Someone explain taxes to me

[Endus]

See now this all sounds nice, but doesn't really make any case whatsoever for someone who is legitimately wealthy having to pay more taxes than someone who is not. Someone earning $20,000 a year has just as much right to make use of government infrastructure as someone making $200,000 a year. Someone who earns $20,000 is entitled to precisely the same treatment from the military forces, as someone who earns $200,000. Someone who earns $20,000 can make use of the roads just as much as someone who earns $200,000. Someone earning $20,000 a year has just as much right to national healthcare as someone earning $200,000. Etcetera ad infinitum, as you say.

Not really true. Those who earn more typically consume more, and those products are shipped about on those transportation systems. You pay more in property taxes because your property is larger and worth more. Etc.

Everyone has to pay for what the government provides; why someone should pay more for making better, more intuitive and more efficient use of that which is provided however, is not a question for which there is a satisfactory answer. No taxes for the rich? Would never suggest it. No taxes for the poor? Absolutely not. Equal tax rates for all? Good move.

The issue with that is that the poor don't have money. So a flat tax means they're dealing with starvation and homelessness and lack of medicine and such.

The only way to get around that is if there's a guaranteed minimum income that's comfortable, and that's not the system we currently live under. Nor would that mean a reduction of taxes, it would mean an increase across the board.

The reason they tax the wealthy more is that it is not a burden on the wealthy, whereas it is on the poor. The alternative is being okay with more people starving to death and such. Civilized society doesn't see any reason why more people should starve to death so the wealthy can buy an extra sailboat.

To put it more simply via an analogy; two people are given a hammer by the state, both of which being exactly the same. One of those people devotes himself to mastering this tool; learning the art of carpentry and providing goods for a good deal of people who want them. The other person, sees little sense in undertaking any serious study, thinking it a pointless waste of time, and instead uses said hammer in freelance, poor quality DIY work. The state however, decides to take more from the carpenter. Not exactly fair.

It's not meant to be "fair". It's meant to be "equitable". The two terms are not interchangeable.

If you've got a taco truck, and you've got a special on where the 500th customer eats free, if two kids come running towards the truck after your 499th, and get there at the same time, you need to figure out which is getting free food. Let's say one of the kids looks like he's starving, his clothes are torn and he's clearly struggling. The other's a fat little butterball wearing designer clothes. The "fair" way to decide would be to flip a coin. The equitable way would be to tell the fat kid to wait a sec, and give the starving kid some free food.

Because that's what decent people do. The other kid's got plenty of money; he can afford to buy his own. The entire concept of social services is that the world is NOT fair, and there needs to be a social support system to account for that. If you dislike this, you're free to pack your bags and move to a nation that doesn't have any social protection programs whatsoever. That basically eliminates every 1st world nation, and most developing nations too. Good luck with that.

[Deleted]

The purpose of taxation is to raise money for the government, nothing more or less. However any sensible system of taxation only asks people to contribute according to their means.

Actually the best taxation systems are the ones where the majority of the population feel that the system is fair. How that fairness is defined varies from country to country. Most commonly politics is about tinkering with that fairness, towards one favoured group or the other. Achieving a balance where most people feel its fair is actually a better outcome than aiming to fix the system in one direction or the other.

Unless of course you live in modern day US where the concept of fair is an endangered one and arguments are increasingly polarised about helping one side or the other and co-operation is increasingly seen as a betrayal of your side.

[Magpai]

The issue with that is that the poor don't have money. So a flat tax means they're dealing with starvation and homelessness and lack of medicine and such.

A flat tax with a flat amount reduced from everyone's taxes, as in a constant freebate, would solve that. Well, it wouldn't solve homelessness but it would ensure that taxation did not contribute to it because only people above a certain income would pay anything.

[Deleted]

Well then it's easy to see why you're not a mod, since any forum worth a shit doesn't "warn" people for disagreeing with a "well-liked moderator". And it really doesn't matter, he fabricated a position on the quotee's behalf either way.

I was a Super Moderator of this very forum and an extremely active one at that, it was only because I stopped playing WoW for 2 years that I gave up my post. Endus did NOT "fabricate a position" the guy stated an extreme with no detail. To call out someone and accuse them of fabrication is unworthy. You are basically calling Endus a liar.

[Magpai]

Actually the best taxation systems are the ones where the majority of the population feel that the system is fair.

Because if there's one thing people can be trusted to be fair and objective about, it's how much of their money versus other people's money should be taken...

[Endus]

A flat tax with a flat amount reduced from everyone's taxes, as in a constant freebate, would solve that. Well, it wouldn't solve homelessness but it would ensure that taxation did not contribute to it because only people above a certain income would pay anything.

To prevent it impacting negatively on people lives, that lowest level of tax freedom needs to be pretty much where it already is, since that's set based on the poverty line. After that point, it scales upwards with income, not directly linearly but not egregiously punitively, either.

Flax taxes don't work, because income levels aren't flat either. And again; "fairness" isn't a concept that applies to taxation. It's not fair, it's not intended to be fair. It's intended to be equitable.

Edit: also, the "almost half the country doesn't pay income tax" thing? That's basically false. Like shon237 below me points out, many of those people are paying payroll taxes, and we're talking about people whose yearly take-home is at or below the poverty line, to boot. They don't have money to TAKE.

Someone said "Robin Hood tax policies" earlier. Well, Robin Hood did his thing because King John was trying to levy taxes on people who had no money to begin with, and would suffer as a result. The purpose of the tax code is to minimize that kind of suffering wherever possible. Taxing the wealthy a few percent more is not in any way a burden or punishment to them.

[Paranoid Android]

Please. Almost half the country doesn't even pay income tax. And there's tax plans out there which make your income tax scale linearly, but with a constant chunk taken off, i.e. your tax could for example 0.15I - 1,500 where I is income. Minimal impact on the "poor". But it gets rejected.

It's not about the poor. It's about people who are perfectly capable of LIVING off their income and living fairly comfortably wanting anyone richer than them to pay as much as the government can squeeze from them.

---------- Post added 2013-02-05 at 01:48 AM ----------



"From each according to his means" is not the only sensible system.

---------- Post added 2013-02-05 at 01:49 AM ----------



Well then it's easy to see why you're not a mod, since any forum worth a shit doesn't "warn" people for disagreeing with a "well-liked moderator". And it really doesn't matter, he fabricated a position on the quotee's behalf either way.

You really have to stop watching Fox News and drinking the Kool-Aid points. The 47% myth has been so debunked its laughable. You know quite a few are old and say working poor who actually work but, yes even they have deductions such as claiming dependent or children or even young couples claiming a mortgage dedcution from a new home. Remember even corporations like GE, who paid no taxes last year or year before? The rich who actually can afford multiple accountants and tax lawyers milk the loopholes just as much so they don't pay their fair share.

Now unlike you, I will not paint a broad brush and say everyone who does not pay taxes are all upstanding citizens. Probably a good 10-20 percent of those could get jobs and pay taxes. Again I dont know the exact figure but I'm not blinded by Fox News like you are.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/15/sub...en-burman.html

[Magpai]

I was a Super Moderator of this very forum and an extremely active one at that, it was only because I stopped playing WoW for 2 years that I gave up my post. Endus did NOT "fabricate a position" the guy stated an extreme with no detail. To call out someone and accuse them of fabrication is unworthy. You are basically calling Endus a liar.

He did straw man the guy by implying that he was advocating total removal of government services. That's the position Erdus was arguing against anyway. You can try to pretend that me saying that is some sort of personal attack and imply that mod authority should be used to silence it all you want, all you're proving is that you shouldn't be a mod, at least not in conversations that you're involved in.

---------- Post added 2013-02-05 at 02:06 AM ----------

To prevent it impacting negatively on people lives, that lowest level of tax freedom needs to be pretty much where it already is, since that's set based on the poverty line. After that point, it scales upwards with income, not directly linearly but not egregiously punitively, either.

Flax taxes don't work, because income levels aren't flat either. And again; "fairness" isn't a concept that applies to taxation. It's not fair, it's not intended to be fair. It's intended to be equitable.

Income levels being flat? That has zero to do with it. A linear tax scale would ensure that higher income people pay a higher tax. Your idea of equitable is pretty ridiculous when you consider how many dollars a rich person pays in taxes compared to your median income earner.

[stuck4cash]

Not really true. Those who earn more typically consume more, and those products are shipped about on those transportation systems. You pay more in property taxes because your property is larger and worth more. Etc.

This is not true at all. At least in Australia, those with the lowest incomes also have the highest disposable income. I can see you thinking to yourself that it doesn't make sense, right?

Well, those that earn more also have bigger loans on properties, cars etc whereas those that are renting simply don't care about those things or saving or going on trips overseas (where it's basically "lost" since the government can't tax it and local employees don't get a share).

I think there's a wrong mentality that the government "takes" your money. You vote them in, you pay them, you use the infrastructure it provides. The government's money is YOUR money, it's basically forced saving.

You *could* argue that your politicians are being paid too much of your money, but that's another issue... (and unfortunately you don't get to vote on their pay).

[Magpai]

You really have to stop watching Fox News and drinking the Kool-Aid points. The 47% myth has been so debunked its laughable. You know quite a few are old and say working poor who actually work but, yes even they have deductions such as claiming dependent or children or even young couples claiming a mortgage dedcution from a new home. Remember even corporations like GE, who paid no taxes last year or year before? The rich who actually can afford multiple accountants and tax lawyers milk the loopholes just as much so they don't pay their fair share.

I don't care to get into a discussion about why those people don't pay taxes right now. The point is that the idea that we can't change our tax system because anyone who pays no net taxes cannot afford to and still survive is laughable. And your straw man about me watching Fox News is not worth the time to debunk, so enjoy your fabrication on that front.

[Endus]

He did straw man the guy by implying that he was advocating total removal of government services. That's the position Erdus was arguing against anyway.

No, it's not.

My position was that if you're going to claim the government is "stealing" from you (that's the clear implication behind using a term like "Robin Hood tax policy", since Robin Hood 'stole from the rich'), then it behooves you to remove yourself from that system, meaning both the obligation to pay AND the benefits you earn for citizenship and living in that nation/state/etc.

If you're not willing to remove yourself from the country in question, then you need to accept taxation and the realities that come from it. I wasn't claiming he was advocating that, I was saying that if he felt taxation was an unfair burden, he should see what life's like somewhere that doesn't tax people.

[Austilias]

Not really true. Those who earn more typically consume more, and those products are shipped about on those transportation systems. You pay more in property taxes because your property is larger and worth more. Etc.

All of which is founded on a particular economic premise; the more you use a service, the more you pay for it. This is not however, the only premise we see in life. Someone who spends 14 hours a day on WoW for example, does not incur a greater subscription fee than someone who plays for 4 hours a day. Someone who pays, say, $5 for a Subway sandwich for four days a week, does not have to pay more for their sandwich than someone who has a Subway sandwich once a month. As it happens, the former of these two premises is the one applied to taxes regarding roads/healthcare, etc, but the latter appears even at a glance, a good deal fairer.

The issue with that is that the poor don't have money. So a flat tax means they're dealing with starvation and homelessness and lack of medicine and such.

The only way to get around that is if there's a guaranteed minimum income that's comfortable, and that's not the system we currently live under. Nor would that mean a reduction of taxes, it would mean an increase across the board.

It depends where you live. Various countries have minimum wages, such as my native UK, and in such situations a balance is quite possible to strike regarding taxes.

The reason they tax the wealthy more is that it is not a burden on the wealthy, whereas it is on the poor. The alternative is being okay with more people starving to death and such. Civilized society doesn't see any reason why more people should starve to death so the wealthy can buy an extra sailboat.

That is commonly known as 'throwing the baby out of the bathwater'. "Tax the wealthy more or have blood on your hands."

It is quite possible to tax people equally whilst maintaining the liberty that keeps people free to spend their money as they please, as opposed to being told.

It's not meant to be "fair". It's meant to be "equitable". The two terms are not interchangeable.

If you've got a taco truck, and you've got a special on where the 500th customer eats free, if two kids come running towards the truck after your 499th, and get there at the same time, you need to figure out which is getting free food. Let's say one of the kids looks like he's starving, his clothes are torn and he's clearly struggling. The other's a fat little butterball wearing designer clothes. The "fair" way to decide would be to flip a coin. The equitable way would be to tell the fat kid to wait a sec, and give the starving kid some free food.

No reason to believe they cannot both have equal shares, nor is the extreme comparison of starvation vs gluttony particularly relevant. Few poor people in the Western world are literally starving, nor are the wealthy comprised of obese epicureans.

Because that's what decent people do. The other kid's got plenty of money; he can afford to buy his own. The entire concept of social services is that the world is NOT fair, and there needs to be a social support system to account for that. If you dislike this, you're free to pack your bags and move to a nation that doesn't have any social protection programs whatsoever. That basically eliminates every 1st world nation, and most developing nations too. Good luck with that.

If the world is not fair, the solution is not to have an unfair system. Whether one would call that defeatism or a vicious circle, is a debate in which both sides would win.

[Magpai]

This is not true at all. At least in Australia, those with the lowest incomes also have the highest disposable income.

The US of A trends in this direction too (though "the highest" is a bit far, for us anyway).

[Deleted]

He did straw man the guy by implying that he was advocating total removal of government services. That's the position Erdus was arguing against anyway. You can try to pretend that me saying that is some sort of personal attack and imply that mod authority should be used to silence it all you want, all you're proving is that you shouldn't be a mod, at least not in conversations that you're involved in.

Indeed I'd never have used moderator privileges for conversations I'd participated in unless the person was demonstrably breaking the more serious rules. You were not. It wasn't because you disagreed but because you were calling him out for not arguing a point when the person quoted never actually made detailed points to refute.

My point was that calling someone out for something he couldn't possibly have done was unfair, to compound that by implying he lied was worthy of a warning. Such a warning would only ever have been done in private and simply as a nudge to ask you to respect others whilst disagreeing with them. Debate is healthy, steering debate and preventing it becoming a personal attack is precisely the job of a moderator. THAT was my point.

[Jayburner]

why should you get explained when the rest of don't really know? huh? what makes you so damn special we all have to learn from you when you find out this? fuck sorry but i hate taxes.

[Herrenos]

It's hard to want to trust the government when they tell you they need more of your money, given their track record. For every success there's two failures. That's my biggest problem with the punitive taxation on the rich - it's wasting money.

I think it would be better to let the rich who earned it keep most of their money. Instead just implement a 95% inheritance tax so their kids who already have a big jump on life from being born into a rich family have to earn their own success. Same revenues to the government, more incentive to make money.

[Endus]

This is not true at all. At least in Australia, those with the lowest incomes also have the highest disposable income. I can see you thinking to yourself that it doesn't make sense, right?

Well, those that earn more also have bigger loans on properties, cars etc whereas those that are renting simply don't care about those things or saving or going on trips overseas (where it's basically "lost" since the government can't tax it and local employees don't get a share).

You don't seem to understand concepts like "equity" and "property ownership". Plus, I guarantee that the only reason middle-class people are feeling that much of a pinch is because they're living beyond their means, not because taxes are punitive; if they lived in the same apartments as those on welfare, and used the same kind of transportation, they'd have far more disposable income than the people on welfare. You can't ignore how they USE that disposable income, on buying cars and investing in housing, when making that comparison.

Unless your net income after income tax always lowers as your gross income increases, then no, your claim is simply not true.

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 09:23 PM ----------

That is commonly known as 'throwing the baby out of the bathwater'. "Tax the wealthy more or have blood on your hands."

It is quite possible to tax people equally whilst maintaining the liberty that keeps people free to spend their money as they please, as opposed to being told.

I have no idea what you're talking about here, since in every first world nation that I know of, that's exactly how things play out. There is no dearth of "liberty" because people are being taxed on income. That's malarkey.

It isn't "your" money. Taxes paid to the government are the government's money. Not yours. That's why trying to avoid paying it is illegal.

No reason to believe they cannot both have equal shares, nor is the extreme comparison of starvation vs gluttony particularly relevant. Few poor people in the Western world are literally starving, nor are the wealthy comprised of obese epicureans.

You grossly underestimate the issue. In 2011 in the US (I know you're in the UK, but I know this study was done in the US, not sure anything similar was done in the UK), almost 15% of households were "food insecure". That means that at some point during the year, they couldn't get enough food.

So yes, it's relevant. I'm not making stuff up; this is what's actually happening. I'm a teacher. I've worked in schools where they have a milk program for schoolkids. Why do they have a milk program? Because some of those kids wouldn't ever get any milk otherwise. Because they're too poor and can't afford it.

It's a major freaking issue. People in the Western world ARE literally starving.

If the world is not fair, the solution is not to have an unfair system.

Yes it is. That's how equitable systems work. They try and counterbalance unfairness. The alternative is to say "well, if you can't afford food, you should starve", and that's not acceptable.

[Magpai]

My position was that if you're going to claim the government is "stealing" from you (that's the clear implication behind using a term like "Robin Hood tax policy", since Robin Hood 'stole from the rich'

It's more a comment about the government using taxes as a means to redistribute wealth.

then it behooves you to remove yourself from that system, meaning both the obligation to pay AND the benefits you earn for citizenship and living in that nation/state/etc.

The person you had quoted wasn't saying this, it was jsut an opinion you assigned to them, hence the straw man.

[Kujako]

The ironic part is that the rich tend to pay a lower tax rate due to capital gains and a strong loby getting them write offs.

[Azaril]

I am asking about taxes taken from paychecks.

(These numbers are slight estimates and not exact)

So I get paid weekly. In a 30 hour week, making 10.50 an hour, I only get $275 from the $315 I was supposed to make. Around 12% taken out.

My boyfriend who gets paid every two weeks, clocked in 88 hours, 8 of them being overtime, making 10.50 an hour, only gets around $750 of the $950ish he earned. Over 20% is taken out.

Why the huge difference?

Since no one actually answered your question, i will.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf

Go down to page 45.

if you work 30 hours at 10.50, your income is 315, your weekly tax liability filing single with 0 dependents is $32

Go to page 50
Your boyfriend is 80 x 10.50 + 8 *1.5*10.50 or 840 + 126 or $956. The tax liability filing single with 0 dependents is $113

Your liability is roughly 10.1% and his is 11.8%

There are other deductions from your paycheck such as medicare (4.2%) and social security (6.4%) that will also reduce your take home pay.