When the government says "You must waive your rights to participate in any activity which you don't have the explicit constitutional right to participate in"
You have a Constitutional right to engage in activities that aren't explicitly listed in the document. It's contained within the 9th and 14th amendments. No reason to pretend they don't exist just because certain individuals within the Federal Government do so.
Did anyone honestly think that our government could have any technology without eventually using it to its maximum potential?
I'd like to know what the point of the damn things are, since every post 9/11 attack on an airline has been negated by the efforts of the passengers. It seems to me that metal detectors are all you really need -- keep guns off the plane and there's no way that any would-be terrorist is going to overpower dozens of passengers. Heck, even with a gun it would be tough to overpower everybody on an airplane......
They are also useless from a practical point of view, since they can't scan body cavities. If you are willing to die for your cause it doesn't seem like a huge leap of faith to assume that you are also willing to shove explosives or a weapon up your ass......
Civilization is all about making compromises over freedoms.
I don't know which civilization you belong to, but Western civilization is all about banding together to protect our freedoms from those that would take them away from us.
But the times when it doesn't happen does an amount of damage all out of proportion to it's frequency.
If management steals from the shareholders by raiding the company then management should be held liable. What does that have to do with corporate income taxes though?
In our political system, there is the electorate and the elected.
Corporations are nothing more than groups of individuals. It's stupid to say that individuals have free speech by themselves but if they associate with like-minded individuals they are muzzled.
How can management "steal" them without being taxed on them? Personal income should be taxed. That includes dividends (to shareholders) and payroll (to employees)
They pay no income tax, they pay plenty of other taxes: sales taxes, excise taxes on fuel, etc.
So what? They don't see those taxes. My chief complaint with the fact that they pay no income tax is that it removes an incentive to care about how much the Government is spending. Most people have no clue what an "excise tax" is. When you itemize the tax and put it in their faces (income taxes or sales taxes) it's a little bit harder for them to ignore.
You could solve the problem you just described with a simple cost-of-living deduction. There is no need to tax different sources of income (capital gains vs income) at different rates or to tax different income levels at different rates.
The fact that the tax code is so complicated is what's criminally inhumane. It has created an industry that cheats the downtrodden out of their money with products like refund anticipation loans. This would not happen if the tax code was simplified.
Actually such systems are pretty easy to game, just make sure whatever you do does not count as 'income'.
A fair system would count all sources of monetary gain as 'income'.
It's broken right now. I play the stock market -- but I'm not rich. I will still pay the same 30% short term (soon to be long term too) cap gains rate even though my actual Federal income tax bracket is much lower than this. Likewise, a rich person in a higher bracket would pay a reduced rate for his capital gains compared to the rest of his income.
If it was just considered income and taxed accordingly it would be much harder to game the system.
What the hell is the difference? Either way, the candidate gets something of value.
The process gets something of value when citizens can band together to take part in it. The pre-Citizens law prohibited organizations like the NRA or Sierra Club from using their funds to publish fliers prior to an election. Please explain to me how such a prohibition is compatible with the concept of free speech.
Please also explain why the New York Times (a for-profit corporation) should be allowed to explicitly endorse candidates for office while the Sierra Club (a not-for-profit corporation) is denied the same right?
Citizens United said that corporations can take part in the political process. It did not say that they can donate money to political campaigns. They can print fliers, buy TV/radio advertisements, take out newspaper ads, etc. They can't write a check to "Obama for America"
I know it's hard for you to understand, but there is a difference between being able to say "Barack Obama kicks puppies" and writing a check to Barack Obama's opponent......
Only if their price elasticity of demand is infinite
Either way, you are still taking money from individuals. Either in the form of reduced dividends for shareholders (which includes a large number of non-rich people with 401(k)s and the like....) or in the form of higher prices for consumers.
Corporate taxes are just backdoor taxes on individuals. It would be much more honest to just raise taxes on individuals but that might require our glorious leaders to justify their behavior to the electorate......
No, a program like "Fair" Tax won't pass because it's ultimately regressive with respect to percentage of disposable income retained by low-income participants after payment of this tax
So it's more fair for the law to treat you differently based on how much money you earn? Equal Protection should apply to all the laws except the tax code?
only be used as a stalking horse for reducing the percentage paid by upper-bracket individuals while still allowing many deductions available to said upper-bracket individuals
You realize that almost half of this country pays no income tax whatsoever, right? It seems silly to think that the upper-brackets are getting the sweetheart deal when nearly half of the working population pays nothing.
Corporations are first class citizens in America because it is a violation of human free speech rights for non-humans to have limited ability to bribe..., I mean donate to the campaign of, politicians.
Corporations can't donate to political campaigns but why let the truth get in the way of your talking points?
Because 'simple' systems are really easy to abuse?
False. A 20% (just to pick a number) income tax without any exemptions written into it by lobbyists would be much harder to abuse than the albatross that it is the current tax code.
As stated by others, private companies tend to do what is good for their own short term benefit... this is often at odds with what is good for the whole economy... thus the social engineering.
The social engineering is done to individuals, not corporations.
Taxpayers can create those incentives by reducing their withholdings to $0
Unfortunately it's not quite that simple -- you'll owe the IRS interest if your tax bill is more than $1,000 and you don't fall into one of the exemption categories (recent change in the number of dependents or filing status, among others). Most of the states with income taxes work the same way.
I did change my New York State withholding so that I'd owe them a few hundred bucks instead of having a small ($40 last year) refund coming my way. I did this after they decided to hold onto my $40 for three months after I filed in order to help with the state's cash flow problems. It's my fucking money, you have no right to hold onto it without paying me interest. Now I'm going to owe them money and I'll be damned if I pay it one second before April 15th......
It occurs to me that a simple percentage based income tax would not require anything more complicated than your W-2 form and a calculator to figure out. But why would we do something as silly as that when we can use the tax code for social engineering and as a rewards system for favored industries instead?
Verizon hooked us up at 16,000 feet a few years ago. 1.5/384 service. It went down at least twice a day and often came back up at a lower speed than what we were paying for. We dumped them and switched to cable.
They were decent enough about it to let us out of the contract without paying a termination fee. Not that I would have anyway -- but it was nice not to have to fight about it for once.
Civilization won't collapse. Hell, many of the climate models I've seen show a net gain for Western Countries. As usual it will be the poor that suffer. The rich countries have the means and resources to adjust. Kind of a shitty break but that's life for you.....
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When the government says "You must waive your rights to participate in any activity which you don't have the explicit constitutional right to participate in"
You have a Constitutional right to engage in activities that aren't explicitly listed in the document. It's contained within the 9th and 14th amendments. No reason to pretend they don't exist just because certain individuals within the Federal Government do so.
Maybe you could explain what nefarious purpose the federal government would have for purposely storing these images.
When has the Federal Government thrown away anything?
Give us your best guess as to why.
Because they can?
Did anyone honestly think that our government could have any technology without eventually using it to its maximum potential?
I'd like to know what the point of the damn things are, since every post 9/11 attack on an airline has been negated by the efforts of the passengers. It seems to me that metal detectors are all you really need -- keep guns off the plane and there's no way that any would-be terrorist is going to overpower dozens of passengers. Heck, even with a gun it would be tough to overpower everybody on an airplane......
They are also useless from a practical point of view, since they can't scan body cavities. If you are willing to die for your cause it doesn't seem like a huge leap of faith to assume that you are also willing to shove explosives or a weapon up your ass......
Civilization is all about making compromises over freedoms.
I don't know which civilization you belong to, but Western civilization is all about banding together to protect our freedoms from those that would take them away from us.
You still haven't explained what corporate income taxes have to do with management corruption or why they aren't a backdoor tax on individuals.
But the times when it doesn't happen does an amount of damage all out of proportion to it's frequency.
If management steals from the shareholders by raiding the company then management should be held liable. What does that have to do with corporate income taxes though?
In our political system, there is the electorate and the elected.
Corporations are nothing more than groups of individuals. It's stupid to say that individuals have free speech by themselves but if they associate with like-minded individuals they are muzzled.
Yes.
The true colors emerge.
Third parties airing their opinions in the public debate is an 'end-run' around our political system?
Why are you so afraid of free speech? Do you think the American people are too stupid to see corporate speech and decide for themselves?
How can management "steal" them without being taxed on them? Personal income should be taxed. That includes dividends (to shareholders) and payroll (to employees)
They pay no income tax, they pay plenty of other taxes: sales taxes, excise taxes on fuel, etc.
So what? They don't see those taxes. My chief complaint with the fact that they pay no income tax is that it removes an incentive to care about how much the Government is spending. Most people have no clue what an "excise tax" is. When you itemize the tax and put it in their faces (income taxes or sales taxes) it's a little bit harder for them to ignore.
You could solve the problem you just described with a simple cost-of-living deduction. There is no need to tax different sources of income (capital gains vs income) at different rates or to tax different income levels at different rates.
The fact that the tax code is so complicated is what's criminally inhumane. It has created an industry that cheats the downtrodden out of their money with products like refund anticipation loans. This would not happen if the tax code was simplified.
Actually such systems are pretty easy to game, just make sure whatever you do does not count as 'income'.
A fair system would count all sources of monetary gain as 'income'.
It's broken right now. I play the stock market -- but I'm not rich. I will still pay the same 30% short term (soon to be long term too) cap gains rate even though my actual Federal income tax bracket is much lower than this. Likewise, a rich person in a higher bracket would pay a reduced rate for his capital gains compared to the rest of his income.
If it was just considered income and taxed accordingly it would be much harder to game the system.
What the hell is the difference? Either way, the candidate gets something of value.
The process gets something of value when citizens can band together to take part in it. The pre-Citizens law prohibited organizations like the NRA or Sierra Club from using their funds to publish fliers prior to an election. Please explain to me how such a prohibition is compatible with the concept of free speech.
Please also explain why the New York Times (a for-profit corporation) should be allowed to explicitly endorse candidates for office while the Sierra Club (a not-for-profit corporation) is denied the same right?
Citizens United said that corporations can take part in the political process. It did not say that they can donate money to political campaigns. They can print fliers, buy TV/radio advertisements, take out newspaper ads, etc. They can't write a check to "Obama for America"
I know it's hard for you to understand, but there is a difference between being able to say "Barack Obama kicks puppies" and writing a check to Barack Obama's opponent......
Only if their price elasticity of demand is infinite
Either way, you are still taking money from individuals. Either in the form of reduced dividends for shareholders (which includes a large number of non-rich people with 401(k)s and the like....) or in the form of higher prices for consumers.
Corporate taxes are just backdoor taxes on individuals. It would be much more honest to just raise taxes on individuals but that might require our glorious leaders to justify their behavior to the electorate......
No, a program like "Fair" Tax won't pass because it's ultimately regressive with respect to percentage of disposable income retained by low-income participants after payment of this tax
So it's more fair for the law to treat you differently based on how much money you earn? Equal Protection should apply to all the laws except the tax code?
only be used as a stalking horse for reducing the percentage paid by upper-bracket individuals while still allowing many deductions available to said upper-bracket individuals
You realize that almost half of this country pays no income tax whatsoever, right? It seems silly to think that the upper-brackets are getting the sweetheart deal when nearly half of the working population pays nothing.
Corporations are first class citizens in America because it is a violation of human free speech rights for non-humans to have limited ability to bribe..., I mean donate to the campaign of, politicians.
Corporations can't donate to political campaigns but why let the truth get in the way of your talking points?
Because 'simple' systems are really easy to abuse?
False. A 20% (just to pick a number) income tax without any exemptions written into it by lobbyists would be much harder to abuse than the albatross that it is the current tax code.
As stated by others, private companies tend to do what is good for their own short term benefit... this is often at odds with what is good for the whole economy... thus the social engineering.
The social engineering is done to individuals, not corporations.
This is more government of, by, and for the corporation. Bring on the National Sales Tax of 18%. Try evading that you shady fuckers.
You do realize that corporations just pass their taxes along to their consumers as a cost of doing business, right?
Repeat this over decades and you get a tax code that reads like the source code of Windows Vista.
Best. Analogy. Ever.
Taxpayers can create those incentives by reducing their withholdings to $0
Unfortunately it's not quite that simple -- you'll owe the IRS interest if your tax bill is more than $1,000 and you don't fall into one of the exemption categories (recent change in the number of dependents or filing status, among others). Most of the states with income taxes work the same way.
I did change my New York State withholding so that I'd owe them a few hundred bucks instead of having a small ($40 last year) refund coming my way. I did this after they decided to hold onto my $40 for three months after I filed in order to help with the state's cash flow problems. It's my fucking money, you have no right to hold onto it without paying me interest. Now I'm going to owe them money and I'll be damned if I pay it one second before April 15th......
It occurs to me that a simple percentage based income tax would not require anything more complicated than your W-2 form and a calculator to figure out. But why would we do something as silly as that when we can use the tax code for social engineering and as a rewards system for favored industries instead?
Wow, I think you covered all of the greenie talking points there. What exactly does overfishing have to do with climate change?
Verizon hooked us up at 16,000 feet a few years ago. 1.5/384 service. It went down at least twice a day and often came back up at a lower speed than what we were paying for. We dumped them and switched to cable.
They were decent enough about it to let us out of the contract without paying a termination fee. Not that I would have anyway -- but it was nice not to have to fight about it for once.
Civilization won't collapse. Hell, many of the climate models I've seen show a net gain for Western Countries. As usual it will be the poor that suffer. The rich countries have the means and resources to adjust. Kind of a shitty break but that's life for you.....