Most Americans say the rich don't pay enough taxes

[Skroe]

Yes, and we should have a national sales tax and capital gains should be taxed at exactly income-tax levels... none of this "compromise" 25% B.S.

Sorry... Taxes are the maintenance fee for living in a modern, advanced industrialized country. They're our patriotic duty. Don't be cheap.

[Toxigen]

This is why we should be taxing people on what they spend, not what they earn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

[Linkedblade]

There are quite a few problems with the idea that "The Rich Should Pay More Taxes."

1- You shouldn't make groups of people. You shouldn't say that group A, with characteristics x,y, and z, should be taxed and group B should not. Laws if necessary should affect an individual.

2- Why should anyone be taxed? We had a decent economy and a few booms before the XVI Amendment.

3- People should be allowed to keep the fruit of their labor. No matter what your income level is, you have the right to property and wealth.

4- Why does the Government need our taxes anyway?

[Stasso]

Tax their companies even if they are international companies. Stop all those companies from making ghost offices in Switzerland and such, that is where the money is being lost.

[anveena]

Of course the rich need to be paying more, someone has to pay for all these social programs.

[Toxigen]

4- Why does the Government need our taxes anyway?

Really? The list is way too long to put here, but let's just start with schools and national defense...is that enough?

[Daelak]

I don't see how using social programs invalidates one's point-of-view in any way.

Sure, you could say that out of pride people ought not to take hand outs, and I might agree with you, but to say that not taking hand outs is necessary for the integrity of their view point is ridiculous.

If someone came into your store, robbed you blind, and later returned a small portion of the money they stole in already purchased goods which you didn't get to select, would you argue that the person who'd been robbed was morally bankrupting themselves or compromising their ideals by consuming these goods while still hunting for the thief?

This is what government does. It robs you blind (I think the only thing Canadians pay more of than taxes is rent) and then uses your money to buy you things you'd probably have purchased differently had you purchased of your own volition, and then its supporters/apologists use the fact that you're consuming goods bought with your stolen money as proof positive that you need the state and that speaking out against it is hypocrisy.

Additionally, the state supporters/state apologists justify ever-expanding government with the assumption of the legitimacy of the first theft.

At one point, there was no government, and then the government came along and stole from people to provision some goods or services. The statists latched onto this and cried that because no one else was providing this good which the government was forcing people to pay for whether they wanted it or not, that only government could provide it, and that therefore the state was owed for this provision, and could ask more to do more.

Imagine you're robbed blind as per above. And the thief buys you some food. You eat the food and because you were robbed you only have enough money to buy drinks (not more food).

The statist comes up to you and says -- despite the fact you could've fed your family many times over with the robbed money -- "see, without government you would starve, the government ought to be able to take more from you to provision you with drink", a cycle which continues forever with the statist using the supposed "success" of the former government programs, and their supposed necessity to justify further theft and further supposedly irreplaceable programs.

You have lived in a first world country your entire life. Your entire post is dripping with fucking irony. If it wasn't for your first world mixed (read: socialist and capitalist) you wouldn't even have the education level or the reading level to read about your little ideology.

[Linkedblade]

Yes, and we should have a national sales tax and capital gains should be taxed at exactly income-tax levels... none of this "compromise" 25% B.S.

Sorry... Taxes are the maintenance fee for living in a modern, advanced industrialized country. They're our patriotic duty. Don't be cheap.

NO! The fact that you believe that the government can maintain anything makes you a fool. Give me an example of a single Government program that has succeeded since our Constitution indoctrination.

Leave it to the Free Market. Government should stay what it is and should be by the Constitution. Anything else should be cut. All the cabinet departments should be slashed and are complete failures. Departments of Justice, Commerce, Education, HUD, Interior are all useless, ineffective and a waste of taxpayer money; and that is to say the least.

---------- Post added 2012-08-28 at 02:17 PM ----------

Really? The list is way too long to put here, but let's just start with schools and national defense...is that enough?

The only thing our government is allowed to levy taxes for is National Defense. Anything else is a waste.

[Laize]

You mean ordinary income, right? It's already taxed as income, just capital gains income.

Anyway, there are plenty of good reasons why capital gains tax should be lower than ordinary income since there's inherent risk associated with investments that produce capital gains income and, in theory, these investments create jobs.

As to the original post:

I'm hardly surprised that most of the 90% think the remaining 10% should pay more taxes

Oh let's be serious here.

Capital losses can be written off to offset earned income up to $3000 with the remainder being counted against next year's gains.

That means that while the deduction comes straight out of earned income (if you only sell investments that are down) especially if you carry the loss forward to next year (Which the wealthy do) then you might only pay 15% on 6 or 7 figure sales.

The idea of capital gains being taxed at a lower marginal rate is great in theory for retirees, but utter horseshit for corporate officers who get sold stock at discounted rates who then write it in their ledgers at book value and sell it a year later. For example, Tim Cook might be granted 10.000 shares of Apple stock in lieu of cash payment. He writes that on his books for $120 (book value) and pays marginal tax rate of 35% for $1.5 million ($525,000). A year from now Apple's stock is at $500 (a 25% decline from today's value). He still gets to sell the 10.000 shares he bought a year earlier for $3.8 million. It's been over a year so it's now subject to capital gains. He's already paid tax on the $1.5 million and now must pay the 15% tax on the new $2.3 million ($345,000). In total, his effective tax rate is 22%. And that's with the stock going DOWN by 25%.

Don't try and claim "risk" this and "investment" that. I do this shit for a living. The capital gains tax rate is utter horse shit for everyone but the retired.

[Drainedsoul]

You have lived in a first world country your entire life. Your entire post is dripping with fucking irony. If it wasn't for your first world mixed (read: socialist and capitalist) you wouldn't even have the education level or the reading level to read about your little ideology.

Actually I would.

You see? I can just assert things as though they are self-evident truth also.

You are a cake, I am ice cream.

The act of saying such things does not make them true, nor does it mean that people ought to believe them.

[Logonov]

4- Why does the Government need our taxes anyway?

The vast majority of things you use in your daily life (such as the computer you just typed on) were created by the government through taxpayers. Your Government does need some money to actually function. My issue is more how it's used rather than how im taxed.

[Skroe]

NO! The fact that you believe that the government can maintain anything makes you a fool. Give me an example of a single Government program that has succeeded since our Constitution indoctrination.

Leave it to the Free Market. Government should stay what it is and should be by the Constitution. Anything else should be cut. All the cabinet departments should be slashed and are complete failures. Departments of Justice, Commerce, Education, HUD, Interior are all useless, ineffective and a waste of taxpayer money; and that is to say the least.[COLOR="red"]

Here's one:

The Apollo Program.

You lost before you were even born.


Big Government doing big work.

[Daelak]

There are quite a few problems with the idea that "The Rich Should Pay More Taxes."

1- You shouldn't make groups of people. You shouldn't say that group A, with characteristics x,y, and z, should be taxed and group B should not. Laws if necessary should affect an individual.

2- Why should anyone be taxed? We had a decent economy and a few booms before the XVI Amendment.

3- People should be allowed to keep the fruit of their labor. No matter what your income level is, you have the right to property and wealth.

4- Why does the Government need our taxes anyway?

Another person who has been deluded into an ideology that has never existed and will never exist, and the only reason you learned of this ideology is because you live in a first world country with a mixed economy and a strong central government.

Funny shit.

[strangerdanger]

I don't understand your question. Should they pay more than they do now or should the pay more than everyone else?

I think it should be a straight even tax percentage across the board. Seems pretty fair to me.

If you make >1 mil/year you should pay the same % tax as someone that makes <30k.

[conscript]

The only thing our government is allowed to levy taxes for is National Defense. Anything else is a waste.

So every road in the country should be a toll road?

[Daelak]

Actually I would.

You see? I can just assert things as though they are self-evident truth also.

You are a cake, I am ice cream.

The act of saying such things does not make them true, nor does it mean that people ought to believe them.

You believe that taxation is theft and that there is no better system than a free market and a small government (whatever the fuck that means). All first world countries (read: most freedom) have high taxation levels and are part of robust mixed economies with a strong central government. Your ideology doesn't exist in the real world.

[Reeve]

Let me be clear.

I vote yes ONLY because of the rich who get paid through capital gains. That shit needs to be taxed as income.

I think we can agree on that. 35% on all income regardless of whether it's capital gains or not and a removal of stupid deductions would be nice. Get rid of the home mortgage interest deduction to start.

[Drainedsoul]

The vast majority of things you use in your daily life (such as the computer you just typed on) were created by the government through taxpayers.

Which means absolutely nothing.

Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone, do you suppose that had he never lived we would be unable to carry on long distance voice conversations with the aid of some electronic implement?

---------- Post added 2012-08-28 at 11:24 AM ----------

You believe that taxation is theft and that there is no better system than a free market and a small government (whatever the fuck that means). All first world countries (read: most freedom) have high taxation levels and are part of robust mixed economies with a strong central government. Your ideology doesn't exist in the real world.

Which means absolutely nothing.

[Daelak]

Which means absolutely nothing.

Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone, do you suppose that had he never lived we would be unable to carry on long distance voice conversations with the aid of some electronic implement?

---------- Post added 2012-08-28 at 11:24 AM ----------



Which means absolutely nothing.

What doesn't mean anything? Oh your ideology, ah yes we all know libertarians and minarchists believe in something that has never left a sheet of paper.

[Appletini]

3 easy steps to start fixing the American political system:

1. Campaign finance reform, including a reversal of citizen's united
2. Restore the top marginal tax rates to 1980s levels
3. Modify capital gains tax rate to change relative to the amount of income from capital gains vs. ordinary income

A guy named Beavis won this thread on the first page.

Anyone who says, "I don't want to pay for handouts" or "Government should only be used to support the military" is incredibly shortsighted and thoughtless. You shouldn't be allowed to have an equal vote to people who actually consider the full complexity of these issues. Democracy is a farce because of you people.