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Flat tax: Is it more fair?

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Zoe said:
Code:
Tax	Single
10%	$0 – $8,350
15%	$8,351– $33,950
25%	$33,951 – $82,250
28%	$82,251 – $171,550
33%	$171,551 – $372,950
35%	$372,951+

Tax	Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er)
10%	$0 – $16,700
15%	$16,701 – $67,900
25%	$67,901 – $137,050
28%	$137,051 – $208,850
33%	$208,851 – $372,950
35%	$372,951+

Tax	Married Filing Separately
10%	$0 – $8,350
15%	$8,351 – $33,950
25%	$33,951 – $68,525
28%	$68,525 – $104,425
33%	$104,426 – $186,475
35%	$186,476+

Tax	Head of Household
10%	$0 – $11,950
15%	$11,951 – $45,500
25%	$45,501 – $117,450
28%	$117,451 – $190,200
33%	$190,201 - $372,950
35%	$372,951+

Standard deductions are $5800, $11600, $5800, and $8500, respectively.

where'd you find those? i've been looking for this shit FOREVER. much appreciated!
 
oh and even if you're living in a high cost of living area property taxes and mortage interest are deductiblie for purposes of income taxation so it doesn't matter if you have $100K in income except in the sense that it mightnot go as far as $100K in another area. BUt that'll be accounted for in your tax deductions.
 
JGS said:
I would agree with this if it could be ascertained that the wealthy are having a negative impact on democracy. Politics definitely, but that shouldn't be tied to the tax code.
I don't see how you can deal with it outside of taxes due to the First Amendment implications.

I'm getting daily out of state mailers from interest groups supporting/opposing issues on my state's ballot. It's ridiculous how insidious it's become.
 
GaimeGuy said:
hahahahah, mayber if you live in downtown san francisco, manhattan, or washington DC.

If I made 100k I would be putting away enough money to put a 100% down payment on a new house every 3-4 years here in minnesota. and that's after taxes and expenses (Put away $30k i nmy first year of work whiel making $70k and furnishing a new apartment, so I figure I'd be putting away just over $50K on $100k of income after taxes. The average home or condo price is just south of $150K in Minneapolis)

and i live in one of the states with the highest taxes (total. Sales, property, income, etc)
Congratulations. You're still not rich though.

Further, the idea that just because someone is wealthy in a particular area only means that taxes can be higher at the local/state level. Your example verifies that federal taxes should not be based on your acceptance of wealth, but on data that officially what recognizes what wealth is. Even then the data is skewed for places like Cali & NY, or other big city locales.
 
venne said:
I don't see how you can deal with it outside of taxes due to the First Amendment implications.

I'm getting daily out of state mailers from interest groups supporting/opposing issues on my state's ballot. It's ridiculous how insidious it's become.
It's easy. You change campaign laws to either recognize free speech status completely (With 100% disclosure so the opponent can take swipes) or take away contributions altogether for the top two candidates.

EDIT: Dangit, I am getting in the habit of double posting. Sorry
 
Having the very rich pay less taxes would also hurt the economy. It's been shown that they tend not to spend it, but would rather save it. Conversely, disposable income for the poor increases their spending which is returned back the economy.
 
A fair tax rate would be parabolic. The poor would be taxed to slavery for abusing aid programs and the rich should be taxed to poverty because they owe to society. Middle class would pay 0 taxes because we are the pillar of society.
 
zomgbbqftw said:
Because the person who pays all the tax would just leave. Quite simple really. People and corporations don't exist to be taxed.
Interesting. So if this turned out not to be the case, you would support higher taxes on the wealthy, right?
 
zomgbbqftw said:
Because the person who pays all the tax would just leave. Quite simple really.

going , going, GALT. The problem with this assumption is that the move to another location would only impact the stricken Galtian overlord by reduced taxes. Most likely, he'd have reduced security for his material assets or business operations and operating in the country of his previous residence would be made more difficult. The gain in post-tax income would be mostly lost due to additional expenses , lower quality of life, and lost income said overlord would have to bear.

If there were truly some magical place where rich US people could move to to drastically reduce their tax burden for little incidental cost, they would have already done it.

People and corporations don't exist to be taxed.

No, but the modern nation state exists to provide safety and security for its people. Progressive taxation exists because the most wealthy citizens benefit most from the stability and security of an effective government.
 
JGS said:
Congratulations. You're still not rich though.

Further, the idea that just because someone is wealthy in a particular area only means that taxes can be higher at the local/state level. Your example verifies that federal taxes should not be based on your acceptance of wealth, but on data that officially what recognizes what wealth is. Even then the data is skewed for places like Cali & NY, or other big city locales.
I'm not rich, which is my point. I can have my taxes go up by 20% of my gross income, and i'm not even rich! I'm middle class (actual middle class, which is more affluent than "middle" in the sense of median.) What does that say about people who are rich?

And the reason we have a lot of deductions at the federal level is to account for differences in standards of living, as best as we possibly can.

We have a large federal government while at the same time not allowing it to interfere with the budgetary and tax policies of the states. It's a bit of a flaw with our country that comes from designing the current constitution (which allows for a more federalized system) while trying to keep the majority of the economic freedoms given to states in the articles of confederation, even though such localized economies were so irreconciliable that we had to restructure the federal government a decade later.
 
It's not that so much higher income taxes will cause the rich to move themselves out of the US, but more so, such taxes further encourage the rich to move/hide their money out of the country- whether it be foreign stock exchanges or Swiss bank accounts. Then, we neither get the extra tax revenue NOR the increased capital invested in our domestic markets.
 
Something Wicked said:
It's not that so much higher income taxes will cause the rich to move themselves out of the US, but more so, such taxes further encourage the rich to move/hide their money out of the country- whether it be foreign stock exchanges or Swiss bank accounts. Then, we neither get the extra tax revenue NOR the increased capital invested in our domestic markets.
But we already have the lowest taxes in the civilized world, especially for the wealthy. By inductive reasoning, your logic implies taxes are higher here than elsewhere. Your presumption is false.
 
GaimeGuy said:
I'm not rich, which is my point. I can have my taxes go up by 20% of my gross income, and i'm not even rich! I'm middle class (actual middle class, which is more affluent than "middle" in the sense of median.) What does that say about people who are rich?
That is something you would be comfortable with. That doesn't mean you are the norm and ths the tax code should be based on it. Tax codes should never be based on best case scenarios.

There are many currently rich people that spend their life savings on their dream or invest in the free market some other kind of way or just use it for vacations which support other industries.
GaimeGuy said:
And the reason we have a lot of deductions at the federal level is to account for differences in standards of living, as best as we possibly can.
Not sure about that. They don't exempt mortgage interest and it takes quite a bnit to get out of that child deduction. Plus the wealthier you are, the more likely you'll have employees or other avenues for deductions.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Thats about where my parents are, and I consider us part of the last sliver of the middle class. We're fortunate enough to have a nice home in a nice city, we can afford to send me and my siblings to college with only $10-15,000 in loans each and we don't have to "worry" on a month to month basis about paying the bills. We can even afford to keep a small boat down at the lake. But man, we're nowhere near anything I'd consider "wealthy"
wait a 100k income for the entire house, how many kids?

Sorry but a couple kids, off too college without loads of debt and a boat, that is 'doing quite well'

It's a shame people can't take pride in that these days.
 
GaimeGuy said:
But we already have the lowest taxes in the civilized world, especially for the wealthy. By inductive reasoning, your logic implies taxes are higher here than elsewhere. Your presumption is false.

That's a pretty disingenuous statement. Many on the left love to just provide federal tax figures- when state and property taxes can be quite significant as well. Say if someone making 180K in some Bay Area or LA suburb. You got 33% federal income tax, 10% state, 3-4% property(California's are on the lower side- NY & NJ are more like 5-10%), so that person is already approaching 50%, which is fairly close to most western European standards.
 
catfish said:
wait a 100k income for the entire house, how many kids?

Sorry but a couple kids, off too college without loads of debt and a boat, that is 'doing quite well'

It's a shame people can't take pride in that these days.
Dat cribs-effect.
 
Something Wicked said:
That's a pretty disingenuous statement. Many on the left love to just provide federal tax figures- when state and property taxes can be quite significant as well. Say if someone making 180K in some Bay Area or LA suburb. You got 33% federal income tax, 10% state, 3-4% property(California's are on the lower side- NY & NJ are more like 5-10%), so that person is already approaching 50%, which is fairly close to most western European standards.

When people quote European standards, are they speaking only at their equivalent of the federal income taxes or all taxes combined? Just looking for apples to apples here.
 
Something Wicked said:
That's a pretty disingenuous statement. Many on the left love to just provide federal tax figures- when state and property taxes can be quite significant as well. Say if someone making 180K in some Bay Area or LA suburb. You got 33% federal income tax, 10% state, 3-4% property(California's are on the lower side- NY & NJ are more like 5-10%), so that person is already approaching 50%, which is fairly close to most western European standards.
Your example is disingenuous as well.

That hypothetical isn't paying close to 50% of $180k when you factor in the federal deductions for the taxes you listed and take into account the marginal tax rate.
 
zomgbbqftw said:
Because the person who pays all the tax would just leave. Quite simple really. People and corporations don't exist to be taxed.

6xoZN.gif


thread picked up a tad more over these last 6 hours. Will read later.
 
venne said:
Your example is disingenuous as well.

That hypothetical isn't paying close to 50% of $180k when you factor in the federal deductions for the taxes you listed and take into account the marginal tax rate.

Look. When you come in here with your facts and shit, how do you expect the guy to make an argument for his viewpoint??
 
catfish said:
wait a 100k income for the entire house, how many kids?

Sorry but a couple kids, off too college without loads of debt and a boat, that is 'doing quite well'

It's a shame people can't take pride in that these days.
Forgive me for thinking that if a family that does "quite well" is one that only takes out 15 grand in loans for a child's education and one that just makes enough money that they don't live in fear of being unable to pay their expenses each month then something somewhere is fucked up.

With the exception of the boat (which doesn't cost us that much each year actually) the standard of living I was raised in should not be uncommon.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Forgive me for thinking that if a family that does "quite well" is one that only takes out 15 grand in loans for a child's education and one that just makes enough money that they don't live in fear of being unable to pay their expenses each month then something somewhere is fucked up.

With the exception of the boat (which doesn't cost us that much each year actually) the standard of living I was raised in should not be uncommon.
It must floor you that 50% of households in the US bring in less than $50,221 (2009 median income).

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
 
venne said:
It must floor you that 50% of households in the US bring in less than $50,221 (2009 median income).

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
It doesn't floor me, but I think that it sucks. You want to know what really drove home to me how shitty stuff is financially in the US in general? There were some graphs released a few months ago, even discussed on GAF, that laid out the rough net worth brackets for the country. By my estimation my family falls into the top 15-20% of the country, based on rough valuation of our house and income.

That's fucked up. If you had asked me before I would have guessed maybe top 40%. That, more then anything else, convinced me of how much of a wealth imbalance problem we have. Not even in terms of raw money but in terms of the kind of lifestyle that I was raised in.
 
The_Technomancer said:
It doesn't floor me, but I think that it sucks. You want to know what really drove home to me how shitty stuff is financially in the US in general? There were some graphs released a few months ago, even discussed on GAF, that laid out the rough net worth brackets for the country. By my estimation my family falls into the top 15-20% of the country, based on rough valuation of our house and income.

That's fucked up. If you had asked me before I would have guessed maybe top 40%. That, more then anything else, convinced me of how much of a wealth imbalance problem we have.

Your family owns a house? You guys are doing well!
 
The_Technomancer said:
It doesn't floor me, but I think that it sucks. You want to know what really drove home to me how shitty stuff is financially in the US in general? There were some graphs released a few months ago, even discussed on GAF, that laid out the rough net worth brackets for the country. By my estimation my family falls into the top 15-20% of the country, based on rough valuation of our house and income.

That's fucked up. If you had asked me before I would have guessed maybe top 40%.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html


Figure_4.gif


The "estimated" is what americans think the wealth distribution is.

the "ideal" is what they think it should be.

In the "Actual" line, the bottom two quintiles are not visible because the lowest quintile owns just 0.1% of all wealth, and the second-lowest quintile owns 0.2%.
 
My family earns a total 50k (or used to), so we'd fall smack dab onto the average...

Except we're in Miami, so we're a lot closer to low-middle class than anything.
 
FlightOfHeaven said:
My family earns a total 50k (or used to), so we'd fall smack dab onto the average...

Except we're in Miami, so we're a lot closer to low-middle class than anything.
that puts you in the working class, not the middle class.

We tend to merge the two
 
basically, capitalists (super-rich) > rich > upper-middle class > middle class > working class > poor > impoverished

Most people in the working class and poor class think they're middle class.
I'm middle class and I feel llike I'm upper-middle or rich :P
 
zomgbbqftw said:
Because the person who pays all the tax would just leave. Quite simple really. People and corporations don't exist to be taxed.
Hahaha, so cute that you believe in economic theory (which is the biggest load of crap possible. Pretty much the whole discipline needs to die in a fire). Look at whats happening: corporations get huge tax breaks or even money from the government and they just wont stop outsourcing jobs! But hey, i bet that if you lower taxes some more they'll start creating those jobs any minute now!
 
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