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Millionaires: Raise Our Taxes To Address Poverty, Fix Roads (go.com)
jones_supa writes from an article on ABCNews: More than 40 millionaires, including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families, are asking to have their taxes raised to help address poverty and rebuild failing infrastructure. The millionaires wrote a letter to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top New York lawmakers proposing new, higher tax rates for the top 1% of earners in the state. The letter says that additional revenue would help addressing child poverty, homelessness and aging bridges, tunnels, water pipes and roads. "As New Yorkers who have contributed to and benefited from the economic vibrancy of our state, we have both the ability and the responsibility to pay our fair share," the letter states. "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." The tax plan, known as the one-percent tax plan, was worked out in conjunction with the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning economic think tank.
So open your checkbook and voluntarily pay more taxes. Don't take the tax deductions and credits you're taking.
Or maybe they were but their competitors were not.
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
You know they know it will never happen.
Translation: "Please, we're sorry we were so stingy! Raise our taxes a little before the people vote in somebody who will raise them to where they should be!"
Captcha: unrest
What's preventing them from sending more money to the government now? A trivial Internet-search immediately returns a link to the government site, which explains, how donations of cash or securities can be made to any Federal government agency...
Anybody, actually wishing to pay more taxes himself, can already do that. The only reason to make noise about it is to force someone else to pay more.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
They could just give more money but participating in this publicity is better for them.
Just treat all income the same. Wages, dividends and capital gains should all be taxed as regular income. Where do you think the 1% make most of their money? Hint: it's not from their paycheck.
...stops any of them sending a donation to the Treasury to any amount necessary to signal virtue or cancel guilt to any level that might suit them. Leading means going first. I say let them demonstrate their Civic Virtue for a few years (or maybe decades) before obliging anyone else to do it.
Here you go:
https://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/...
Even tax return has a box right near the end that says "contribute extra to US/state treasury".
Use it.
Uhh... Checking.
- Abril Fool's Day? No, too soon;
- Apocalipse? (go to the window, checks the telescope) No, no asteroids coming;
- Hell frozen? (as my nickname implies I can check this possibility)... DAMMIT, Hell has frozen.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
This story is nonsense. Anyone can voluntarily pay more taxes than owed. Most of these people pay less than others because most of their income is taxed at the lower (capital gains) rates. It's interesting that they don't seem to be lobbying for a change in THOSE rates.
^that. I don't know why these stories never read as "millionaires have used existing mechanisms to voluntarily pay more in taxes". Somehow it never quite reads like that.
There's already a spot on tax forms to contribute more if you like. The Rockefeller's in particular, and the Disney family is in bed with them don't actually want their taxes raised, because they can silently raise them all by themselves with that one little blank on the tax form and send in all they want. (we'll ignore the fact many of them have bought personal loopholes that eliminate or greatly reduce their taxes for now) They want to hinder the nouveau riche from reaching their level and to install multiple levels of glass ceilings to keep people from breaking into the next bracket and becoming competition.
If you've got someone else who's got a lot of money - even if it's not as much as you have - the price of bribing your favorite politician goes up.
The motive here isn't to help those of use struggling to make it, it's to make sure more people are struggling.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I suppose a millionaire can opt to give money to fix roads and bridges via their tax returns. The problem with this solution is a sort of prisoner's dilemma though; you need everybody to participate with commensurate participation, or the volunteerism simply doesn't work. This is probably why they want to see the solutions codified in the tax code rather than be voluntary.
Every government body I've ever seen thinks having more income will solve all their problems. It doesn't and it won't ever. The average person in this country is being taxes at one of the highest rates in our history, and government revenues are at all-time highs, but we're still having problems. Why?
Because every single one of these governments naturally fills out their expenses to match or exceed their revenues. Always. Giving more money only makes the problem a larger one.
We ought to be able to afford what we need to do with less than we give them now. It shouldn't take millionaires or billionaires or you or me giving them more and more of our income. We need government that shows responsibility and restraint with what they have.
By the way, I am not making a partisan argument here. Republicans and Democrats contribute to the brokenness.
Giving my money to charity means I have freely let go of my funds in order to try and make the world a better place. Crying for more taxes is essentially saying "You! Over there, with the guns! Point them at us and make us turn over our goods to you!"
That has worked out so well for France.
Competition is why. Think about it. If `everyone` has to pay, the playing field is level. This is what Warren Buffet has been explaining tirelessly for decades. So yeah, this question goes in the "answered a long time ago" bucket.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Then they shouldn't say "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." They should make it clear that they also want to take from other people who have not signed on to their cause. But they never do. It's always this altruistic "Oh, we can pay more." So yeah, your answer goes in the "non-responsive to the actual situation" bucket.
Wrong. they need everyone to pay more so that they can contribute more without giving their competition an advantage. They want to pay more AND they want to maintain a level playing field AND they don't want to be sued by stock holders.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Baby boomers are retiring and the workforce is shrinking in the next 20+ years. Social Security and Medicare will consume two-thirds of the federal budget. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
If you collect more taxes, how much of that will go to things you want to have fixed and not for things like bombs and oil subsidies. I would think if you had money and you see a problem you could more easily direct that money to the problem yourself. I mean, the roads and bridges in and around Disney World are pretty nice.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
It would be nice, the perennial tax holiday for 1 class has to end sometime (doesn't it?). Cuomo will not do it as he would have to raise taxes on himself assuming of course if he is even paying any.
It's not that easy because they probably don't employ that many people directly. (This is also why it's kinda stupid to call them "job creators"). Businesses are legally and financially separate entities. The business pays the employees, not the business owners.
=Smidge=
Another commentator have a point. If only one company doing this it would be at a commercial disadvantage in relation to other companies. Would only work if all companies have to pay the same amount more and and thus maintain the competitive balance
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
Nothing disingenuous with stating your own opinion that you'd be ok with higher taxes. The operating assumption of most politicians, especially in the GOP, is that "TAXES ARE EVIL!", so if you remind them that not everyone feels that way (at least if taxes are going to a good purpose), that's your right as a citizen. Feel free to disagree and write your own letter, but in the case of these millionaires, they wanted to point out that the assumption that all rich people don't want tax increases is wrong.
While you can write a check to the Treasury if you really felt like it, its a bit moot if there isn't an accompanying budget. What is preferable is that a tax rate is set that funds a certain budget with a set of priorities, so you know for sure that the law requires your extra tax money go to pay for education, roads, etc., rather than going into a US Treasury slush fund that is used for who knows what, including probably tax rebates for corporations that don't need them. The letter is not just asking for tax increases, but asking for a budget that prioritizes these services and raises taxes as a way to pay for it.
It seems not one poster here considered that they see they are capable of paying more and not being harmed BUT they know they can't solve all of those problems unless their fellow millionaires who are equally capable of paying but not equally willing kick in their part.
They are not hypocrites.
Actually they are. For example Warren Buffet, while saying his taxes should be raised in political venues, in real life dodges taxes. He is dodging inheritance taxes by transferring money to the Gates foundation. Why? Because he thinks Bill and Melinda can more effectively use his money to address social issues than the government, that they will do more "good" per dollar.
Well along with the extra revenue one would hope there would be assurances that it would go to "worthy" causes. Hence the request for tax reform.
No they don't. Some individual billionaires can fund rebuilding all our bridges on their own. yes, they really have THAT much money.
Well it is more complex than that.
Raising taxes means taxes are raised for their competitors as well. If they just raised the employee salaries and their competitors don't then their competitors can get an advantage over them.
Then there is the crazy aspect of accounting. Where employee salaries are categorized differently than taxes. As well for the Share Holders they show a big booming company for taxes they show a poor nearly bankrupt company.
I am not saying there isn't a problem, it is just very complex, and raising taxes would be easier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
My cynical side thought instead that they were volunteering to pay a slightly higher rate than they are now rather than risking the legislature impose an even higher rate. For example if they knew the legislature was considering making them pay 20% but they preempt the legislature by publicly offering to pay 15%, it would appear to some in the court of public opinion that the lawmakers were being jerks if they pushed for an even higher rate later. So it's not that Hell froze over, it's that they figured out how to stop at the merely hot part of Hell rather than the scorching inferno part.
A second problem, though, is that most of this spending shouldn't be federal to begin with. Road infrastructure should largely be paid for by local and state taxes. And federal entitlement programs simply aren't helping people because they are badly designed and badly administered; throwing more money at them won't fix those problems; and if you fix federal entitlement programs, they won't need more money, since we are already spending a lot more than other countries.
Or maybe they were but their competitors were not.
Historically that is how rich folk addressed various social and public issues. And it continues today, look at Warren Buffet. He is dodging the inheritance tax by transferring wealth to the Gates foundation, believing that Bill and Melinda can more effectively spend his money to benefit society than the US government can. His "raise my taxes" talk is just a political stunt.
So giving our government more money to fix the things they should already be fixing with the taxes,fees, tolls they already are collecting and should be using but don't..
Jack of all trades,master of none
a lot of these people don't make money from jobs, they get it from investments and family trust funds that buy up housing for them to live in for free. and they own a lot of property. dividends and investments are taxed at lower rates than income. unless they raise the dividend tax rates or get rid of tax benefits in tax free municipal bonds these people are blowing hot air and simply taxing others to make money for themselves calling for higher taxes on income means newly successful people pay more and have a harder time buying their own property and moving up creating a class of royalty. this is how it works in NYC. they reduce income taxes by a pittance but the property taxes keep going up which means rents go up and higher rents mean higher property taxes and profits for the landowners.
There they go. Any reiteration of this idea now is just underhandedly trying to push their politics on other people.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
The US government has a sovereign currency: it is non-convertible, the exchange rate floats, no-one else can create it without their permission.
The government can spend as much money into existence as it needs to meet its policy goals. It does not need to borrow or tax to do this, though tax is essential and useful for other reasons.
Inflation can occur if it overdoes it by spending more than the economy has the capacity to produce. So it shouldn't do that. But it is a long way from there now.
So why doesn't it? A lack of understanding and an ideological opposition to the government doing anything. For many people of power and influence high unemployment is not a problem, it is a policy.
If you give the state more money, it will help improve roads the same way giving a beggar $10 will buy a meal at Dennys and not a bottle of vodka...
Never give an addict more of what they crave.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As a person who has a company I have perfectly legal (I declare everything) ways to completely avoid taxes paid by you little people. Whilst you get a bonus when you have extra performance, I control when my company pays me and simply put it off to a year when I have less earnings. The status of a Koch brother is completely different even my superior status. He has trust funds and international citizenship and can, easily, spend any given year as a resident of the United Arab Emirates with it's zero tax rate. Basically he chooses how much tax he pays and he chooses to pay nothing.
This is not about lack of money. It's about what's fair. You drive one little compact on the road. A rich guy like Gates has many trucks driving on the roads for him, just delivering the pharmaceuticals he has patented. Most of what the state spends it's money on; the police; the military; defending the rich; building infrastructure for the rich; is something that nobody should be donating to. These same people, who get most of the spending pay nothing. The need is not for the worth to donate. The need is to force the scrounging rich to pay up.
Here's all I want: ABOLISH COPYRIGHT LAWS. To hell with those fuckers.
Circumcision is child abuse.
this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates and i don't see anything about taxing it at higher rates. this is a tax on the newly uppity former poor people who made it out of rags and moving into neighborhoods they shouldn't be moving into.
Hell, all they have to do is not itemize and take no deductions, exemptions, or any other tax shelter's dodges, etc.
Determine absolute Gross income and send in 39% of it.
This whole "I think I should pay more, make me do it" crap is stupid.
And if their excuse is that they won't step up until everyone does, then their concern for the poor, infrastructure, etc. rings hollow.
Try actually doing it, then shaming others into doing the same instead of trying to use the Government to be the enforcers for your altruism.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Uh having just sold some stock and am currently getting my 1099 revised (etrade screwed up). It is called capital gains tax. You can adjust the cost basis in some cases. But basically (what you made - what you paid ) * tax = owed.
Think most of us understand taxes pretty well...
https://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/...
If they want to may more, no one is stopping them.
--fatboy
Lie.
Lie.
In relation to the federal government, that is a lie.
In some ancient Greece city-states, a person could be put to death by popular vote. That's democracy. It's not a good thing.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Decamillionaire? Hectomillionaire? Doesn't sound as good.
Billionaire is too much.
I think that millionaire is still in line with the idea I have of it : someone successful but not beyond my imagination, someone that can travel first class and go to 5-star hotels. A billionaire is someone who has maxed out his purchasing power and has at least state-level influence.
Yah, just pay extra! Everybody knows where the revenue of a tax increase would go. But then that's the same place that the "just pay extra" money goes: More boondogles and wars and **NOTHING** to help the poor.
This is so transparently political. Every tax form in the US comes with the ability to pay more than you are required. It's totally up to the person filing the taxes. If these rich guys want to pay more, then they should just PAY MORE and stop with the grandstanding.
Oh, and I bet each of them has an army of accountants going over their taxes every year to keep their tax burden down as low as possible.
Really makes you wonder why they're doing this publicity stunt. They're not stupid. They know they can pay higher taxes if they want. They're either doing this to make themselves look good or make someone else look bad. Or because they're expecting political favors. Hell, maybe all three.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
They're introducing a law that everyone gets to vote on about the relative taxes everyone pays. This particular law says everyone making millions will pay more.
Those other millionaires will have their say at the vote. Or they can introduce their own legislation. Then, after everyone votes, the thing becomes law if the majority agree.
That's how democracy works. They're imploring other millionaires to vote the same and using themselves as examples as well as trying to appeal to their sense of duty.
It's funny how the "you don't speak for us" sentiment doesn't surface when, say, a tax break is offered into law.
that's because these people make money from tax free government bonds, not wages. higher taxes mean governments can buy more bonds to fix stuff which means the rich people who support this will give them the bond money in return for tax free income for themselves and make money.
You've never paid property tax have you? That's exactly how property tax (the one that funds your local government, schools, etc) works.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If these millionaires are so smart, then why ain't they rich?
You are welcome on my lawn.
You have to look at the details. Just like when Zuckerburg said he wanted to raise his "income tax" When he uses the same trick other founders of billion dollars company use. They take a loan against their shares at almost zero interest, then pay themselves a small salary to cover the payments. They then use that money to buy property and re-invest. There is no tax on the loan. The company holds on to the cash or re-invests so no corporate tax is paid. So only the small capital gains tax is ever paid when one of those properties bought with the loan are sold.
Infrastructure is a worthy cause and you should allow voluntary contributions as a tax deduction. Hell just let rich people set the priority and you'll see those funds. Let them bling out their roads.
Is that fair to poor communities?
I think so as long as it doesn't reduce current funding on their roads. You can even add a surcharge on the rich roads to pay for the poor roads.
There is a fundamental difference between someone who has a lot of money, and someone who is making a lot of money. Someone with $10B in assets is a billionaire, and fits this "1% club", but they may only be in the upper 20% in annual TAXABLE INCOME.
And yet they're perfectly willing to tell the state to tax people whose incomes are higher than theirs. Heck, it protects them from people getting into that top 1% assets club too fast..
They're willing to pay a bit more to the state they help create in order to grow its size and foster an attitude among the proles like us where the individual matters less than he already does.
this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates
"Qualified" dividends are taxed at a lower rate, "ordinary" dividends are taxed as ordinary income. I know, I get both from my investments, in addition to income from my job.
Qualified Dividends vs. Ordinary Dividends
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Paradoxically, raising taxes is not likely to increase revenue. The higher taxes are, the harder people try to avoid them. Techniques include such things as deferring income, hiding income, leaving the country and changing citizenship. A favorite of people like the Clintons is to put money into their tax-exempt foundation, and then having the foundation pay for nearly all of their living expanses.
Furthermore, old-money millionaires don't care what the income tax rate is. They've got their bundle and can live off it; they don't think higher income taxes affect them.
The total richness of a country is a function of accumulated wealth, ongoing production, and the introduction of new products. High taxes on income reduce or remove the incentive to produce and innovate. The country as a whole loses with high taxes, and that affects everyone. The longer the time ovre which this phenomenon is examined, the more obvious it is.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Expectation: Take my money and use it to build schools and roads!
Reality: Thanks for your money. Will drop moar bombs to the sandniggers!
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
If there were legislation for a 20% tax rate, companies would be jumping to get on board with that plan. The U.S. corporate tax rate is up to 39% (federally), which makes it among the highest in the entire world. Even the Scandinavian countries that get bandied about as some kind of socialist paradise (they're not, but some people act like they are) have corporate tax rates in the 20-25% range.
Of course it's effectively much lower because no one wants to pay that much of their income out in taxes as it would make them noncompetitive with international companies who pay lower taxes and look like a much better investment opportunity so there's all kinds of loopholes, dodges, etc. that are implemented such that they realistically pay about as as any other global company regardless of location.
The really stupid part is even if you did manage to make U.S. corporations pay the full rate, it wouldn't solve the debt crisis as corporate income taxes are a small part of the federal government's revenue as the bulk comes form individual income and payroll taxes.
These same people, who get most of the spending pay nothing. The need is not for the worth to donate. The need is to force the scrounging rich to pay up.
You are very misguided....
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
Disney owns ABCNews?
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
I think you hit on the purpose of this "news". Those people claiming they want to give money, do not actually want the tax system fixed. Short term they look altruistic. Long term, back to not paying and laughing about the stupid peons who can't afford tax attorneys.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
After nearly 240 years, someone has finally figured out how to solve poverty, higher taxes! I'm surprised nobody has thought of that before. The (Federal, not NY State) income tax rate has varied from 70% under Carter to 28% under Reagan. Was poverty solved in either case?
Here's a conservative perspective.
Here's a progressive perspective.
Have lower/higher taxes been tried before? Did it succeed? If not, how is this time different? What is your metric; how will you measure the impact of your implemented policy position on poverty?
Now, this is key: find the best counterargument to your position, and thoughtfully address the most difficult questions posed by that counterargument. Simply dismissing an opponent's view is an indication that you are uninformed.
Few of us are policy wonks who have the time to delve deeply into the details of a particular policy, so often we rely instead on analyses of think tanks, and opinion pieces. This is fine, but are you also sincerely coming to understand the counterargument? Fox News vs. The Huffington Post, National Review vs The New Republic. Can you make the counterargument? Can you go to a cocktail party and fool people that you are conservative/liberal when you are actually liberal/conservative? If not then you aren't doing it right.
Are you a millionaire who feels you're undertaxed? You'll be happy to know that since 1843, the US Treasury Department has had a program that allows you to send them money to your heart's content!
https://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/...
Simply make out your check or money order to "United States Treasury" and mail it to:
Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Fortunately, we live in a Republic, where we don't get to vote on popular beliefs. As such, gays wouldn't be allowed to marry, blacks would have their own "separate but equal" areas, Jews would be in gas chambers, Irish need not apply here etc.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Even tax return has a box right near the end that says "contribute extra to US/state treasury". Use it.
I think their reasoning is disingenuous.... they want to compel others to pay.
The 1% payers probably include business interests.
Also, somehow, the money will probably spent in a way that profits the ones who are supporting it and hurts others.
I wonder how much they spend/gain on tax optimization.
It's plainly obvious if you look at the IRS individual tax stats. Click on 2013 since it's the latest and load it into a spreadsheet program.
The column of interest is T. This is the amount of income tax each bracket pays as a percent of their adjusted gross income (i.e. before deductions and exemptions) (T). As income increases, so does the percent paid as taxes up til about $1.5 million. There it starts to stall, and by the time you get to $5+ million, it's actually decreasing. As a fiscal conservative, I say this needs to be fixed so it continues to go up through each income bracket.
Also, note that contrary to what most people think, the 15% capital gains tax rate is not low. Due to income tax brackets being graduated and the wide availability of deductions, taxpayers don't exceed a real 15% income tax rate until they're making on average around $150,000/yr (T22-T23). In other words, when Warren Buffet said he paid less in taxes than his secretary, it was because his secretary made a lot more money than the typical secretary or even executive. However, this still points to another problem. Because the capital gains tax does not scale with income, it effectively discourages "regular" people from investing, thus relegating them to low-interest bank savings accounts. People complain that the wealthy make most of their money from investments, yet we have a tax mechanism in place which discourages the poor and middle class from investing. This needs to be fixed as well.
Also if you add up columns e24-e29, you find that people making $500,000+/yr (the top 0.72%) only account for 17.4% of all income. They make $1.2 trillion/yr, and already pay $333 billion of that in taxes. To cover the $483b deficit last year, you'd have to raise their effective income tax rate from ~28% to 68%. You're not realistically gonna be able to balance the budget by raising taxes on only them, at least not without a huge fight. The meat of the income base is between $50,000/yr to $500,000/yr (63% of all income). That's where you have to raise taxes if you want it to make an appreciable increase in tax revenue for relatively small increases in tax rate.
I think so as long as it doesn't reduce current funding on their roads.
Why don't you just set a policy of subtracting the amount of taxpayer funding from roads that receive contributions from rich people?
If a billionaire contributes $5,000,000 to an improvement of road X, then subtract $3,500,000 from the taxpayer budget for improvements to road X, and use the use the subtracted amount to fund other projects.
competition
That's a dirty word. Because if a Conservative or Libertarian used that word, the liberals would simply accuse them of "hating grandma, polluting the air and killing kittens and puppies.
However the reality is, that American Corporations are already being eaten alive by Global Taxes that are less than here (among other things). Killing Puppies.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Competition is why. Think about it. If `everyone` has to pay, the playing field is level.
Of course, by "everyone" you mean "everyone in New York."
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
You've never paid property tax have you? That's exactly how property tax (the one that funds your local government, schools, etc) works.
Yes, but property tax is already pretty much a disaster economically and we don't have a property tax on anything other than real estate and business property. We really don't want to go down that road, as it'll just screw the middle class while the actual rich people leave their belongings in the Caymans or wherever.
Do you have ESP?
Normally I don't reply to AC, but there is so much stuff that is so wrong with this post, I couldn't resist...
If someone holds stock for 20 years and it goes from being worth $100,000 to $20,000,000 there is nothing to tax.
There is if you sell it. There would be a taxable gain of $19,900,000. We're talking about taxable events, like selling things, receiving a dividend, or earning a paycheck.
Any more than you can tax someone on their home value increasing or someone holding an asset that becomes more valuable with time.
My annual property tax bill disagrees with your completely wrong assertion.
Plus rich people are smart, you don't cash in the stock --- you do things like take a loan against the stock.
Oh, my. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm sure somewhere at some point you read about some rich person 'taking a loan against their stock'. But I think you misunderstand why they do that. A CEO of a company might want to cash out (for whatever reason), but doesn't want to make it look like he is bailing out on his company. Or somebody has stock that has a sell restriction on it. Because, you see, there isn't a good TAX reason to take a loan against the stock. You have to pay that loan back, with interest. How do you pay the loan back? With... wait for it... MONEY! That money has to come from somewhere. Probably from, oh, I don't know, selling some stock? Which generates a taxable gain. So they haven't avoided any taxes at all.
Or you don't sell a building --- you sell the company that owns the building --- thus no real estate transaction occurred.
[face-palm] Wow. Just... wow. You do realize that the building is part of the value of the company. And you will be taxed on the gain of the value of the company. So, unless they plan to sell the company at a loss, I don't see how they avoid paying taxes. Again. As far as property taxes go, that only helps the purchaser of the company/building. It in no way helps the seller, because they no longer own the building. Obviously.
Corporation account and wealthy people accounting is in an entirely different dimension.
And your understanding of either is nearly non-existent.
You don't understand accounting at all
[giggles]
Competition is right, but not in the way you think. These guys all have their money squirreled away in off shore accounts, tied up in business ventures and live largely on their stock market earnings. They don't care about income tax, because they largely don't pay it. Those people who are trying desperately to make it into the club (their competition), are the ones that don't have enough liquid funds to keep it out of Uncle Sam's hands.
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes.
And close to half a trillion a year of spending from all that is going to fund Welfare for immigrants from certain countries; instead of on public goods.
The burden is significant on all payers, and we find the US government becoming further and further in breach of the social contract, by just taking money from peoples' wallets and straight-up giving it to other people, which also means: the US government has become less and less legitimate over the past 50 years, and approaching the tipping point where citizens will have a solemn duty to overthrow it and institute new government which does not steal from them......
Are they aware that they are allowed to send in extra money to the IRS each year, each month? The IRS will not refuse the money nor will the IRS automatically refund the money. The IRS will graciously accept donations. If these 40 people want to pay more then all they have to do is write a check. Or better yet, do an electronic funds transfer each month to the government. It's easy to pay extra in taxes if you want to do so.
You are very misguided....
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
Of course, in the US the top 1% own 40% of the countries wealth, and the top 10% own somewhere around 80%.
Stephan
Billionaires : silence, peons!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why don't you just set a policy of subtracting the amount of taxpayer funding from roads that receive contributions from rich people?
Because no one is going to contribute if they know their contribution isn't going to make any difference.
high taxes on income reduce or remove the incentive to produce and innovate. The country as a whole loses with high taxes, and that affects everyone. The longer the time ovre which this phenomenon is examined, the more obvious it is.
Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland.. High wages, high taxes, higher standard of life and much happier nations :-)
The multiple comments of 'they could donate if they wanted to' demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of how important it is for society to work together to achieve goals. No wonder America is so messed up.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Quite simply:
You can't budget based on individual charity. The rates set a reasonable expectation of incoming receipts for not just the next year, but future years.
Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on.
This isn't about making a dent. Forty super-rich paying an extra 1% of gross won't make a dent. ALL the millionaires paying an extra 1% ALSO won't make a dent. (Seizing all the assets of all the top 1% - or even all the millionaires - might make a small dent in the year it was done, after which there would be a total economic crash, reducing the US to third-world status.)
This is about a handful of super-rich throwing speed-bumps in front of anybody trying to move from the upper middle class to rich, or from rich to super-rich, and becoming competition (for money and/or power) for the existing super-rich.
They're pulling up the ladder after they (or some ancestor) climbed it. They want to keep their exclusive club exclusive. That's how elites stay elite.
Remember: The money has massively inflated. A million dollars now was about $20,000 before we went off the gold standard. A million dollars annual gross may only yield a poverty-level income, if that, once you've paid expenses an get down to the net.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Even tax return has a box right near the end that says "contribute extra to US/state treasury". Use it.
How does that box:
1} provide stipulations and instructions regarding how you want your extra contribution spent?
2} influence or inspire others to do as you have done?
It doesn't matter if these folks want to toot their own horns if in the end the result is money being spent on worthwhile* causes.
*Yes, I recognize there's always the cute game of "we got $x in bonus money we can 'only' spend on roads, so it's reduce our regular road budget by $x and go buy some more pork", but that's an issue with corrupt politicians, not corrupt taxpayers.
"Oh no... he found the
I wouldn't mind paying more taxes if I felt like I'd see actual improvements. Where I live (Seattle) all the money goes to special interest projects. Like the arterial road between 520 and Ballard is falling apart, giant pot holes everywhere, it's like driving in an obstacle course, but it's not getting fixed from lack of funds (costs around $0.002 billion).
Meanwhile we're spending $27 billion dollars on constructing a next generation rail system between the major cities in Puget Sound that should be done in 2040 if everything stays on track, it will serve 3000 people a day, which is intended to absorb the 1,000,000 new residents we'll be getting by some crazy logic. Why not fix the roads, build more roads, and get a good bus system going? Because roads and buses are boring, and the city council wants a new shiny rail system.
If they get more taxes, there's a long list of lofty projects that will get the funds before anything I care about gets addressed. So I'd rather donate to charities with specific plans of action than the government.
Now would be a great time to raise the gas tax to try to discourage people from buying huge SUVs. Do bad it is perceived as political suicide to even suggest a tax increase...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
No, the volunteerism would still work. If they want to give extra money, they are more than welcome to do so. The stated outcome (more money going into the Treasury) would still happen even if it increased by $1.00 USD.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
That's the top percents of wage earners, not the established rich. There's a difference, and this story is an example of that difference. The established rich sent a letter to the mayor of New York City stating that they want higher taxes because they can afford to pay them, with an unstated: and those working upstarts won't be able to pay their taxes and afford a seat at my favorite restaurant.
The established rich love class warfare. They act a little hurt, then concede that they could pay more of their income. This keeps the working wealthy from ever reaching their level.
On dividends and capital gains, a surcharge equal to the percentage of US citizens living at or below 150% of the poverty level.
"Well if they want to pay more then why don't they just pay more of their own money?"
Fuck each and every one of you [disingenuous|idiotic] pukes who trot this out any time there is discussion of raising taxes on the wealthy.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
If they just raised the employee salaries and their competitors don't then their competitors can get an advantage over them.
Actually, if you're paying your employees more, you have a greater advantage, in many aspects:
* you can pick and choose from a larger pool of qualified candidates than your lower-paying competitors
* you get greater employee loyalty (or at least a 'golden cage' to keep them in), thus lower turnover
* you can poach select employees from your competitors, and be more successful at doing so.
The sword cuts both ways, yanno? Sure you eat a bigger overhead, but the results can potentially gain greater benefit -especially over the long term.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Kanye West claims he is $53 million in debt. So having "more that $50 million" doesn't necessarily mean you are set for life, apparently if you are a big enough asshole, you can burn through more than $50 million in very little time! Personally, I'd be hard-pressed to spend more than about $50K per week, but I'd still blow through about $52 million before i died at that burn rate (yeah, I'm old).
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
^that. I don't know why these stories never read as "millionaires have used existing mechanisms to voluntarily pay more in taxes". Somehow it never quite reads like that.
Because it wouldn't play well for the liberal media and the DNC political machinery.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Tell that to Churches and many other non-profits.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
...and there's no way to plan multi-year projects when dealing with voluntary contributions.
What's with all the idiots saying,
"We should have a tax on good people so we can cut taxes on the leeches -- make taxation optional!!!1!"
"Let's shame people who want to help others!!!"
Seriously, if you want to be cynical maybe instead suggest that they're just publicly saying that to gain goodwill while secretly lobbying for lower taxes, especially lower capital gains taxes where the rich make all their money.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Your response was infinitely less becoming.
The general public does not understand how few extremely rich people there are. If you took everything from all of the billionaires in the US - and I mean everything - assets, income, etc and left them broke - it is not enough to keep the US government running for two years.
"...including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families" So these aren't productive rich but mostly people who are already living on the dole? The productive rich -- and I'm not counting the stock market and hedge fund folks as in the really productive class -- are generally the best stewards of their own money. I'd say Steve Jobs did a pretty good job of SIMULTANEOUSLY increasing his net worth and increasing the wealth of society. Would it have been better if Steve Jobs had given his money to the LEAST competent in the world (those who administer government) so they could build more tenement slums and bridges to nowhere or...get this...wars in foreign countries? The truth is we could have rebuilt our roads and infrastructure or we could have chosen Bush's and Obama's boondoggles and wars. And guess which "we the people" chose? Now get a brain.
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
While it's true that taxation is indeed progressive, and that, generally speaking, higher earners pay progressively larger shares of the tax burden, this isn't necessarily an insightful observation.
Let's look at your first claim: the top 10 percent pays 53.3% of all federal taxes. This seems to suggest that they pay more than "their share" of taxes, right? Well, there's not sufficient data in your post to come to that conclusion. To demonstrate, consider this thought problem. If the top 10 percent makes 90 percent of the income (they don't, but hypothetically, if they did), an entirely flat non-progressive system of taxation would have them paying 90% of the federal tax burden. Not 10%. So, what we need to know is what percentage of income goes to the top 10%. If it were 53.3% of the income, then we'd have an effectively flat non-progressive system of taxation. If it's greater than 53.3%, we'd actually have a regressive tax system. If it's less than 53.3%, then we'd have a progressive system. In reality, based on a cursory web search, it seems that the top 10% make roughly 30% of the income. This suggests that we do indeed have a progressive system of taxation, and that the rich pay more than "their share" of taxes. However, your post did not contain sufficient data to support such a conclusion. Furthermore, it may have exaggerated the degree to which our tax system is progressive.
Disclaimer: This is a single look into a single data point, and taxation is a complex issue. Our tax code is progressive, but not progressive enough to prevent unchecked growth in wealth stratification.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
According to Roy Zimmerman, at least:
http://www.royzimmerman.com/ly...
Well, that "Earth Goddess" program on Channel 3 went national
Iran and Iraq became one country called Irrational
Every commuter in greater Los Angeles learned how to ride the bus
And the rich folks said, "Please tax the shit out of us."
Your understanding is also flawed. If you have enough stock, you don't need to repay loan during your lifetime. When you die, the loan is repaid from your estate. Crucially, this repayment happens before estate taxes are paid.
So, yes, there is a way to avoid paying taxes on stocks that you receive, even though you were able to turn the stocks into cash.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I'm sorry, but how does them voluntarily giving more money to the government out of their profit help their competitors?
Since this donation is voluntary, if their competitor drops his prices so that they have to drop theirs, they can stop making the donation (or reduce the amount of the donation) so as to allow them to reduce their prices.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You are very misguided....
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
Even though the rates at the top are effectively lower due to the Swiss cheese tax laws, they end up with a large % of total collected taxes because of the large income inequality.
In 2013 The bottom 48% of taxpayers made an average of $36.500 and between them took a measly %11 of the total income for the country.
The top %1 made on average $428,712 and between them took %19 of the total income.
The top %25 took %68 of the total income of the country. Income inequality is a much bigger problem than tax rates.
The people you speak of are a subset of the others. You shouldn't (really) paint with such a large brush. I've been pretty fortunate in life and I've been saying similar to this for years now.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Well since they are claiming they have excess $$$$ there is no competitive disadvantage to giving extra money to the gov't. You can only really have a competitive disadvantage when the circumstances cause an undue burden on your company vs someone elses. These millionaires/billionaires, on the other hand, and just stating they have too much money and wish the government would take more of it for their pet projects.
If I buy a $15 pizza for supper and you have a $2 PB&J that doesn't put me at a competitive disadvantage; I just chose to spend my disposable income in a different matter than you. The same is true if millionaire #1 decides to give an extra few percent of their income to the gov't and millionaire #2 decides to buy a new yacht.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Wow, I feel like you're saying that to make billionares assets sounds small but given how big the US budget is every year that's a huge amount of money
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I think it's important to note that they aren't just saying they want higher taxes. They want higher taxes for a reason - to go towards something. The government doesn't have a revenue problem, they've got a spending problem. Giving them more money, without caveats, means they'll use it on a down-payment for another bomber.
Some sort of specific tax pools, untouchable for anything other than intended, might be nice but they'd probably just be compelled to spend the money that normally would have gone towards those things on something entirely unrelated instead of in addition to them. Err... That's not my best sentence structure.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Competition is why. Think about it. If `everyone` has to pay, the playing field is level.
I haven't followed Buffet's argument. Could you summarize or reference it? I don't understand what competition or playing field you're talking about. If I'm paying income tax, I've already earned the money and I'm no longer competing with anyone.
It won't help , because all around the world govenrments consist of corrupt,selfish,greedy individuals. These people does not value humans like lower classes do. They will find out how to fill their coffers,not pass this money to children or roads. I would advise these 1%ers put their money in restoration of feudalism. When these people will become enlightened monarchs, they could change world, something democracy (rather oligarchy) failed to achieve. Neo-feudal society under planetary God-Empreror would be ideal. I am not naive and I have learned history about abuse of indentured servants in the past. On the other hand - at least here peasant had to pay 10% to the church and 10% to the baron land owner. Compare it with >50% taken by out "democratic" government, which stomp little people into the ground even more than feudal lords did.. P.S. I have witnessed socialism personally ( I grew up in USSR ) so I do not believe in socialist StarTrek style paradise , sorry...
I just realized where Ted Cruz gets his economic policies. He just quotes AC and takes out all the F-words.
No, it's perfectly reasonable to act in one's self interest while believing and advocating that global unrestrained self-interest yields a less than optimal global outcome.
Wrong. Self-interest is not an exemption to hypocrisy, it is merely an excuse for hypocrisy. Being true to one's beliefs often has a cost.
Here is the full blurb from Google.. Ask it: what do the 1% pay in taxes
When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes. The data for total federal taxes come from the Congressional Budget Office. The data for federal income taxes come from the IRS.Apr 15, 2015
"Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on."
The various governments of the United States (city, state and nation) have been ignoring reality when building budgets for quite some time. How do you really think this would impair them?
Most major US corperations are sitting on piles of cash right now (hence the outrageous sums being payed for startups). They're not spending this money on endeavors that improve our GDP because there is no market demand for more of the goods or services they produce. Cutting their taxes would do nothing to address this, their piles of cash would just grow faster.
Now, if we find ways to get more money into the hands of people who will go right out and spend it (the lower and middle classes) then we've got increased demand for major corperation's products and services which then triggers major companies to spend more providing for and profiting from this increased demand. There's your GDP growth.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
[I first wrote this in 2012, so the "In the last year for which data is available" is wrong, and I could take the time to update the numbers, but the picture painted will not change...]
In the last year for which data is available, 2008, the highest marginal tax rate was 35%. This rate was paid on AGI above $357,700. Certainly someone with AGI over that value is in the well-to-do category, but may not be "millionaires and billionaires" (OTOH Mr. Obama seems to think income of $250,000 equates to "millionaire", but this is immaterial to my point). According to the IRS, the number of returns that were in this highest marginal rate was 971,510. So there's nearly a million households in this country that are, at least by the IRS bracket definition, "rich". Not too shabby, it seems the USA is indeed the land of opportunity.
According to the IRS, the cumulative amount of AGI subjected to this highest rate was $622,765,389,000, so let's round up to $622.8B. The taxes generated on this money is therefore $218B (the IRS reported $217,967,886,000). The overall effective rate for these returns (taxes paid / income) was 28.9%.
Let's assume for a moment (no matter how unrealistic the assumption is) that no one affected would change a lick of their income-generating behavior as a result if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B, if no one modified their behavior in any way that affected their income and tax impact. That is, it would generate an additional $404.8B in revenue relative to the current 35% bracket.
If you added that $404B to the revenue pot, our deficit this year would still be over $1T...
Wrong. they need everyone to pay more so that they can contribute more without giving their competition an advantage. They want to pay more AND they want to maintain a level playing field AND they don't want to be sued by stock holders.
Oh, this is a corporate tax? The article sure seemed to be talking about an individual income tax.
It seems pretty plausible they want everyone to contribute out of "fairness", whatever that means.However, I think they'd have a much stronger case if they lead by example. It's cheap talk to say you're willing to pay more knowing it's unlikely you'll actually need to do it. Of as an old boss put it, "money talks, bulls*** walks."
[You need to visit the IRS web site to see the actual numbers, but when I last did it in 2012, the data was as shown here.]
In 2008, for example, the top .1% earned 9.96% of the income, and the top 1% earned 20.00% of the income, the top 10% earned 45.77% of the income, while the bottom 50% earned 12.75% of the income (cry about income inequality later).
They paid, respectively, 18.47% (top 0.1%), 38.02% (top 1%), 69.94% (top 10%) and 2.70% (bottom 50%) of all the federal income taxes.
Note that the rich pay twice as much of their share of taxes relative to their income.
As for taxes paid as a percentage of their income, the top 0.1% paid effective rate of 22.70%. The top 1% paid 23.27% (the highest effective rate is this paid by this group), and the top 10% paid 18.71%. The bottom 50% paid 2.59%.
Bear in mind also that some 46 million households have zero or negative income tax liability, and another 15M households do not file income tax returns, and further, that some 12% of filers not only have enough refundable credits to render their income tax liability zero or negative, but to more than cover all of their payroll taxes too.
Is there a checkbox that says "alter the tax policy of the United States"?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
And not "Earned"?
I see.
According to the IRS historical tax data for 2013, there were 41,520 returns filed in the State of New York with an Adjusted Gross Income greater than $1,000,000.
The total amount of income reported by that group was $161,908,290,000, or a round $162 billion. Taking a quick calculation of 1% of that gives $1.62 billion.
The total State of New York Education Budget for 2013 was $72.3 billion, of which that $1.62 billion is an extra 2.25%. It may not seem like much from a percentage, but the goal isn't to replace existing funding but supplement it to improve services -- and that amount can do some serious good.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2013NYbs_17bs2n_20#usgs302
https://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Historic-Table-2
And no, for anyone in that income bracket this isn't a speed-bump to moving up the ladder. You're already in the nose bleed section and can handle this without losing a step. There is a much greater benefit for those in the bottom 50% getting up a rung than someone of my ilk going from Top 5% to Top 4%.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"They are asking fr a collective arrangement in which all rich people pay more taxes."
No.
In this country we tax based on a notion of "income". Which the truly rich can readily arrange to be $0. See how Warren Buffett's "income" was actually $100,000 for years--he never even paid himself enough "income" from his company to meet the cap on Social Security.
What they are asking for is higher taxes on people with high incomes. People with high incomes probably aren't "rich" in the same sense that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are rich.
You almost certainly don't have the wealth to take as great an advantage as he does but you can file for incorporation and reduce your tax burden, legally, quite a bit.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No, it's because it's not really about them wanting to pay more taxes. It's about them wanting other people to pay more taxes. And every single one of them is dependent on Government handouts for their business interests.
We spend a very small portion of our tax revenue on bombers. More likely it will be used to sustain one ponzi scheme or another for another for a few extra days before everything comes crashing down.
And by everyone in New York, he really means 1% of the people in New York. In other words he wants a minority class to get fucked over by the majority. I hope they vote with their feet.
Don't make him do that. He might realize that paying taxes is actually harmful to the payor.
Healthcare spending in the U.S is already double, as a percentage of GDP, as any other industrialized country. Hard to believe, but spending more money is not the solution!
According to this website (https://billionairemailinglist.com/billionaires-list.html), there are 490 billionaires in the US in 2016. Topping the list is Bill Gates, at $78B, followed by Warren Buffett at $65.6B. At the bottom is Fred Chang, Newegg.com Founder - online retailer of computer hardware and software, with a measly $1B.
If you confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, it would not fund the US government for about 6 months. Their collective wealth is $2.273T, while the US government spends about $4T per year.
And, of course, a that point you're plumb out of billionaires until some new ones work their way above that magical line. But how many would work toward that goal if they knew that the minute they get there, their wealth will be "reset" to $0 by taxation.
More money for the government to piss away.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Back in 2007-2008, I sold my business. I sold it for a healthy sum - an unimportant number. However, I wanted to donate, to give, some of the money to the government. Really, the vast majority of my success was from municipalities and federal contracts. Had it not been for them, I'd have been a bit boned.
So, I wanted to donate to NASA and I did some checking around and wrote a few emails. I even wrote them myself, actually. (At the time, I was fairly newly minted and I had a full-on financial advisor that I worked with almost daily for a while.) Well, it turns out that you can donate to NASA but you can't earmark the funds for an educational outreach program or for researching a trip to Mars. The money has to go into the general fund.
It's got an odd deduction status - the money gifted was not counted as income - but other than that it reduced my tax burden naught one bit. LOL To be honest, I was squirreling money away like no tomorrow. I was filling out forms (signing them at least) to make all sorts of corporations come into being, as fast as time would allow. The tax burden for that sale was HUGE. I... I had no idea... Well, I was warned but a warning just doesn't cut it. My accountant was laughing at me when I saw the estimates. Holy shit...
Ah well... I'm still very grateful for the good fortune.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
But we don't tax wealth in this country (US), we tax income.
I mention the following to everyone who talks about how "charitable" they think they are when they ask for taxes to be raised.
If you have money that you think can be used to support the nation, and you really want to give it, then the government will be happy to take your check. They do take donations.
When you ask for tax increases, you aren't being charitable. You aren't giving of yourself. You are specifically voting to make everyone else have to do so.
Any one of these folks demanding a tax increase can give a huge donation to the government. Indeed *anyone* can do so. Do the math, figure out your budget to see what you can spare, and then do it. You'll save money and time just in the collection efforts.
Now, I am not saying that increasing taxes has no place. Certainly, you have to pay for things, and to meet your commitments, you need revenue. But it seems odd that these folks can't figure out how to give money to the government without the taxman coming for them.
In some cases, I think it may be altruism that has not been thought out very well, but in others, I sense a desire to not lose ground to the rest of their class.
In the medieval period, the rich and the aristocracy used to demonstrate their virtue by giving money away freely and without tax write-offs. Their goal? Giving is better than receiving, although many were probably hoping to buy their way into heaven. Of course, with moving certain religious ideas out of the center of our society, we have lost some of the good with the bad. You no longer demonstrate your virtue by dumping money on people and competing to be the one who gives away the most while maintaining their lifestyle. Now, you try to give away enough to be a benefactor, but without losing your place on the list of billionaires.
I would tell every person on that list. Take the money you'd pay in taxes and donate it now and set aside money into the future to do so, from your own personal fortunes. Take the hit and help a brother out. Create a culture of giving for your class, and you will have done more with that gesture than any tax increase would ever do.
Exactly! I'm curious to know if they are cutting a check for extra donations to the IRS.
I'm amazed that so many millionaires are naive enough to think the government wont collect the money then just vote payrises for themselves, and/or waste the money on some other ill-conceived bureaucratic exercise instead.
If I thought for a second that those funds would be used wisely, I wouldn't care so much. But we all know it will wind up in a general slush fund to be doled out to political cronies or used to buy votes of the perpetual underclass to keep themselves in power. No thanks.
I don't get it? Why do these millionaire need government to dictate how much everyone else should pay? Why don't they just pay more? If those 40 millionaire want to pay more taxes why don't they? Why do they suggest that everyone else has to pay more? I don't get it.. If they really want to do something why don't they pay for the roads themselves? Why have government force more money out of my pocket after they already took money for the roads? People seem to forget that tax money ALREADY goes to fixing roads and poverty. The government chooses not to spend that money on roads and poverty doesn't mean they should get more of my money. This is the problem with forced taxation. I give money to have roads and fire trucks and street lights. Then the government spends all that money on some roads and some fire trucks and some street lights, leaving places without roads / fire trucks / lights. Then they ask for more money, after I gave them money to do exactly what they needed money for in the first place. And the cycle repeats itself constantly. More money for roads, money taken by government for roads, roads not fixed or built, more money needed, more money taken, etc. If you look at what the government spent on road in the last 10 years, its over 1 trillion dollars. 1 TRILLION DOLLARS! And they can't fucking fix a pothole on a major highway in Massachusetts? They need more tax money? Fuck them. If millionaire want to pay for the poor they don't need government (or my money) to do so. Just write a fucking check for eleventy billion dollars and poverty will go away.
How does that send the message that the many billionaires claiming that it would ruin them to have their taxes increased a bit are nothing but whiny bullshitters who want to be richer even though they already have far more money than they need?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That is pretty much the whole point now, isn't is McFly? The ones who have not signed on to their cause are a large part of the problem. That is the point. It is not stealing from the privileged to tax them more. They will still go to bed with gold slippers on their feet in 2000 thread count sheets after eating Lobster Thermidore, having opted for that over the steak. They earned it? Go fuck yourself. So did the Janitor that cleans up the place, but he takes the bus and has trouble paying the rent unless he eats food that is cheap and bad for you. So seriously, take your "Oh the poor unwilling Billionaire bullshit and shove it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Oh come on now! If the US ever needed the ability to put to death some idiot scumbag by popular vote, this is the year. He has my vote! ;-)
Got Rump? (Click it. It is funny. Seriously.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That is correct. Their list of rich people only includes actual rich people and not those who are just hoping to be someday. Good catch!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Has Warren Buffet also explained why he's giving his money to charity and not letting any of it go to the government? Oh yeah, he has.
PS - that's not a bucket, it's a crock of shit.
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How do you think they come to be in a position to earn that much income? Just hard work? Barring a few exceptions, the ability to invest previously held wealth has a lot to do with being able to earn higher incomes. Even more so than that, the wealth of your parents determines a lot about how your life goes in ways that affect your earning potential: what neighborhood(s) you grow up in, what schools you go to, what connections you have to get your first jobs, maybe even investment networks to chip in to fund your first business... it's much more of a challenge to come up with instances in which earnings do come independent of wealth. (And when that is the case, we're usually talking about someone who's benefitted from some governmental policy!)
It's not about altruism - they're talking about benefits for themselves just as much as for everyone else: we can all do better. Some things can't be done alone nearly as well as they can by a collective, which is why we have government in the first place. Sure one could say that simpler collectives like religious organizations, corporation and charities can accomplish collective goals, but even they operate at levels too small and single-minded to accomplish goals as large as an interstate highway system or an international space station as well as government does. These people want better roads and I think are seeing many areas in which our whole country is lacking and wondering why we are so hesitant to do something about it, considering how easily it appears we could afford it. I think often times people are stuck in their ways not because they really don't want anything else, but because they don't realize the consequences of their choices and what really matters. Have you heard the stories of the areas that have discovered that housing the homeless ends up costing less than leaving them homeless? It takes someone with a vision to suggest such a counter-intuitive improvement. People who measure *everything* in dollars are missing a lot. And now some people are speaking up, pointing out, hey, we can all live in a better world for all of us. Don't you want to try? It may mean fewer dollars in individual pockets, but I think they're proposing that the benefits outweigh the cost for *everyone* affected, and can we agree to find a better balance here? Just think about it... too many people just don't think about what really matters and don't realize what all the impacts of their capitalist upbringing are. As the late great Paul Wellstone said, "We all do better when we all do better."
Of course the non-wealthy would be proponents of raising taxes on the wealthy, but when wealthy people themselves are saying the same thing, it's really time to call into question whether the weight consensus should really be shifted in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy even if there are hold-outs... seems like it's time to at least talk about it.
European socialism is not a universal success story. People very much like to cherry pick when they talk about how well Europe manages to do at anything. It's a mixed bag really. Some countries do well and others are a basket case.
Meanwhile, you have the obvious problem of comparing different countries with different cultures. What might work in a tiny country might not work in one the size of the entire EU. Culture might also come into play. This seems to even be a factor within the EU itself. Some countries have no discipline and are rife with corruption while others have all of the fiscal discipline and are keeping the whole thing from completely falling apart.
Then you have the UK where the Tories are running amok in a very familiar fashion.
Most of the people who engage in hysterics are at best spectators that really have no clue how any of this stuff works anywhere. They don't know the details and don't care to.
They've not experienced what American versions of these things exist either in their public or private versions. The haven't done so in Europe either and aren't really familiar with any relevant details.
At best they cite made up statistics that might not even bear any relationship to reality that still may cherry pick and leave out half of Europe to make it's point.
In the end, you can't be gifted what hasn't been made due to lack of incentives. It doesn't matter if you are living in a socialist utopia and like to brag about stiffing American drug companies. Someone has to innovate first.
I would rather we spend money like drunken sailors (or airmen) and have better facilities, more of them, and the best in the world, where we don't give up on people past a certain age or other bogus bean counting excuses.
If money were no object, there is a vanishingly short list of countries I would want to be treated in. None of the utopias to the north are on my list. They are all far too small and lack the requisite experience and expertise.
It's your life, not a car or an operating system or a burger.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's really simple,
nothing needs to be changed,
pay your tax,
don't claim tax rebates,
It will even make your life easier.
Go well
> Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland..
Not terribly innovative.
If I had to depend upon them for my health, I would be DEAD.
"happiness" and "standard of living" are things that get reduced to meaningless statistics spun to support whatever agenda is on tap.
They fail to capture the things like lack of central heating and high electricity costs that drive people to use pellet driven space heaters that would make American trailer trash chuckle.
The stuff in bold is to highlight what absolutely serious bullshit you just uttered. ....
https://healthmanagement.org/c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They have a better health care which is paid through taxes. now while private healthcare is also available , which gives choice, the state healthcare there is top notch and for you to suggest otherwise is either blatant ignorance or wilful ignorance or.. just disingenuous.
BTW you do realise that they have central heating in abundance.. oh and electricity is CHEAPER in Sweden, for example, than the USA
Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment 148.31 $ (1,221.12 kr)(USA) 86.48 $(712.04 kr) (SWE) -41.69 %
-41.69% cheaper....
so how are you trailer trash chuckling now at paying nearly 42% more than those pesky Scandinavians?
If you are going to make a statement about something , make sure your argument cannot be humped with very very very very little effort
As Oliver Wendall Holmes said "Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society." How much we pay is the subject of endless arguments but I'll just say I don't feel particularly over-taxed right now.
They have to work the public relations side just like those who want less taxes did when some of their economic peers weren't asking for a tax cut. Why invent a new standard now? While most people see any tax cut as an unalloyed good, there are always those who point out that something will have to go away for this to happen. If you pay attention or check the history tax cuts that don't come right after a war are followed fee hikes and new/higher taxes in other areas, as well as budget cuts and decay that happens too slowly to notice. It's expensive to run a modern country.
Well, not only that but a lot of companies already give to charities. Its just another line item expenditure for them and promotes good will within the community. I don't know how treating the government as a charity would be much different.
Its almost as if they don't really want to pay more but want people to think they do. The reality is they are saying I'll give you mine only if someone else gives you theirs. But I'm willing to bet that somewhere in the details, there will be a loophole that exempts them from participating. That's why I would sponsor legislation that impacts all my competitors too.
First, you are the government's master, or can be if you want to be. Pay attention when public opinion really swings against something. They jump through their asses like their anuses are on fire. Second, you owe an amount that covers how you benefit. And there's the rub. People want a one-to-one direct correlation they can follow, like a lunch bill. They don't consider what they don't see or don't see directly connected. But, for example, the state department and the defense department make the world safe for American business. They -- and their counterparts in other countries -- make global corporations possible. So the people who benefit more from what the government provides should pay more taxes. People like to look at a person getting $12K or $24K in entitlements and say they're making more from government. Meanwhile, Wal Mart can only sell cheap Chinese goods as inexpensively as they can because the Navy and the Coast Guard make sure the shipping lanes are open and free of pirates. Imagine how costs would soar if our ports looked like the coast off Somalia and the corporations had to pay for their own security, didn't have the State department making treaties and solving problems so they could do business overseas as easily as they can, etc. Wal Mart would go under about three months after their current stock ran out. So the Walton family should pay not only more taxes, but a higher percentage of taxes.
There are only three line items over $500B a year: pensions (including SS), health care (including Medicaid and Medicare) and defense. Your "half a trillion" is a fairy tale. I didn't watch your video, because there's always a conspiracy theory to back up any contention. If we were spending almost as much on welfare for immigrants as we spend on Defense everyone would know it, not just the people who watch certain YouTube videos.
There, I said it. You can pay for the roads you use and the thousands of miles of roads you benefit from indirectly. You can pay for clean drinking water in Flint, Mi even if you don't live there so those people don't become violent and spill over. You can pay for the college tuition of the next Albert Eisenstein or the doctor who cures your prostrate cancer. You can pay for the Civilization you benefit from every day even if you don't realizing it.
We liberals haven't figured out a nice way to say you didn't build it, but you know what? You didn't.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This country's debt and overspending problem are too big to solve by a few rich people sacrificing themselves for public accolades.
Bill Whittle does a good job of explaining the scale of the problem here.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
tax is a debt owed to the government
No, taxation is theft.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You can't budget based on individual charity. The rates set a reasonable expectation of incoming receipts for not just the next year, but future years.
Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on.
At this time I shall trot out an ancient practice called Saving. Let the extra donations pile up. Then spend them. If you wait, you know exactly how much money you have, not just a "reasonable expectation."
If you don't like rent you pay
The country is not the property of the government, and neither am I.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If they want to pay more in taxes, they are free to do that voluntarily. They're also free to adopt roadways or donate to private charities that may align with their priorities better; if they really want to spend money to fix things, they're already capable of that without changing the tax structure.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Yeah I know all that. But how much is the right amount? What is one's fair share? Is it always more for people that are wealthier than you, and always less for people that have less? Or is it half? 99%? How much is the highest amount that you consider fair?
That's the school funding system in Texas. Its result is that no one volunteers anything because it doesn't help their district at all, it just gets reallocated to other districts. Letting the rich just prop up their own district doesn't help either, that just results in greater imbalance within society. Thus the push for a tax on the 1% to close the wealth gap instead of letting it grow.
This is called enlightened self interests. They know full well they have pushed the limits of enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor, at the current course a French styled revolution is in the offing and they are trying to avoid a meeting with mademoiselle guillotine. Other idiots think they can still push harder because they want to feed chaos for it's own sake and think they can escape with their wealth. Angry Trump supports are a solid indication of how betrayed the ignorant right is feeling, they are waking up to the idea they have by betrayed by both Democrats and Republicans and are really, really angry and that is the public face of their anger, the private one is even worse and barely being constrained. Lots of real cracks have appeared in the social binding of the US and those cracks are leading to breakdown and this will occur unless a new course is steered. Want to see money wasted like never before, start actively fighting amongst yourselves to feed insatiable greeds and you will see trillions wasted. Want to kill an economy, look at the lessons being taught globally, quite simply bury that economy in violent civil unrest and you will kill that economy.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland.. High wages, high taxes, higher standard of life and much happier nations :-)
I find that I'm happiest when I'm not freezing my balls off.
They're not uncorrelated but they are also not the same. And in the current tax system, wealth can breed wealth through capital gains without things formally described as income.
They lobby for these loopholes. They make back room deals to get them and then they use them. They outsource their employees. They hide their wealth in financial mechanisms that cause "income" to not be classified as income. They shift the jurisdiction of the income from one country to another to bounce the money around the world so that who can say which country's tax codes should be applied to it.
And when they've done all that, they say "raise our taxes"... This isn't a plea for fixing anything. Its a taunt.
You could raise the tax rate to 100% and a lot of these people wouldn't really feel the bite. Because the tax rate hits INCOME. Not wealth. Want to wipe the smirk off their condescending faces? Suggest instead a wealth tax. Oh just 1 percent... something small. Something that they can't hide by redefining what is and is not income. Say "well you have outstanding assets of this many billions of dollars"... Done.
Do I want such a tax? Not really. But these calls for increases to the tax rate won't hit the super rich. They'll hit the people biting at their heels. They'll hit the middle class. They'll hit the lower upper class. But the super rich? They're utterly immune to this because they know the loopholes, they can buy the politicians to create them if they're not already there, and they can hire the accountants to do the dance to exploit them.
Look at the likes of Warren Buffet. The man has built his entire empire around not paying taxes.
He's a liar. And the move to jack up taxes by this group is likewise deceitful. If they want to pay more, then no one is stopping them. Cut a check to the US IRS. It will be cashed. here someone will say "but no one will do that unless they're forced to by law"... they won't do it even if the law supposedly forces them because they'll use a loophole. They don't want to pay and if they did they wouldn't need a law passed to make them pay. They'd just pay. They don't pay because they don't want to pay which means the call to have taxes increased are disingenuous by anyone that is not voluntarily paying more already.
You're all being played. Notice it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You're completely full of shit. All the crazy shit you're talking about is not an issue in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or Finland. It's not even an issue in India, where I don't recommend you go for healthcare.
Do you seriously think there is a problem of Swedes starving in the hospitals?
Billionaires: "Charge millionaires more taxes to fix our roads so we can expand our industries without contributing to the necessary socialist infrastructure supporting them."
Since your parents obviously failed to teach you right from wrong, I'll point out that theft is when you take another person's money or property by force or the threat of force.
Taxation is theft, QED.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
We overthrew our king in 1776, in case you hadn't noticed.
Now run along, I'm sure you have some boots to lick and asses to kiss.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's the killer question, all right. In Germany they pay just under half. They get health care and pension at 55, iirc. And they bitch about taxes and how expensive everything is just like we do in the U.S. But they basically have no homeless people and have seemingly solved a few other problems I see every day on the way to work (their highways are excellent, for example). And yet they still turn our BMWs and Mercedes that do well in a capitalist marketplace. So, I don't know if 46% or 47% is the number, but I know it's possible to be doing a lot better than we are if you just act like an adult, tally up the shit you really want and then pay for it.
Its snowing out today, and this story just confirms it: Hell froze solid today.
Let's see: 40 people said "yes", haw many said "no"...?
I didn't see any big corporations, senators, stockbrokers, etc., holding their hands up. That will be when Hell freezes over.
No sig today...
Even tax return has a box right near the end that says "contribute extra to US/state treasury".
Use it.
Has it occurred to you that these 40 want to effect more than just themselves?
If they can convince the government to increase taxes on them...it isn't just them but all the super rich.
Contributing extra to the US/state treasury themselves has comparatively no effect at all.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
They using their right to petition. If laborers want to petition for higher wages, there don't need to get 100% of all laborers on board to push for change even if 100% will benefit from it. Heck, getting a traffic light put in on your local street doesn't require that every person on the street sign a petition, just enough make it apparent that the issue should be put into review.
And it is the right to represent a larger group to petition the government to change or modify an existing law.
I sort of agree.
Honestly, we already pay gasoline taxes that are supposed to go to the building and maintenance of roads.
Only, the wall street journal (paywalled) says that states are instead using that stable, guaranteed income to pay for other things like debt.
40% of federal fuel taxes [1] go to things other than roads as well.
I'm all for top earners paying more taxes, as we honestly don't need a nobility with more money than small countries, but I'm not sure that income makes sense to put into roads.
I'd rather fuel taxes actually went to road building and maintenance like it's supposed to...
Having increased high earner income tax fund social and work programs aimed at poverty does make sense though. If politicians would actually do it and not funnel it elsewhere.
They are using their right to petition the government to change or modify an existing law.
"Unchanged since feudalism" is not a good selling point. A better rationale IMO is that you pay for the services the government provides, which increases the value of your land.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The exact amount is up for debate, but it's pretty clear that it's in probably close to what they were paying in the pre-Reagan era.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
And the government needs to move its revenue collection from theft via civil forfeiture and petty fines, which are actually backed by force, and shift back to taxation of corporations and the wealthy. Don't worry, nobody is going to be holding Warren Buffet at gunpoint.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
...and there's no way to plan multi-year projects when dealing with voluntary contributions.
Non-profits (and I've worked for a few, and know a lot of people that do as well, including raising funds) do it all the time, so no that's not an issue.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
I note that your subsequent reply focuses entirely on share of tax burden and once again has no mention of share of income. This suggests to me that you didn't read what I wrote, at all. That's too bad.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Mod parent up: Data
I was too lazy to gather these numbers myself.
But also worth caveating, these taxes don't represent the full tax burden. There are regressive taxes (sales tax, etc.) that aren't being included in this calculus. Consequently, those with a negative income tax liability (even including payroll taxes) may or may not still have a positive overall tax liability.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I'm not jealous, and that is less becoming than being petty? Wow
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What evidence do you have that Koch pays no income tax? You certainly haven't seen their tax returns. Is there also proof of their "international citizenship"?
Just another day in Paradise
Yeah, nobody wants to live in New York. It's not like rich people all over the world want to live in New York and California.
Cheap storage VM.
Wealth != Income
You can tax each through different means...income vs. property tax for example.
Just another day in Paradise
Don't hold your breath on a reply to that. The numbers are obvious. The lower and middle class pay a huge amount in payroll taxes, it's ignored by people writing blurbs about who pays taxes, it's earmarked for SS and medicaid, but always goes into the general budget.
This is by design. There is no reason for the gov. to build up huge stockpiles of money.
Cheap storage VM.
Wikipedia says $75k for individuals, $118k for households.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just another day in Paradise
Yes, these piles of cash will continue to cause problems. Cash hoards attract the worst kind of people (and dragons), they also destabilize things. These cash hoards are probably what is screwing up our general elections. So far, they have not been able to buy elections on a national scale, but it's been working on smaller elections.
Cheap storage VM.
2. Making sure everyone else (even those who are just on their way to become millionaires) suffer the same fate as them (and in the proceed, the newly minted 'millionaires' would have been taxed to death while the 'old money' could still living very well off, thanks to their entrenched Elite status)
As a 2%er, who lives in a neighborhood full of 2%ers, I want to thank you for going to bat for us. Please be sure to lower our taxes. Those evil 1%ers are trying to keep us down. Damnit, how are we ever supposed to climb out of this gutter!?!
Disclaimer: The above was partially tongue in cheek. Living in the metro DC area, where virtually everyone makes $100k+, and as dual income, we're technically in the 1.5%, but that doesn't buy you nearly what it would elsewhere.
Just another day in Paradise
Don't you know that they're all evil, so they must have some hidden agenda. No 1%er would ever do anything that was altruistic. Well, except for George Soros, Buffet, Gates, the Clintons, the Kerrys,... oh, nevermind.
Just another day in Paradise
So, 40 millionaires wrote a letter. How many *more* live in NY? Raising taxes would get a *lot* more money than it would from 40 families.
What is it then - moronic libertarians who are *sure* they're going to be multimillionaires any minute now, and don't want to pay more taxes when they are? (Hint: no, you're not going to be rich any time soon.)
mark
What about the Walton family?
In fairness, this is handled differently in different states, and is likely different where you live than the parent. For example: I have a retired aunt who owns a house in LA that she bought in the 60's. There's no way she could pay the taxes if they were assessed on the current value, rather than purchased value (plus some other formula that I'm not familiar with- I'm sure they've gone up in 50 years). I on the other hand live in Texas, where my property taxes go up 10% every year (and would be more if not capped at 10% annually), based on skyrocketing property values here- which benefit me not at all as long as I'm not selling my house.
If taxation is not theft, then all any group of robbers has to do is declare themselves a government and their forced collection of monies are then justified.
Where is this social contract that I never explicitly signed?
There are homeowner exemptions and credits for retired people.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1) The Federal government has spent trillions of dollars in the last 50 years in the "war" on poverty. I'm curious as to why those millionaires think a few million dollars more will make a significant difference
2) Poverty is a relative term. People in "poverty" in the US have materially better lives than the average European, and would be legitimately considered "1 percenters" by the Third World. So "poverty" will never end - it will simply be redefined upward along with the average standard of living.
Wrong. Adding extra money does nothing. Increasing taxes & spending to fix roads, schools, etc, while making it visible, solves a lot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This seems to suggest that they pay more than "their share" of taxes, right? Well, there's not sufficient data in your post to come to that conclusion.
Indeed. To begin with, you would need to define what "their share" means. If the point were to distribute the burden fairly, one's fair share would be determined by how much one contributes to the cost of the system, not how much one earns. As a rule these factors are inversely related: the more you make, the less dependent you are on government services. One's share of the costs certainly does not scale linearly (or super-linearly) with increasing income.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Cutting out entire programs is possible. In some cases, reducing waste is possible. In many cases, enforcing more restrictions to cut out more waste is financially counterproductive. Consider the recent drug-testing of welfare recipients: it didn't catch enough drug users to recover its costs (illegal drugs are expensive, and most welfare recipients can't afford them).
Sometimes allowing some waste saves money. Some places have been finding that just giving good shelter to the homeless is cheaper than coping with them in other ways.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Over 5 Billion dollars was wasted on political campaigning in 2008. That is enough to run a small country, and certainly enough money to resolve many, many of the current problems in that country.
The "war on drugs" cost over $15 Billion in 2010.
The US Military budget for 2011 was $660 Billion with an adition $37 Billion dollars to supplement the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Adding to tax revenue is not going to fix anything.
It's not that there isn't enough money to solve the problems, it's a lack of political will.
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
Stop paying your property taxes and see how long that land stays "yours."
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
Indeed. To begin with, you would need to define what "their share" means.
Since we tax income, the implication here was that "their share" would be a fixed proportion of income.
If the point were to distribute the burden fairly, one's fair share would be determined by how much one contributes to the cost of the system, not how much one earns.
That's not known, and it's not practically knowable.
As a rule these factors are inversely related: the more you make, the less dependent you are on government services.
In the parlance of our times, CITATION NEEDED. First, you'd need to define "dependent" here. Second, you need to realize that people contribute to the cost of the system independently of whether they depend on it.
One's share of the costs certainly does not scale linearly (or super-linearly) with increasing income.
I question this unsupported claim.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
If that was really a concern, use all the money collected from checking the box to pay the national debt. That way there are no budget concerns as it doesn't hit the budget.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Since we tax income, the implication here was that "their share" would be a fixed proportion of income.
Obviously. That is the unsupported assumption which I was highlighting. Equal amounts, or proportions, are not automatically fair just because they are equal. If you go to a restaurant with a group of friends, for example, your share of the final bill is proportional to the amount that you ordered (or the amount you ate, if you're sharing a single item). Approximations like splitting the bill evenly are only acceptable when each party's share is close to the average. The amount you earn is irrelevant.
If the point were to distribute the burden fairly, one's fair share would be determined by how much one contributes to the cost of the system, not how much one earns.
That's not known, and it's not practically knowable.
We're talking about fairness here, so the answer is inherently subjective. The only way to guarantee fairness would be to come up with an arrangement that everyone involved agrees to voluntarily, but since the subject is taxation that isn't an option. Lack of voluntary consent is built in to the definition.
That said, a system where some people are forced to pay more than the value of the goods and services they receive in order that others can receive benefits they did not pay for is not a system one could reasonable expect the former group to consent to, or consider fair.
First, you'd need to define "dependent" here.
The definition of "dependent" is obvious. The rich are already covering most of the cost of public services for society as a whole; they could easily afford to buy the same (or better) services just for themselves, assuming they even want those services in the first place.
Second, you need to realize that people contribute to the cost of the system independently of whether they depend on it.
Sure, but if they aren't dependent on it then its disappearance would not hurt them; quite the opposite, actually, since as it stands they are paying more than their fair share of the costs, which makes the system a net loss so far as they are concerned.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Your own idiocy is thinking that non-coercive government can exist.
When did I make any such claim?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Its result is that no one volunteers anything because it doesn't help their district at all, it just gets reallocated to other districts.
So just reallocate 75% of it, then it Does help their own district, but a portion of it also helps other districts. It's just that if they want their district to get $1000, then they need to volunteer $4000.
The Social Contract is explained in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
The foundation of the Social Contract and all government is the extension of man's natural right to protect himself and his property from being deprived of them, encroached upon, being stolen from, done violence against, etc.
Yeah but, comparatively speaking, I've only got so much money. So, I figure it's enough for 'em to make a down-payment on a bomber.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There are only three line items over $500B a year
Which has no bearing on the issue, Because 2 + 2 does not equal 2. The theft from taxpayers is not entirely concentrated on one specific budget line item.
And welfare programs do not fall under One "Line item"; In fact, Medicaid is one of the Welfare program line items where the government is bleeding massive amounts of money which it should not be spending in the first place.
If we were spending almost as much on welfare for immigrants as we spend on Defense everyone would know it
Nope. People would only know it if their favorite media outlet disseminated the information to them, even though it is available from the government statistics; the general public remains ignorant, and ignorance is bliss..... Also, this isn't something people really want to hear, and the media considers it a "sensitive issue", so they're largely unlikely to appropriately inform the public.
So of course not everybody would be aware of the actual expenditures.....
I would be fine with the federal government making budgets based on anything...as opposed to now, where the federal government just spends money without any thought to where that money is going to come from AND with the full knowledge that they are never going to collect that much in taxes (whether under the current tax laws and rates or under some fantasy tax law and rate)..
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Really. Then please subtract some money from your bank account and add it to mine, since it "does nothing".
...you could just send extra money to the Treasury.
The checkbox is right at the end of your Tax Form.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Social Security is paid out of the Social Security Trust Fund, not the General Fund (citation). By law, it is not allowed to touch the GF. However, money does flow the opposite way to plug revenue gaps -- hence Al Gore's famous 'lockbox' speeches that were much lampooned on SNL.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
But then you go on to make a handful of your own "unsupported assumptions", like what constitutes fairness in how people split a bill at a restaurant. Okay.
Then, you've got your magnum opus:
The only way to guarantee fairness would be to come up with an arrangement that everyone involved agrees to voluntarily, but since the subject is taxation that isn't an option. Lack of voluntary consent is built in to the definition.
In practice, this means that the only practical way to guarantee fairness is anarchy, as there isn't a single issue in society with which at least one person disagrees. So, a world with no common governments is the only way to guarantee fairness? A world with no mechanisms to enforce fairness is the only one in which fairness is guaranteed? Might-makes-right is guaranteed fairness?
That said, a system where some people are forced to pay more than the value of the goods and services they receive in order that others can receive benefits they did not pay for is not a system one could reasonable expect the former group to consent to, or consider fair.
Any analysis beyond the myopic one you exhibit here would reach a different conclusion.
The definition of "dependent" is obvious. The rich are already covering most of the cost of public services for society as a whole; they could easily afford to buy the same (or better) services just for themselves, assuming they even want those services in the first place.
That's a false statement. If it was obvious, I wouldn't be asking for it to be defined. Furthermore, it is not self-evident that the rich could afford to each independently maintain their own standing army, develop their own nuclear weapons programs, comparable to that which is provided by the federal government. Additionally, the assumption that they'd want to maintain security over their wealth seems corroborated by their actions, so it's not much of an assumption to say that they do indeed want those services in the first place.
Sure, but if they aren't dependent on it then its disappearance would not hurt them
That's only true if dependence has a really weird definition. You seem to be defining "dependent" as "drawing any amount of benefit from", which I disagree with. I'm not "dependent" on the existence of Italian Futurism in sculpture, as I'm not an Italian sculptor selling my wares in the 1930s, but its disappearance would hurt me nonetheless.
quite the opposite, actually, since as it stands they are paying more than their fair share of the costs, which makes the system a net loss so far as they are concerned.
Again, the assumption that they pay more than their fair share, without either defining what would constitute "fair" or quantifying the benefits they receive from participation in society. If what you say is true, that participation in society is a net loss for the truly wealthy, then shouldn't we see some significant number of wealthy people actually choosing to leave society and relocate to places like Somalia where they wouldn't have such a "net loss" to worry about? Do you have an explanation for why the wealthy seem to prefer this "net loss" situation, if it is indeed a net loss for them?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.