bunch of GE stock.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No, see my reply to the parent. I meant people who are actively involved in the running of the business.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It is impossible.
You could not be more wrong. It is not only possible it happens all the time. You don't even have to do anything illegal to dodge a sales tax. It can be as easy as buying from another state or country. Most states have Use tax laws and those get widely ignored. It is nearly impossible to design a sales tax program with no loopholes of any kind even if you are trying to do so. And I assure you that some loopholes would be baked in on purpose. Any accountant worth his/her retainer would be able to tell you in less than a minute how to get around significant amounts of sales tax.
I am not aware of any merchants that dodge sales tax
Then you don't know very many merchants. Happens all the time. I'm an accountant and I've seen it with my own eyes. Plenty of sales tax simply does not get reported. You don't even need to take my word for it. 30 seconds on google will back up what I'm saying.
but if it is a problem start imposing fines on merchants and book them for tax evasion.
It is a problem, they already do impose fines and if you think solving the problem is simply a matter of imposing fines then you are quite naive.
It should be quite easy actually.
Easy? Not at all. First off having a Federal sales tax would require a change to the Constitution to even be legal. Right now only the States can impose a sales tax. How easy do you think it is to change the Constitution? Then even if you somehow manage that little trick, you have to have every merchant in the entire country would have to institute new processes for collection, processing and remittance of tax which is a HUGE expense and definitely not easy. Worse, you would have to basically re-engineer the IRS or create an entirely new federal department to handle the tax receipts that are no longer based on income. I'm telling you this because I'm one of the people who would have to take care of this issue. Even if it is the right thing to do (I don't think it is) if you think it is easy or trivial you have no idea what you are talking about.
Merchants already have systems that deal with sales tax (in most of the states atleast)
State and local tax. They have no system in place to deal with a Federal sales tax. Even if you piggyback on the existing systems they would require substantial retrofitting, training, new equipment and new procedures. This is NOT a trivial endeavor.
The problem with taxing states on population is that it would disproportionately place a burden on states like Arkansas and Mississippi, which have low tax and income per populace, in favor of states like California and New York which have high tax per populace. The idea of taxing the States and cities a fixed proportion of their tax revenues is friggin ingenious.
All money is spent eventually.
In what year will the Rockefeller fortune finally hit a value of $0? That's what I thought.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
If you give a mooch a charity deduction he's going to want some EITC to go with it. When you give him the EITC he's going to complain that he needs a deduction for his mortgage. If the mooch has a mortgage he's going to want some power so you'd better include a deduction for installing green energy. If you give deductions for green energy you're going to have to pay for his smelly old car. If you've paid him for his smelly old car he's going to want a new car. If he gets a new car he's going to want to donate it to charity and when he donates he car to charity... he's gonna want a charity tax deduction.
I am stunned! The IRS requires employers to get our W2s to us by 30 Jan. each year, but not to them until July!?!! WTF! Just picking a number off the top of my head, there are at least 40 quick checks that could be made on an eFiled return to verify its bonafides, all from information the IRS already has!
The IRS is raking in record income to the US federal government.
That would be a false claim (unless you fail to adjust for inflation/GDP) The record by any sane measurement would be during WWII.
You aren't out of money because the IRS isn't taking it in... you're out of money because you're spending too much of it.
By all means... fix corruption... but while you're at it... balance the fucking budget.
The two are the same thing.... or unrelated. Take your pick.
You are also missing out on the idea that capital gains will be taxed at the same rate as income.
Capital gains behaves fundamentally different than regular income and it is bad policy to treat them as identical. You can (often) defer capital gains by simply not selling the asset. You (generally) cannot defer income. Even if the nominal rates are the same the effective rate on capital gains will be less because the (generally wealthy) people they most often affect don't need to realize the gains until it is convenient for them.
For example, allow a person to own one home tax free.
Most local governments are funded predominately by property taxes mostly on primary residences. How exactly do you propose to replace that funding?
I see lots of people here proposing various tax schemes that sound logical until you actually think through the second order effects. You cannot simply say don't tax homes until you've addressed what to do with the public services that are being funded by those taxes currently. Furthermore you have to work through what sort of incentives not taxing homes would have on people's behavior. Are you creating unintentional tax loop holes? Chances are very good that you are. The notion of not imposing a tax on your primary residence an ok idea by itself but there are a LOT of follow-on consequences to doing that that have to be considered.
If you make $24k a year, you don't pay income tax and most likely get a nice wad a cash courtesy of the U.S. Tax payers.
Many taxpayers don't pay federal income tax but they do pay state income tax, local income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, property taxes, excise taxes, utility taxes (phones, electricity etc), sin taxes, payroll taxes (FICA, Social Security, Medicare), and quite a few more. Let's not pretend that poor people don't pay any taxes shall we?
And if you think the Earned Income Tax Credit is a "nice wad of cash" I think you don't know the meaning of the term. It's not a lot of money.
You can make consumption taxes just as progressive as you wish. The most trivially obvious measure you can take toward this end is to exempt clothing and food expenses. Most state sales taxes do at least some of this. Clothing and food you buy simply ring up as untaxed on the register.
That doesn't make the tax progressive. It just means that you are reducing how regressive it is. Unless it is a pure luxury tax, pretty much all general sales taxes are regressive to some degree. If you tax some items and not others that simply means that some items are not taxed and the remainder are taxed regressively.
You pay a small amount of sales tax during the year? You get a lot of it back. Maybe all of it. Perhaps, more than you paid.
Terrific. Who is going to keep track of all this? How do you plan to verify what people spent, where they spent it and on how much? That is a HUGE administrative burden and frankly most people cannot handle it. If you think people are going to suddenly keep super careful records of their retail purchases you are delusional. If you are going to the trouble to keep track of people's income levels to determine who gets a rebate then you might as well just tax the income directly like we already do.
You say rebates won't cut it because you have to pay now, and only get your rebates later? Fine. You can issue prebates.
If you give tax credits against the sales tax based on income you still aren't making the tax progressive. You are simply giving a really complicated refund based on income so you've essentially turned a sales tax into an income tax and you're right back where we are now with a lot of needless administrative burden along the way.
Look up "Fair Tax". This has all been long since figured out.
The "Fair Tax" idea is a delusional idea that would require a Constitutional amendment and a politically impossible complete overhaul of the tax system to even be legal. The tax incidence of such a system is incredibly unclear and proponents seem to support it more out of ideology rather than any unbiased analysis.
If everyone pays a flat sales tax rate, the people who spend more will bear most of the economic burden.
So you are creating an incentive for everyone to pay less and you think that will somehow help the economy? Curious bit of logic you have there.
Not entirely. Corps can deduct taxes my investing into infrastructure or employees. If a company had to choose between paying $1bil in taxes or spending $1bil on improving their company, I would hope they'd spend the money on improvements. What taxes do is keep companies from just hording huge amounts of money.
by prioritising political / state security over information security - the costs of fraud and fraud prevention will continue to escalate
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
Ahh, "activist shareholders" means almost the opposite.
Limited liability is fine - everyone making a loan knows they can't collect if the business goes pear shaped, and you can sue managers directly for a lot of things these days.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The problem is, you don't seem to understand what income and profit are, versus revenue, versus net worth.
Suppose you buy a TV on Craigslist for $400. Later, you decide you don't like it, so you sell it on Craigslist for $400. You have no income from the transaction, you have revenue, and a directly related, offsetting expense. You received the $400 only because you first spent the $400. You started out with $400, and ended up with $400. There's no increase, no net change.
Suppose you get a paycheck from Arby's for $400. You spend that $400 on a TV. You think you had no income, right, because you spent that $400? Where you're mistaken is this - through this scenario you started out with $0 and ended up with a $400 TV. That's an increase of $400, income of $400. It works the same whether it's a business, or you going to work and buying stuff on Craigslist.
Suppose someone hands you $4000 and spend it on a vacation. You started with zero and ended up having a very nice vacation. Your bank account may be back at zero, but you in fact benefitted from that pair of transactions - you got a $4000 vacation out of the deal. That's $4000 income. It's income whether you personally conduct the transaction or a business does so, because you didn't have to give up $4000 of existing money in order to get the vacation.
>I question them because my own business does not pay any taxes, period
> My revenues have been $0,
With $0 in revenue, you probably don't have a business. You may have a hobby. Be aware, this is something the IRS watches for, falsely classifying hobby expenses as business expenses. The $35 you save in taxes may not be worth committing the federal crime of tax fraud. If it legitimately is a business, in most states you should be paying business personal property tax and many other taxes.
Being unreasonable isn't a rebuttal... it is just being unreasonable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
> So how does one write off the depreciation of assets like this TV? As an individual, I mean. I know how a business does it.
You could calculate it in precisely the same way that a business does. If you ever start working under whatever business structure you created, that business will probably lease office space from you personally. You will then personally have an income producing asset. You would then deduct the depreciation of that asset (your office) from the rent revenue to figure the income generated your house.
A TV in your living room probably does not produce revenue, so you don't calculate the income it generates, meaning there's no need to calculate the depreciation. Depreciation is an element of calculating the _income_ from an activity. Income = revenue - expenses, and deprecation is one of the expenses.
Maybe you don't understand, depreciation is an element of figuring out how much taxes the business has to pay for using that TV. You don't WANT to figure depreciation on the TV in your living room, because that would mean you were paying taxes for watching it. The depreciation would reduce the amount of taxes you pay for watching TV.
I'm not worried about loans - banks that loan without collateral are on their own! LOL And owners have long used their own assets to collateralize their business loans. I'm more concerned about criminal and civil liability, and the general trend toward making corporations more and more like people.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Okay.
At zero taxes... you get no money because you've taxed people zero dollars.
At 100 percent taxes you get substantially less then what we'd find the middle because even you annihilate the economy... EVEN YOU... would have to admit that you get LESS at 100 percent then you would at some point in the middle between 0 and 100 percent.
Which means EVEN YOU have no basis to contradict the laffer curve.
Now you can argue WHERE the graph curves. BUT you have ZERO basis to claim that it does not curve at all.
And if it does... then the laffer curve exists and you were wrong to attempt to contradict me.
You're wrong. Obviously and inescapably. You're going to cast out some stupid insult and try to save face... but it fools none but the fools.
Your best bet for salvaging some of your credibility would be to concede my point and then if you still want to fight me argue that the graph doesn't curve until the very end and does so extremely sharply. Which is your BEST option for fighting the laffer curve argument.
Where we go from there would be to examine tax revenues from various countries as they change tax rates. And the point of that will be to try and establish roughly where the laffer curve resides... fyi... that analysis will not back up your position... i've checked. But that will at least draw this out and give you a semblance of credibility. At least until I prove you wrong... but I suspect you're going to chicken out and run away long before anything can be established. I've had this discussion enough times with ideologues on the internet and they always chicken out when their arguments start to crumble.
But maybe you'll be the first not to do so... here is hoping. Really... I do hope you're different.
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You could calculate it in precisely the same way that a business does.
And I'd claim it on my taxes the same way that a business does? That's a rhetorical question. No, I wouldn't, since individual taxes don't generally allow for deductions for depreciating assets. Otherwise, TurboTax would be asking people how many Xbox games they bought this year.
that business will probably lease office space from you personally.
My current lease prohibits subletting, so that wouldn't be legal.
You would then deduct the depreciation of that asset (your office) from the rent revenue to figure the income generated your house.
Depreciation of income-generating real estate is in a special category according to the IRS. Note that you can't deduct the depreciation of real estate that you don't rent out or otherwise use for business purposes. As a business, you can write off your office space. As a person, you cannot write off your living space.
A TV in your living room probably does not produce revenue, so you don't calculate the income it generates, meaning there's no need to calculate the depreciation. Depreciation is an element of calculating the _income_ from an activity. Income = revenue - expenses, and deprecation is one of the expenses.
But that's just it, that's my point. A TV in my living room doesn't produce revenue, so there's no "need" to calculate depreciation. A TV that a business buys, even if it gets shoved into a warehouse somewhere, never to see the light of day again, doesn't produce revenue either, but somehow the business can claim deductions from the depreciation for a few years. Depreciation is an element of calculating the _expense_ of capital purchases. Over time, the effect is such that the cost of the TV is subtracted from the business's revenue, and the business only pays taxes on profits, not revenues. This only holds true for businesses, as individuals have no right to claim depreciating assets on their tax forms.
Maybe you don't understand, depreciation is an element of figuring out how much taxes the business has to pay for using that TV. You don't WANT to figure depreciation on the TV in your living room, because that would mean you were paying taxes for watching it. The depreciation would reduce the amount of taxes you pay for watching TV.
My understanding is that depreciation is an element of figuring out how much taxes the business has to pay for the money they made minus the money they spent on the TV (spread over a few years). I do want to figure depreciation on the TV in my living room, since that's money the government taxes me on money I made, and it thinks I made that TV's-worth-of-money even after the TV is in the garbage ten years later. Thus, the $400 I spent on the TV got taxed as though it was income, despite me having spent it (not on the TV when I bought it, but on the TV after it is no longer worth anything, i.e. been fully depreciated). The depreciation would reduce the amount of taxes I pay for earning money that is subsquently spent, which, from a selfish point of view, would be a good thing for me.
Even if you disagree that depreciating assets for the purposes of tax avoidance is a desirable thing (I mean, if it's not desirable, then why does every business in existence seek to claim every expense possible to lower their [taxable] net income?), you at least seem to agree that individuals don't have the same rights as businesses when it comes to tax laws and purchase (and depreciation) of capital assets.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Now you can argue WHERE the graph curves. BUT you have ZERO basis to claim that it does not curve at all.
Reading comprehension fail.
You've read quite a bit into my statement. Quite a bit that I didn't actually state. To clarify a few points:
I never "contradict the laffer curve".
I never "claim that it does not curve at all".
The laffer curve's existence has no bearing on whether or not I was wrong to contradict you (though I didn't actually contradict you, I merely pointed out that your logic was flawed).
Your ball.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Why is that the most reasonable thing to do?
First, we all agree we should cut waste. The problem is that many people view waste as vital. One person's garbage is another person's gold. How many stupid programs and means of doing things are sacred to one faction and anathema to the other? We first must define what is waste and what is not waste.
Second, your plan for the military is too vague. What is decent and what is "never gets used"? Would you go to war with Nazi Germany? I'm just trying to understand what you mean by that because if you mean literally never gets used it will have massive consequences that you have to own when they come due.
Third, why does increasing spending on social programs make sense if we're running a trillion dollars over budget? Look, I don't mind spending money on social programs. But first please ensure that you're not running up the debt to fund what are often meaningless feel good programs that don't do anything but waste money.
Forth, when people say "raise taxes" they almost always mean "raise someone else's taxes to pay for something I want." Which can roughly be simplified to "I believe other people should pay for my stuff."... Which is all well and good but I'd like some justification for that besides "I want stuff and don't care who pays for it."
Look... My attitude on these four points are as follows:
1. Yeah... cut waste. I define waste as any money spent beyond what is needed to achieve the desired goal. So for example, if I can hire half as many people to do the same job just as well... then I believe we should hire half as many people. If it is cheaper to have a private company or a collection of private companies do something rather then the federal government... then I would rather them do it. It is sometimes cheaper. Another idea might be giving certain functions to local authority rather then having them done by the federal government. Lots of things do not need to be done in Washington DC. The locals care more about their part of the country then anyone else... just give them authority and then if they even need money you can look at giving them some of the money the feds would have spent on it. And then you can even look at volunteers. A lot of times people will just do things for free if you empower them to do it which means zero labor expenses. Think of all the things the federal government could get people to do for the price of throwing a pizza party at the end of it all and passing out stickers.
2. The military is actually the primary justification for the US government itself. Consider that without external threats the US would never have united in the first place. The 13 colonies never would have united without an external threat. Social programs are not enough to keep the country together. So if you basically make the military a tiny portion of what the US is doing you are fundamentally undermining the union. Many portions of the country only remain part of the union because of concerns about international threats... be that military, diplomatic, or trade. In a perfectly secure world, there would be no place for super powers. That understood, you should also consider aspects like global security and what you are willing to sacrifice? How many millions of people are you willing to let get literally crucified? That is literally something happening in the middle east right now. They are crucifying people. Now I am not saying you have a responsibility to stop that or that the US does. I am saying that if you make a strategic choice to not engage in such matters you must commit to that policy and have the moral courage to simply sit and watch when it happens. If you can do that, then we can technically back off. The US historically has not be able to do that since WW2. Every time something terrible starts happening we feel obliged to help. And that help requires a robust military able to engage on multiple fronts against determined battle hardened and often ruthless enemies. It is one or the other. What I worry about is that
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"You claim of fact is wrong" was a rebuttal. You can contest it to a cliche about reasonableness.
the general trend toward making corporations more and more like people
That's a misunderstanding. There's a general principle that any law that applies to "person or persons" applies to corporations too, which is a good thing. There's also SCOTUS rulings that when a corporation is owned mostly by a small number of people, those people have the same rights as the owners of a partnership would. I don't see a problem with that either (remember, partnerships and sole proprietorships can also have limited liability, it's not something specific to corporations).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Not at all.
The US economy in real terms is vastly larger then it was during WW2... adjust for inflation and it is also larger... also our per capita GDP is larger... so you're just wrong.
As to WW2 itself, that was hardly a sustainable taxation rate. The US was running up massive debts because it was in the middle of a world war. If you want to claim that we can raise taxes higher because at some point in during a WW2 we had higher taxes... I can only point out you're being unreasonable because that is obviously not sustainable.
As to your claim that raising taxes and cutting spending are the same thing... they're clearly not in the same way that eating more and exercising less are not the same thing.
Your unwillingness to admit obvious points renders your position unreasonable.
You won't admit that because you're unreasonable. You'll say that I'm dismissing you and not taking your unreasonable points seriously which you will claim is unreasonable. However it is not unreasonable to reject unreasonable positions.
If you wish to render your position more reasonable then you can moderate and qualify your positions so that they are subject to reasonable correction.
Short of that... no reasonable person is likely to be able to get a reasonable argument out of you.
Which is only reasonable.
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> you at least seem to agree that individuals don't have the same rights as businesses when it comes to tax laws and purchase (and depreciation) of capital assets.
The rules are _precisely_ the same, except there are certain restrictions (disadvantages) for very small businesses because of cheaters. The depreciation reduces the reportable income produced by the TV. As as individual, you're reporting zero income from the TV, and paying zero taxes on that zero income. You're wanting to pay less than zero? Well I guess that makes sense, you are a libtard, after all. You want me to pay more than 50%, so you can pay less than zero.
It's a good thing you didn't start re-routing your income through that shell business structure you created, because you're quite confused about some basic concepts and would end up getting yourself in trouble.
As far as I'm concerned, you can group limited liability partnerships (LLP) and limited liability proprietorships (LLC) along with corporations for the purposes of the discussion about limited liability... I think it is all crazy. Unlike the Supreme Court, I have no problems separating purely economic entities from political entities. I admit it gets murky when you get into things like the New York Times, but I'm fairly certain that we can come up with an acceptable definition of the "press" - though I don't pretend to be smart enough to be the one to do that.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
libtard
I see. I thought I was talking to a reasonable person. My mistake.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I'm fairly certain that we can come up with an acceptable definition of the "press" - though I don't pretend to be smart enough to be the one to do that.
The SCOTUS this year specifically considered and rejected that exact argument. There's not going to be a good definition that hold as media evolves over time. Plus, how does limited liability matter here? When people pool their money to buy advertising time to advance their political views, why should limited liability restrict fundamental rights? What's the compelling interest of the state there that couldn't be served without that restriction?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If you do not contradict the laffer curve then you are not contradicting my argument. Which means we are either having two completely different discussions or you actually have just been agreeing with me the whole time.
So which is it?
If you are not contradicting the laffer curve then what is your argument? Redefine it again taking pains NOT to contradict the laffer curve. IF you contradict it in your argument then I'll have to conclude that you are contradicting the laffer curve... and your statements to the contrary can be put down to... what? Confusion?
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Let's go back to your statement, the one I originally quoted:
If we graph the line from point 1A to point 2A then what you should find is that revenue peaks in the middle and then falls off dramatically.
The only basis you have for stating that "revenue peaks in the middle" is "it's completely obvious". You cite the Laffer curve, which itself is an estimate based on the (valid) assumption that revenue is minimized at 0% and 100%. Indeed, this isn't just circular reasoning, it's flawed circular reasoning. That tax rates of 0% and 100% minimize revenues does not imply that a tax rate "in the middle" maximizes them. If we're basing our argument solely on the Laffer curve, the revenue-maximizing rate could just as well be 1% or 99%, clearly nowhere near the middle.
The Laffer curve is a plot of tax revenue as a function of tax rate. However, the Laffer curve is a theoretical construct, as it is not based on any actual measures. The Laffer curve does not itself claim that revenues are maximized by a tax "in the middle" of 0% and 100%. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics reports that Laffer curve estimates of revenue-maximizing tax rates have varied widely, with a mid-range of around 70%, which is quite far from the "middle" you claim. However, it's important to note that estimates of revenue-maximizing tax rates are a) just that, estimates, and b) widely variable.
To further clarify, I was merely taking issue with your unsubstantiated claim that the Laffer curve suggests a revenue-maximizing rate "in the middle" of 0% and 100%. If anything, it suggests the optimal tax rate would be in the ballpark of 70%, which is incidentally quite a bit higher than where we are now.
My objection to your statement can be summed up as: citing a theoretical construct as supporting evidence for an otherwise unsubstantiated claim would be fine if that theoretical construct wasn't based on the same exact assumption as the otherwise unsubstantiated claim (that revenues are maximized "in the middle" of 0% and 100%), in which case it constitutes circular reasoning. Parenthetically, I'm adding that the Laffer curve doesn't even suggest that revenues are maximized "in the middle" of 0% and 100% anyway, so circular-reasoning aside, your statement still seems wrong.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
That there is a Laffer Curve is obvious. Where we are on it is not, and there are countries that make plenty of revenue with higher tax rates than we have. Saying "we shouldn't raise taxes because of the Laffer Curve" usually indicates a politically motivated person who is either an idiot or trying to sell you something.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
News for you: the US does impose a larger tax than that on people below the poverty line. The FICA taxes are over 7% on the pay stub, and apply to all income you make by working for it up to a cap (somewhere around $100K/year currently, I believe). That doesn't include the deceptively named employer's portion of the FICA taxes, but both the employee and employer amounts are money that comes out of the employer payroll money and gets sent to the Feds, so I consider it a tax. The employer's portion is not taxed as income, but if you're paying little income tax you're not getting much of a break there.
It's a highly regressive tax, and is one reason I pay more taxes proportionally than a millionaire.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So you admit the existence of the laffer curve and that raising taxes can reduce revenue.
Okay. Now we have to establish where we are on the laffer curve.
The first thing we have to establish is that the higher you raise taxes the greater incentive the tax payer has to avoid or limit their tax exposure. This means more money spent on tax lawyers, estate planners, accountants, etc to ensure that everyone is paying the lowest tax possible. People that pay a lower rate are not going to go to the same effort to avoid their tax bill. Look at what people spend on these things today in the US and compare that to what we spent 100 years ago. Most people did their own taxes 100 years ago. And today increasingly we rely on professional organizations to prepare our taxes. This is owed in part to an increasingly complex tax code which is simply harder for a lay person to understand.
Which leads us to the next point. The higher the taxes get, the more pressure you put on politicians people to create tax loopholes. If the tax is low, we don't really need tax loopholes or care about them in most cases. But as the tax gets high these loopholes become a matter of survival. Big campaign donations etc will happen and do happen all the time to ensure loopholes stay open or are created. This also helps to corrupt the government by putting citizens in a position where if they do not bribe politicians they will be destroyed.
Then you have the other way you avoid taxes... by not earning money. The higher the tax rate the less reward for work people, businesses, and investments take back to their source. If the reward is lower there will be less investment. That is common sense. The trick with taxes is to keep them low enough that they do not change behavior. Consider a sales tax on a purchase of potato chips. If the tax is 2 to 5 percent of the cost of the chips then the tax will be unlikely to influence the purchase. However, if the tax is 30 or 50 percent then it could very easily make someone not buy the chips. And when they choose not to buy the chips that means the government not only doesn't get the 50 percent they wanted. They also don't get the 5 percent, and the company that would have made income on the sale also will not pay taxes on that income because they didn't make any income.
In this we see that the proper balance of taxation is that it must be low enough that it does not change behavior.
Thus we must then examine current tax law as regards our economy and determine if tax policy changes behavior.
1. Do people not buy things sometimes because of taxes? The answer is yes. Especially in states like california. A ten percent sales tax is high enough that on expensive items especially it is very common for people not to buy things or to buy things outside of california to avoid the tax. you do see this europe all the time. My danish cousins hilariously came to the US with empty suitcases and filled them with crap they bought at local department stores because it was so much cheaper then anything they could buy in Denmark. That means that the VAT and other assorted sales and import taxes in Denmark were at that time and likely still are well over the hump on the laffer curve.
I can go through every industry one thing after another and at BEST the US is often at the tipping point or already over the edge.
You are going to dispute this but the difference between my argument and yours is that I am giving a means for determining where the tipping point is and you are just going to devolving into vagaries.
You tell me... how do you define the tipping point? Is the only evidence whether you jack the taxes up and see a decline? They've already seen that in England and France quite recently. The French and English tax hikes have been hilarious failures because they actually got less money. And states like California are seeing a general capital flight as people... often well heeled baby boomers leave the state to go to more friendly tax environments. There are many states where
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There's not going to be a good definition that hold as media evolves over time.
Who says the law shouldn't evolve over time? We can't get into the conceited notion that we can anticipate future developments.
Plus, how does limited liability matter here?
Let me take a step even further back: why do we allow limited liability at all? Originally it was to encourage investment in certain high-risk activities - for instance, building a bridge that might involve death during construction. I can get behind that sort of thing - if all that you contribute is money, then let's keep limited liability. However, if someone is indeed negligent and causes someone's death, then let's go after the individual who is responsible - not just the assets of the corporation. Limited liability stands in the way of treating a corporation as a collection of individuals, because you have to "pierce" a layer to get to the individuals.
What's the compelling interest of the state there that couldn't be served without that restriction?
What's the compelling interest of the state to grant this right to limited liability in the first place?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Lets forget taxes for a moment because you're frankly irrational on the subject and instead focus on prices.
Lets say there is a store and this store has a monopoly on luxury goods in your town. If you want to buy certain things you don't need you can buy them at that store but no where else.
Okay. Lets say the prices are very low... how likely are you to buy? Very? Okay... now by what percentage would I have to raise the prices to stop you from buying? It depends on what they were before of course but you can see how even a small change in prices could change whether or not you buy at all. And when you do not buy not only is the profit from the new price not made but neither is the old profit from the old price.
Look around at stores throughout your country and ask yourself how much of a price increase you could take for a given good before you'd stop buying it. Lets say milk had its costs increased by 70 percent. Would that impact your decision to buy milk? Probably you would only buy it if you really wanted it and it would be a special purchase.
That is something of what happens when you jack up prices which is effectively what increasing taxes means. It means everyone has to work more and get less which means we're all poorer which means the money we have has to go farther. We cut back on luxuries and generally have a lower standard of living.
Now here you'll likely argue "yes but the government will give you all this great free stuff that will raise your standard of living even higher then it would have been if it didn't tax the hell out you."... well, that is a dubious claim on many points. What are these services that can't be paid for personally but must be paid for collectively? Sure, you could argue that the very poor need wealth redistributed to them to raise their standard of living... but that is coming at the expense of the standard of living of other people. The middle class and of course the rich to some extent.
I don't see any evidence for that argument. And more to the point, I see great danger in that social model because you're basically asking group 1 if they want group 2 to buy them stuff. That doesn't really strike me as democracy.
A much more reasonable political system would be one where people decide what THEY will pay. Now obviously if people are only allowed to vote on what they will pay it will be very hard to raise taxes on people. After all most people don't want to pay taxes. But there in lies the truth of the matter. In seeking to raise taxes, the government and politicians have gone out of their way to exploit flaws in the democratic model to get people that cannot pay or will not pay to vote for increases in taxes.
It is corruption, sir. It is a cancer eating the heart of our civilization out from under us. And in time, we may envy the authoritarian Chinese model if only because by giving all authority to a tight knit oligarchy they are immune to these bread and circuses political campaigns.
In any case this bores me... you think you can sustain 70 percent? That's just so moronic I am left with nothing but contempt for your grasp of the world, business, math, and economics. You're too ignorant or brain washed to have this discussion. And that is fine. You're hardly alone. Whole generations of sad people have been ruined by a systematic campaign of misinformation.
I can't fix you... I wish I could. It is in the hands of providence at this point because none of these fuckwits is clever enough to realize the frog is already boiling.
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n any case this bores me... you think you can sustain 70 percent? That's just so moronic I am left with nothing but contempt for your grasp of the world, business, math, and economics. You're too ignorant or brain washed to have this discussion. And that is fine. You're hardly alone. Whole generations of sad people have been ruined by a systematic campaign of misinformation. I can't fix you... I wish I could. It is in the hands of providence at this point because none of these fuckwits is clever enough to realize the frog is already boiling.
Man, you're hilarious. You were the one that brought up the Laffer curve. You said that "the laffer curve is completely obvious" and that "anyone that says it doesn't exist is right up there with fucktards that think gravity is a myth or that we didn't land on the moon". I proceeded to explain to you that the Laffer curve, while only a theoretical construct, suggests that tax revenues are maximized near the 70% tax rate. That's not my number; that's the number suggested by your vaunted Laffer curve. That doesn't jive with your "taxes are evil" mentality, so now you dispute the relevance of the Laffer curve. Amazing!
You're cherry-picking facts to support your already-determined agenda. You have no interest in analyzing reality to optimize society. Instead, you prefer to seek out facts that support your established viewpoint and ignore those that don't. Note that you don't attack the Laffer curve for suggesting that tax revenues are maximized with a tax rate of 70%, you attack me for bringing this to your attention. Suddenly I'm moronic, ignorant, and brain washed for citing the same Laffer curve you did.
It's evident to me that you're not interested in having an earnest discussion about tax rates. You're not interested in examining alternative points of view. You're interested primarily in promoting your own belief (one that is overwhelmingly popular on slashdot of late) of "libertarianism". Since you've taken the liberty of promoting your own stance on this issue, allow me to do the same. Let me tell you something about libertarianism. You see, I'm a libertarian as well. However, I support greatly increased progressive tax rates. How can that possibly be consistent with the ideals of libertarianism? Let me explain, in the context of this quote of yours:
Sure, you could argue that the very poor need wealth redistributed to them to raise their standard of living... but that is coming at the expense of the standard of living of other people. The middle class and of course the rich to some extent.
A libertarian seeks to maximize liberties. Individual liberties, specifically. Now, think about your life. Think about the lives of the 300-something million Americans. What constraints do they have on their liberties? Which are the most relevant to the most people? What is it that holds most people back from doing what they want? Money, or more accurately, lack thereof. I'd love to quit my day job and pursue my freelance software development business, but I can't, because I need to pay the rent. I'd love to through-hike the Appalachian trail, but I can't, because I have car loan payments to make. An overwhelming majority of Americans are constrained from doing what they want not by the government or its regulations, but by their lack of wealth.
A mechanism that transfers wealth from the rich to the poor would indeed raise the standard of living of the poor. This would yield a dramatic increase in liberty for this segment of society, a dramatic increase in economic freedom. It would also cause a decrease in liberty for everyone else. Or would it? Are the liberties afforded to, say, Bill Gates, significantly decreased if the government's jackbooted thugs rob him of $30B for the purposes of enriching the poor? What activities that he otherwise would be engaging in would be curtailed? It's unclear that it would
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
the laffer curve does not suggest anything about 70 percent anymore then quantum mechanics is all about giraffes.
You're not arguing the issue. You're attempting to score political points. You're clearly a socialist that finds talk about government debt to be threatening to your agenda. Which is fine... you're clearly a political creature. But political creatures are just that... ideologues that will run around pushing their agenda.
You are not arguing the economics or the issue. You're just trying to score points for the sake of the points. And in doing that you make no effort to protect your own integrity or credibility. All that matters is if you think you got a point and denied a point to your opposition. It is a game.
And it is a game I could win if I so chose. But why? It isn't interesting to me. You're not a rational agency. You're just mechanically gainsaying and grasping at anything that undermines. It is at best tedious.
Good day, sir.
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Free enterprise based on small business, you dolt.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
the laffer curve does not suggest anything about 70 percent anymore then quantum mechanics is all about giraffes.
In Wikipedia's article on the Laffer curve, there is this statement:
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics reports that estimates of revenue-maximizing tax rates have varied widely, with a mid-range of around 70%.
I noted this in an ealier post in this thread. In case you didn't know, the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics "is the product of 1,506 contributors, 25 of them Nobel Laureates in Economics". Nobel Laureate contributors include George Akerlof, Maurice Allais, Kenneth Arrow, Robert Aumann, James Buchanan, Gérard Debreu, Milton Friedman, Clive Granger, John Harsanyi, James Heckman, Leonid Kantorovich, Wassily Leontief, Harry Markowitz, Robert C. Merton, Roger Myerson, Edmund Phelps, Edward Prescott, Paul Samuelson, Amartya Sen, Herbert A. Simon, Vernon L. Smith, George Stigler, Joseph E. Stiglitz, James Tobin, and William Vickrey.
But maybe you're right. Maybe the Laffer curve does not suggest anything about 70 percent. Maybe you're more knowledgeable about economics than 25 Nobel Laureates in Economics. Maybe. But probably not.
Clearly I'm just trying to score socialist points in some kind of game, bending reality to my advantage to support a political agenda.
Note that the entirety of your last post is an ad hominem attack with the exception of your denial that the Laffer curve suggests 70% as an optimal tax rate. Also note that you don't provide any justification for denying that 70% figure whatsoever, even while I myself cite a reputable publication (which you literally ignore).
It must be somewhat embarassing when a socialist libtard understands the Laffer curve better than you. Now would be a good time to turn up the juice on the ad hominem attacks. Also, the Wonka-esque "good day" was a hilarious touch. So very, very butthurt. I love it.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
My danish cousins hilariously came to the US with empty suitcases and filled them with crap they bought at local department stores because it was so much cheaper then anything they could buy in Denmark. That means that the VAT and other assorted sales and import taxes in Denmark were at that time and likely still are well over the hump on the laffer curve.
Very few people will be able to refuse buying something considerably cheaper than they would normally be able to buy it for, this has nothing to do with the Laffer curve.
They've already seen that in England and France quite recently. The French and English tax hikes have been hilarious failures because they actually got less money.
This is just flat out wrong, I'd like to see your proof of it, France considered raising taxes but didn't, the only BRITISH tax rises we have had are for VAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V..., there is considerably more money coming in now from VAT than before the recession, don't forget the recession in your calculations, I know how you love to change the subject. You sure post a lot for someone so concerned about tax rates, do you actually have a job?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
As to my anecdote... they wouldn't have bought those things in their own country. They might have bought some of it but not all of it or even most of it. The taxes suppress demand which is a change in consumer behavior DOWNWARD.
As to England:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
there are other examples... you admit the french one so apparently you weren't aware that both england and france were basically interested in the same solution to the same problem.
Look, logic doesn't enter into this discussion with you if you think 70 percent tax rates are sustainable or not damaging to the economy. It is too frothing at the mouth stupid to be taken seriously.
Good day, sir.
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The washington post know nothing, the fact of the matter is the 50 tax rate was never properly assessed before it was scrapped by an idealist government. You have no idea what you are talking about. Who said anything about 70%? It's probably not far off optimal for the top bracket of income tax, look historically at the best years for employees and it was around there. What's your ideal level?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
You might also notice the article you posted comes from before the tax even takes effect, and is basically rich tossers saying they'll move if it comes in and is well supported be the public. They didn't move when it did come on, more's the pity in the case of Andrew Lloyd Webber...
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
70 percent is arrived at by averaging predictions made by various people.
That does not mean the number is itself meaningful or that any of the studies thus examined had a rational basis for concluding one number or another.
This is a common problem with statistics and people that read them. A statistic is not evidence. A statistic is DATA. Data must be analyzed and audited to have meaning. Simply averaging numbers together is not meaningful.
Data in and of itself is not science or meaningful.
Lets say you have a bunch of students that all answer a math problem. Should I average all their answers together to get the average answer to the math problem? Obviously not. First of all, you need to really break down which were the most common answers. Then you need to try and examine the methodology and justification provided for each of those answers provided by students. And then somewhere in there since this is supposed to be a rational discussion it would be nice if you actually established the correct methodology and simply showed which answer was valid.
But no... lets just average all answers together into a giant smear and call it the record.
That the above logic wasn't second nature to you is merely evidence that you're poorly educated. By all means... disagree. Quote Wikipedia again... I dare you. Your pathetic attempt at sophistication bores me.
Good day, sir.
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would you like a similar article from four other newspapers? I found one at the new york times, the guardian, the london times, and even some paper ins Sydney. Does every lost discussion on the internet have to end with mindless denial? Because any fool that knows how to use a search engine could bombard your stupid ass with every publication that talked about this at the time.
yawn.
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But sir!
So you're saying that the Laffer curve that you brought up isn't relevant to this conversation? Or are you saying that the 25 Nobel Laureates in Economics that analyzed and audited the data have no rational basis for concluding one number or another? Why is the 70% number that they arrived at inferior to the "in the middle" value you yourself have been promoting?
And a fine day to you as well, sir.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
It still doesn't support your case as it comes from before the tax even came into effect. You won't find any evidence to support your proposition because it does not exist. All that's been said is "it brought in a bit of money, but not as much as the other party said it would". It should be fairly obvious what that means. Do you think anyone is now saying "I'll shift some of my earnings now so I can pay more tax to get back up to my fair share"?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
First, I'd like to point out you're ignoring the french example which you know full well does support my position.
Second, you are apparently utterly ignorant of the issue:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin...
Do the honorable thing and commit rhetorical seppuku... honor demands it, scumbag.
*waits for Stuart to disembowel himself while standing ready to knock his head off out of mercy.*
*takes a bow and walks*
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Except that you're spinning a lot of conjecture into there, and claiming you can figuratively build buildings out of cotton candy.
Let's take your Danish cousins as an example. They came here and bought stuff they wouldn't have bought at home because of the VAT. Sure. People will do that. Ask any economist if you want professional confirmation. They'd do that as long as the price differential existed. That does not mean that the VAT is anywhere near the Laffer peak. It could well be that, if we increase the VAT by 5%, covered purchases drop 2%, in which case we're still on the left side. You seem to be confusing total taxes collected (which is what the Laffer curve describes) with something else, perhaps the first derivative of taxes collected over tax rate. The idea that taxes must be low enough to not change behavior suggests that.
If you want to convince me that Britain and France had some tax or other raise, and saw revenues fall in a steady economy, you're going to have to be a lot more specific. Which taxes? When? Given those, I should be able to find authoritative figures online.
And, yes, US per capita GDP is about one-third larger than the UK's. Have any evidence that this is due to tax policy?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The "manoeuvring " in question involved moving money to a different tax year in the hope things would change, probably due to the nudge and the wink they received from the chancellor that they would, if the policy was allowed to continue it would have increased revenue. Seppuku, etc.
As to the Danish cousins, the point was that the VAT is suppressing their demand for goods. They are buying LESS because the tax is high. Follow the logic of that through and see that buying less will have an impact on the economy and will have an impact on multiple points of taxation. Consider further that the pent up demand was so extreme that it made economic sense for them to bring EMPTY luggage on a plane flight from Denmark to the US, fill it up with stuff at our stores, and then fly it back home. That is an extreme differential. If the price difference were small they wouldn't go to those extremes. They went to those extremes because the price difference was very large and impacted their buying choices profoundly.
That is hardly the only example of that. The danish also like to buy things in Germany and other neighboring countries, pack it into luggage, and then take it home with them often by ferry boat. That is a clear sign of an over taxed market place. You can see similar examples in the US. The tax rate for cigarettes was increased in NYC which has lead to a black market in cigarettes flowing into new york from New Hampshire of all places. What is more, smoking has actually INCREASED since the taxes were put in place. I am not sure if they are making more money. I suspect they are at best treading water. But they've managed to fund organized crime with another black market good and have apparently failed to curb smoking for some reason. These heavy handed taxation policies piss people off, encourage fraud, encourage black markets, undermine government authority, and ultimately undermine the legitimate economy itself.
As to which taxes... you used an unacceptable dodge when you said "a stable economy".
By definition, any economy that crosses over the laffer curve is not going to be stable. That is like asking for an example of an economy with a collapsing currency that also has a stable economy. You're not going to find the two in the same place at the same time in the same sense.
So unless you're willing to accept unstable economies it is impossible to cite an example of an economy crossing over the laffer curve.
The logic that last point should be self evident.
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Third, why does increasing spending on social programs make sense if we're running a trillion dollars over budget?
Simple. Paying for social programs is the main reason for the existence of the government. The military should only exist to ensure that the government can be preserved so that it can continue to meet its obligations to the people. If the government isn't going to address the needs of those who can't address their own needs, then why should it matter whether the nation gets invaded? Are people really worse off if the only thing that changes is the flag?
I'm not saying national defense shouldn't matter. I'm saying that it should matter only so that the government can accomplish the real mission, which is to make life better for the governed.
Many portions of the country only remain part of the union because of concerns about international threats...
I don't have a problem with self-determination. If a region doesn't want to be a part of the US I don't have a big problem with that, but they'll have to pay tariffs to import their goods into the US, and I'd include intellectual property in that as well. I would definitely advocate a system where countries with things like socialized medicine and environmental controls impose significant tariffs on countries that do not.
I think we're already spending too much on social programs, honestly. The whole thing strikes me as sophisticated vote buying at this point. Because the people that vote for it are rarely the people that pay for it.
The people who need the social programs don't have any money to begin with, so of course they're not going to be the ones paying for it. Most people are incapable of supporting themselves at a decent standard of living, and that problem seems likely to only get worse. The people who will end up having to pay for it will hardly miss the money - maybe they'll have to fly first class once in a while instead of taking the private jet for recreation.
As to raising taxes... you really should talk to business owners. I'm talking small business owners. The local sandwich shop. The guy that launders clothing... the nail salon... any of them. Talk to them about taxes. Because in many parts of the country these businesses are at the breaking point.
That is like saying to talk to some poor person about raising taxes because they have nothing left to give. These aren't the folks I would raise taxes on. Taxes should be progressively rated based on income. I'd probably exempt anybody making under $100k/yr from paying any taxes at all. If you're "only" making $200k/yr maybe 20% should go to taxes. On the other hand, I'd probably make the highest marginal rate something like 99%. You can still keep an extra $10M if you squeeze out an extra $1B in income, so it isn't like you'll have to carpool to work.
I wasn't under the impression that getting rid of FICA was part of the proposal. I certainly agree that it is regressive and would love to see it go away. I don't see the need to take money from poor people just to make them feel the pain.
As to social programs being the main point of the government... really? So in 1776... it was all about socialized medical care?
Oh wait... it was about repelling british control... which was foreign aggression to the colonists... and since then the primary justification for federal power has always been protecting people from foreign aggression.... not social programs.
So... you're wrong.
As to paying to import goods into the US... neither Mexico nor canada pays them so why would a former US state pay them? Obviously they wouldn't. So... wrong again... unless you just want to punish states for excising that self determination you have no problem with... which I suspect is all this little point is really about.
As to people that need the programs not being able to pay for them, that is fine... but do you not see the problem with those same people VOTING on whether the programs are created in the first place? When you vote on OTHER people's money it isn't really very fair is it? By all means... let everyone vote on things that we all must support. However, if you are on subsistance from the government, I think that should have some cost to you... the first and most reasonable cost is a limitation of your voting rights such that you are unable to vote yourself additional subsidies. This will also reduce the value of such people to politicians because they will be less able to buy votes with other people's money.
Absent that change, the politicians can just buy elections with other people's money which is in large part what many subsidies are entirely about. They are often not even helping people. It just gets a politician some extra numbers in some communities because they get free stuff.
As to only raising taxes on the rich. Done. Do that. Cut taxes on the middle class and "TRY" to tax the hell of the super rich. I won't stop you. You'll fail and get less money but from my perspective it will all work out.
The reason the middle class is targeted for taxes is because they can't escape them. The rich can. They have the lawyers, the accountants, the loopholes, the off shore accounts, etc. They often are not even breaking the law. They're just so practiced at it that they will avoid your taxes without breaking the rules. Warren buffet is probably the best at it from what I've seen. He has structured his whole enterprise around NOT paying taxes. With the result that his tax burden is about 10 percent what it would be otherwise. You could tax men like that at a rate of 100 percent and they'd probably still ACTUALLY pay less then you and me. Which is why the government likes to go after the middle class and the small business people. They have enough money that you can take it but lack the sophistication and resources to protect themselves from you.
But you say you'd leave them alone? Fine. Do it then. You never have in the past. These businesses are dying in the US right now. You need to cut taxes on the small businesses TODAY if you actually believe what you said there. And as to going after the rich and powerful... go for it. It has never succeeded before but maybe this time it will be different.
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As to social programs being the main point of the government... really? So in 1776... it was all about socialized medical care? Oh wait... it was about repelling british control... which was foreign aggression to the colonists... and since then the primary justification for federal power has always been protecting people from foreign aggression.... not social programs. So... you're wrong.
That is only true if you accept that the last word in the proper function of the government was written in 1776. The fact that the US was founded by people who weren't interested in socialism doesn't make it illegitimate.
As to paying to import goods into the US... neither Mexico nor canada pays them so why would a former US state pay them? Obviously they wouldn't. So... wrong again...
I'm well aware of how importing goods works. I am proposing that this should change - tariffs should be much higher in general than they are today. You can't have free trade and socialism at the same time, because socialism imposes HUGE costs on producing anything and free trade will just cause all the jobs to leave overnight. Trade should be free with countries that have similar sorts of social programs.
As to people that need the programs not being able to pay for them, that is fine... but do you not see the problem with those same people VOTING on whether the programs are created in the first place? When you vote on OTHER people's money it isn't really very fair is it? By all means... let everyone vote on things that we all must support. However, if you are on subsistance from the government, I think that should have some cost to you...the first and most reasonable cost is a limitation of your voting rights such that you are unable to vote yourself additional subsidies. This will also reduce the value of such people to politicians because they will be less able to buy votes with other people's money.
The problem with this sort of system is that I think it is likely that 90% of the population will be subsisting almost entirely on government benefits in the not-so-distant future. Unemployment is already at something like 12% today, and is likely to continue to rise as the need for people to do work goes down. How can you have a democracy when most of the population can't vote on the #1 government expenditure?
Absent that change, the politicians can just buy elections with other people's money which is in large part what many subsidies are entirely about. They are often not even helping people. It just gets a politician some extra numbers in some communities because they get free stuff.
That isn't a problem with socialism so much as a problem with democracy, and it happens even with things that don't involve direct social benefits, like tax breaks, government contracts, and so on. The fundamental problem is that the average person is about as good at deciding on what is a good government policy as they are at earning an income for themselves. I don't have a fix for that, unfortunately, because democracy's only real virtue is that it is better than any of the alternatives that have been tried.
The reason the middle class is targeted for taxes is because they can't escape them. The rich can. They have the lawyers, the accountants, the loopholes, the off shore accounts, etc. They often are not even breaking the law.
This is why you can't have free trade and such with socialism, and there need to be a number of other reforms as well for it to work. The nature of the economy tends to cause individuals to accumulate wealth. Simplification is probably one of the best ways to cut down on tax avoidance - such as putting a tax on any financial transfer of any kind (including between different accounts owned by the same person) - the volume is so enormous the rate could be very low, and it would be very difficult to avoid. Tariffs on intellectual property would
I don't accept that the last word was in 1776... however you must concede that without that word there would be no federal government. In fact, practically every expansion of federal power was triggered by an external threat. Absent those threats the federal government would either not exist at all or would be a much more limited organization.
It is only recently that social programs have been used to expand federal power. And really, though you might feel this is cynical... I think the only reason that has happened is because some corrupt politicians have figured out that they can buy votes from poor people by giving away money from other people.
Point blank.
As to your claim that democracy is flawed... of course it is... we've always known it was flawed. The problem is that no one knows of anything that is less prone to corruption. What would your alternative be? A technocracy where some elite group of thinkers made choices for everyone? The problem with that is that there is no way to ensure those people don't just act for their own interests rather then anyone else's or society's. Effectively it would just be an oligarchy... a new age nobility with barons, counts, and dukes by new names.
Yes, democracy has problems. However, we know what most of those problems are and this ability for politicians to buy votes with other people's money is one of the known flaws in the system. In fact, it is a flaw that was discussed at the founding of the country. Sadly, constitutional laws were not laid down at the time to make the practice illegal as it obviously should have been all along.
Due to this hole in our system... we are slowly killing ourselves with out of control entitlement spending. The entitlement budget grows every year at a greater rate then the economy grows... all cuts in other programs simply mean the entitlement spending grows even faster.
Its cancer. And it is probably terminal. Your call for more social programs frankly is absurd in this context. The solution to cancer is not more cancer.
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So, I agree with you in many ways, and I'll certainly agree that the way entitlement programs are administered in the US is poor at best, and the motives of the lawmakers who enable them are often bad.
However, I'm concerned that it just simply isn't possible for the average person to earn a self-supporting wage. The fact is that labor is rapidly becoming obsolete. We don't need able-bodied people to do jobs. At some point we probably won't need smart people to do jobs either. At that point people either own capital from which they can obtain enough income to survive, or they have to depend utterly on social benefits.
If there weren't social welfare programs, what would the recipients of these programs do for a living in a world where computers program themselves, robots can do manual labor, and so on? The steady increase in unemployment is just the start of what is likely to be a MUCH bigger problem. Sure, it will probably be at least another 20 years before computers are doing all the jobs, but the day will come at some point.
1. Labor isn't obsolete and shall never be obsolete until robots are in all ways superior to the average person. That is unlikely to happen at any point in the near future. What is more, if that does happen... we all get personal robot slaves and we'll probably devolve into an incredibly decadent society... before being slaughtered by rebelling robots that will surplant us as a species and carry on until they realize that the stupid humans they killed had some essential quality the needed... too bad they're all dead... and the robots power down or rust or whatever.
2. Much of the cost of living problems are the result of rising COSTS not the falling value of the labor itself. Compare the cost of living in Chicago for example with the cost of living in Anchorage Alaska. Now on simple logical grounds you'd think that the cost of living in Alaska should be higher because after all everything has to get literally shipped into an often ice locked port. There are no trains or reliable roads up there. You bring everything in by boat or plane. And yet... it is cheaper to live there... to feed yourself... to get access to basic services such as water, power, phone service, medical care... then in fucking chicago. Now is the quality of some of those services higher in chicago? Sure... mostly their hospitals are a good deal better but lets not pretend that is a deal breaker. The point is that the fact you're finding it harder and harder to subsidize housing, food, etc for people living in densly populated major cities is not because the value of their labor has fallen. It is rather because the cost of living in those cities has gone up while the wages earned by most people in those cities has stagnated or fallen. The obvious solution is to depopulated the cities of excess labor. This is already happening. We are seeing a major population shift away from those cities and that is good. The more it falls the more prices in those cities should fall as demand falls. And that should at some point in the future bring the whole system back into equilibrium. However, it is continually destabilized by the government which insists on paying people effectively to live in these cities. They're given free housing, free food, free medical care, free education... etc. When really they should be encouraged to move somewhere else they can afford to actually support themselves.
In effect, the problem you're describing was caused by bad social programs in the first place. And the more money you shovel at this problem the worse it is going to get. Its like trying to cure a fat man by feeding him larger and larger blocks of cheese. It is not helping. Do I need to go through the long list of cities that were pretty much outright destroyed by social programs? The worst case was Detroit... ground zero for the "great society" program. The city has not recovered from that since and likely will not in my life time... and I am not old.
As to what people would do without these programs... well, you are quite correct that people are now addicted to the programs but addictions are not justifications for giving people all the cocaine they can snort either. Clearly they need help. And understand... I want to help them. I really do. My end goal however is for them to be cured of it. The dependency these social welfare programs create is not a solution. It is a syndrome. What I would like to do is rehabilitate as many people as possible, reduce the dependency of those that can't be fully self sufficient as much as possible, and for those that really can't live on their own... I will support keeping them comfortable. However, the last category cannot exceed 10 percent of the population. Ideally it must be as small as possible. If it exceeds 10 percent... which is an arbitrary number take it as a rough guideline... then I will look very hard for solutions to reduce the number below that point. I will also be open to drastic and hopefully creative solutions to arrive at that point.
Please understand... I do not want to hurt people. I do not wa
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1. Labor isn't obsolete and shall never be obsolete until robots are in all ways superior to the average person. That is unlikely to happen at any point in the near future. What is more, if that does happen... we all get personal robot slaves and we'll probably devolve into an incredibly decadent society...
So, all labor won't be obsolete until robots are in all ways superior to the average person.
However, before then various types of labor DEFINITELY will become obsolete as machines become superior to people in individual domains. It used to be that you could make a decent living as a ditch digger. Today that is impossible.
When robots can replace all labor, then anybody who can afford a robot will be able to live like a king. In the present economic system that will be unlikely for most for the same reason that most people can't afford to live in Chicago...
2. Much of the cost of living problems are the result of rising COSTS not the falling value of the labor itself. Compare the cost of living in Chicago for example with the cost of living in Anchorage Alaska...
This is actually the exact same problem. It doesn't matter whether costs go up or the value of labor goes down - the one relative to the other is all that matters. Property is capital. Robots are capital. In a sense even money is capital. Our current economy has been concentrating capital of all kinds in the hands of relatively few people, since having capital makes it easier to acquire more.
A poor person can't afford a house in Chicago for the same reason that they can't afford to buy a robot and get somebody to pay them to have their robot work an assembly line for them.
1. Yes, all sorts of human labor has been made obsolete since the dawn of the industrial revolution. So what... Do you know that prior to the mechanization of farms over 60 percent of all human labor was devoted to the production of food. 60 percent of everything we did was just to feed ourselves.
What portion of human labor in the first world goes to agriculture? It is between 1.5 and 2 percent in the US and we are net food exporters.
The problem with this whole "the robots are stealing our jobs" line is that people just get other jobs. When machines and improved agricultural practices made subsistence farmers obsolete those people got factory jobs.
Once the factories started automating or building better machines... which they've been doing for about 100 years at least... we had jobs go to clerical work, office jobs, accounting, management, calculation, etc.
Computers are reducing the labor required in ALL segments of the economy. Farming is becoming more efficient... we can use drone harvesters, automatic soil tillers, automatic watering systems, etc. Same thing in factories... robotic arms, etc. Same thing in clerical work with computers just automating huge portions of the business.
But humans still have value. Things they can do. And before you tell me they can't, I'll point out that in asia they are having no trouble finding uses for people.
The problem in the US is not a lack of demand for labor but rather that the cost of living is so high that it is very hard to find jobs that pay enough to support that cost of living.
However, that cost of living is artificially high because of problems in our urban and social planning. If you spread the population out a bit more and didn't cluster people into the densest population areas possible which drives up real estate prices then you could cut the cost of living for many people dramatically. Add to that there is an enormous amount of waste with your subsidies. Giving away all that money to people raises taxes which raises the cost of living which makes it more important to have subsidies which raises the taxes further... its a feed back loop.
You stop the feed back loop by reducing what is causing it and it can just outright stop leaving you with a reasonable income and standard of living without massive subsidies being required to prop everything up.
2. As to it not mattering why people can't afford to pay their bills, this is just lazy. It absolutely always matters and refusing to analyze why is unforgivable. I literally can't have this discussion with you if you're going to refuse to even look into any of your own premises.
Good day, sir.
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I literally can't have this discussion with you if you're going to refuse to even look into any of your own premises.
This cuts both ways. Your entire argument is based on the assumption that there will always be enough jobs to go around. I just don't see that as the case.
Take somebody who is a quadriplegic and is mentally retarded. What kind of job can they ever get (aside from some kind of subsidized make-work program)? Now, explain what difference there is between that person and you or I other than a matter of degree. If the person could twitch one finger, would he be better off? If he could say his name, would he be better off? There is a continuum between somebody who is able to get a job and the cripple in my example, and somewhere along the way people just can't get jobs. Automation just has the effect of moving the threshold, and as we progress that threshold will get to a point where the majority of the population falls below it.
As far as cost of living goes - this just reflects the distribution of wealth. Sure, I guess somebody with a minimum wage job might be able to rent an unimproved lot in the middle of a desert somewhere, but there aren't any minimum wage jobs within walking distance of such a lot, so that isn't a scenario that actually exists.
Walk into an average slum sometime and tell me that you'd hire somebody who lives there without some kind of subsidy. They just don't have any skills worth hiring them for, and cracking the whip isn't going to magically make them get those skills. Most likely they'd riot first, and starve second. Of course, conservatives would never let that happen - they'd just put them in jail where they get all that free food they aren't willing to hand out to folks who aren't in prison, and they can pay to guard them as an added bonus.
The difference is that I have precedence on my side where as you have nothing but speculation on yours.
We have gone through serious disruptions in labor before. Again, at one point the vast majority of our labor was in agriculture. Today, less then 2 percent. That means somewhere around 60-80 percent of the labor force lost their jobs.
And yet they got jobs again.
And then the same thing happened in the factories and they got jobs again.
And as you can see in many parts of the world people are getting jobs and working despite automation.
A better question is "who" is not getting jobs and "why".
You have no interest in examining this question and because of that you will never even attempt to understand what is going on. You have a simplistic theory that is backed by nothing and an unwillingness to think dynamically about a very complex problem. This renders you incompetent to have this discussion and it is a waste of my time to try to discuss the issue with you.
I do not say this to be insulting. But it is not fair to me or anyone else actually attempting to understand the issue to be subjected to your stubborn, closed minded, and frankly lazy thought process.
The slums you are afraid of are in many cases caused by the social programs you love so dearly. They generate the slums by subsidizing them. Had you not provided the money, those people would have moved somewhere else. There are many parts of the country with job growth and affordable costs in living. The areas with the slums have neither. yet you pay people to live in parts of the country with uneconomical living conditions and poor job prospects. It is stupid. You are perpetuating the problem and making it worse.
As to your fear of the future... that merely makes me sad for you. The future holds promise. But only if it is allowed to become. Standing in the way of it will only render the US a primitive has been power that dedicates an nearly all its effort to preserving a population of zombies. Living dead. People that breath and walk around but who gave up on living long ago.
We have nothing profitable to share with each other and continuing to bother me with responses is at best an irritation.
Good day.
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The difference is that I have precedence on my side where as you have nothing but speculation on yours.
Sure, just like the folks who said that real estate prices would never go down had all kind of precedence on their side. History is useful, but we're talking about technological change here. What precedence can you possibly cite that has any bearing on the creation of artificial intelligence?
As to your fear of the future... that merely makes me sad for you. The future holds promise. But only if it is allowed to become.
I don't fear the future. Nobody has to allow the future to become - it is inevitable that it will become. It holds the possibility of both promise and peril. I think in large part it will just come down to who makes the big breakthroughs. What would the world look like if Germany or Japan had developed the atomic bomb in quantity in WWII (the latter part of that being very unlikely so this is pretty hypothetical I'll admit)? Hard to say for sure, but certainly it would look a lot different than it does today.
You have no interest in examining this question and because of that you will never even attempt to understand what is going on.
You seem to think that the only reason I am not coming to the same conclusion as you is that I haven't given the matter any thought. The one does not follow from the other.
I think the average person in the US isn't employed is because the average American isn't employable for wages that allow survival in the US. Wages in the 3rd world are so incredibly low compared to what people in the 1st world can afford to pay for products right now that there is a delay while wealth is transferred from the 1st to 3rd world before the same thing happens there. Most of the jobs that have been outsourced are jobs that could be done by machines, but labor is just so insanely cheap overseas that even machines can't compete. Sooner or later things will level out and machines will continue to get cheaper, and even $5/day will seem like too much to pay somebody for menial labor.
If you want to understand why the jobs are going away, just think about the average kid in any school class you've ever taken. They're just not up to it.
As to real estate prices, people predicted the collapse of the prices. And by precedence it actually made more sense that the prices would collapse back to the old values.
What is more, that situation came from changing the rules on lending and investing in contradiction with best practices.
As to Germany developing atom bombs in WW2, this was a real concern at the time. We bombed their heavy water facilities to frustrate those efforts. That is war... winners and losers.
As to not being employable for living wages in the US, we might agree there... do you not appreciate that those standards are in part caused by your taxation system and urban planning?
Why does it cost someone in china less money to feed themselves then it does for someone in the US? Is the food better in the US? Often it is about the same. Why does it cost someone less to live in Mexico then it does in the US? Is the housing better in the US? Often not. Etc.
You've made things too expensive in the US and we could make them a good deal cheaper without reducing quality of life. It would involve making things more efficient and not concentrating population where it is not needed.
As to you not giving the issue any thought, you are only looking at the issue from one side. You look at costs and assume that to live those costs must be met. You are not considering that we could also reduce costs.
Your unwillingness to examine that point does mean you are not thinking about the issue.
All that people have to do is have costs equal revenue. Then you break even. Profits are what you have after that.
You seem to think that people only have an ability to increase revenue and that costs are fixed even though we know that costs differ from one place to the next. Companies relocated factories to asia specifically because the costs here were unreasonable. Consider that you might have to lower the cost of living in the US. It isn't impossible.
The biggest living cost in many places is rent, mortgage payments, etc. Well, prices fall if you live in other places. The masses of people that are not viable in the north east should spread out across the country into more economical living conditions. Many forms of employment can be had out there and some of the companies might even come back because the labor would be competitive with china.
It is not human labor that is obsolete... it is the old cities. Their unsubsidized prices must fall to competitive levels or they need to drain population until they do. It is the welfare system that has created this imbalance. The more money you pay people to do stupid things the worse it will get.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.