A flat tax.

[Deleted]

This doesn't follow though. What you end up doing is taxing the poor for almost everything as they spend their entire pay check and the rich for a very small amount (as percentage of wealth) as most of their money goes unspent.

The best way to tax is through a variety, from sales, income, and property.

And again I question you; why should the rich (who has worked for his wealth, who has invested in his wealth, who is clearly superior and therefore wealthier) pay for the lower, incompetent working class?

[drake741]

Yea i saw.

But you didn't acknowledge any understanding of disposable income, inflation or applying monetary values to real term representation of wealth.

That is why your pure math fails in an economic thread.

What I am shocked by is how I can say "Yes, those two numbers are different. I understand why." and the reply I get is "No, you don't because [lists exact principle I just said I understood and gave examples of]"

Why does my pure math, which has been called fail and wrong several times so far, not equal your pure math that you tag as economic because it includes dollar signs?

I think the real issue in this thread that has retarded true discussion is the pride held by several of the posters that get too energized by the thought that someone dare claim they are wrong when really their posts are tangential to the discussion as a whole, and only sought to provide clarity. Here are some names to be clear: Wells, Papalenin, and wooshiewoo.

I don't think you can stand possibly being wrong, not even that I am saying you are wrong. See my signature. I fully support your right to have your opinions, even if I disagree with them, which I don't necessarily. Its just that your pride has gotten in the way of discussion.

Math and figures are correct and objective. Interpretation of fair, unfair, right, wrong, just, or unjust are subjective, and are the things of opinion and reason. I cannot /facepalm hard enough at you all for choosing me as a challenger when I was not here to fight at all.

I wash my hands of this thread, and all the single-minded folk who post in it. Please continue to not read my posts that are clear, for the most part concise, and not in support of a flat tax. I only realize after typing the previous sentence that my worries are unfounded, since you clearly have not read a single one from top to bottom yet.

[Wells]

And again I question you; why should the rich (who has worked for his wealth, who has invested in his wealth, who is clearly superior and therefore wealthier) pay for the lower, incompetent working class?

I'm not answering this.

Does drake understand now?

[TobyKenobi]

So what about those people that go to school, get their master's degrees or higher, have 100,000s in loans to pay back, lose their well paying job but have a family to support so they take any menially job they can to get by. How should they be taxed.

Why should people that aren't able to go to school (for whatever reason) or lose their high paying job (again for whatever reason) be penalized MORE than people that are fortunate enough to be successful with money?



And how do you propose people pay for said schooling?

Unless you are lucky enough to have a scholarship that pays for everything, or parents rich enough to pay the tuition for you, it takes lots and lots of money to get a decent degree. Especially now that to get a decent job you really need to have your master's and not just a bachelor's degree.

I got a decent degree through military service. Really one of the only options for middle class who don't make enough money to pay out of pocket but make too much to qualify for scholarships.

[shockpally]

A flat tax for everyone would be more fair. Right now the poor dont care about how much other income brackets are taxed because they dont pay taxes, yet they get the majority of tax payer funded programs. They really dont care how much the middle class or the rich pay in taxes as long as they get their social programs funded. They have no incentive to do better or build a better life for themselves and are basically an economic sponge.

Throw in a large influx of illegal aliens who for the most part dont pay taxes and soak up social program funding also and the tax system is doubly stressed.

---------- Post added 2011-04-08 at 01:15 AM ----------

I got a decent degree through military service. Really one of the only options for middle class who don't make enough money to pay out of pocket but make too much to qualify for scholarships.

This is why we have student loans. I was in the same boat as you are/were but i went to a cheaper city university and didnt stay on campus for the same degree as other more expensive universities with almost no loans.

[bringitback]

There's nothing wrong with the theory behind income tax as the main source of revenue for a gov. The problems begin when you let non Accountants/CPA's build and manage our tax system. When you let the crooked politicians play regulator you end up with what we have know, a 4million word tax code. Most of the people in congress dont know shit about accounting, yet they are the ones who call the shots when it comes to our tax revenue collection system. I wonder why that is..

[Welgard]

A flat tax for everyone would be more fair. Right now the poor dont care about how much other income brackets are taxed because they dont pay taxes, yet they get the majority of tax payer funded programs. They really dont care how much the middle class or the rich pay in taxes as long as they get their social programs funded. They have no incentive to do better or build a better life for themselves and are basically an economic sponge.

Throw in a large influx of illegal aliens who for the most part dont pay taxes and soak up social program funding also and the tax system is doubly stressed.

Granted, I don't agree with a lot of the social programs out there. But the issue is that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. The standard of living for the lowest income bracket and the middle class has dropped considerably over the past 50 years.

If you were to go with a flat tax of any percentage, there have already been plenty of examples in this thread of how the poor would have zero disposable income, and eventually get in debt if inflation continues to scale faster than minimum wage. There are two things you can do with disposable income. You can spend it to have a higher standard of living or more non-necessity, luxury products, or you can invest it or save it. By having considerably more disposable income regardless of how steep a progressive tax system is, the rich will always have significantly more disposable income at hand. They can blow that on yachts or whatever they want, or they can invest it, and use it to generate more money. Investment right now is the only way to stay ahead of inflation, so that you aren't actually losing money by holding on to it.

There have been a few people posting that the rich worked harder to get where they are, why should they get taxed more? That's just a complete joke. For every one of the richest people in the world, you can find someone that worked harder than them, or was smarter, or had a better invention, but they didn't have luck on their side, or know the right people, so they didn't make it big. You honestly expect me to believe that Bobby Kotick works harder than CEOs in similar positions for other companies, that make less than a tenth of what he makes? The amount of money that a rich person makes is way out of proportion to what their advantage is in terms of how hard they work or what they know.

Yes, Bill Gates has made some amazing charitable donations, some of the largest of all time. It also meant that he spent nothing in taxes that year though, since they were all writeoffs. Each person that isn't in his shoes could say what sort of charitable things they would do if they had his kind of money, but you have no idea what you'd actually do unless you were honestly there.

But the question is, at what point is enough enough? So some billionaire buys a twelfth yacht, and you know what? The entire reason he has that much disposable income is that he profits off of all the hard-working people that earn less, that provide stability to the system.