On 9-Sep-2008, at 09:02, Charles Bennett wrote: > the top 20 percent of taxpayers – those earning more than roughly > $71,000 in 2004 – now pay over 80 percent of all the income taxes.
Yes, and that's a good thing. And the top 2% should pay an even larger share. McSame wants to give people making $3 million a year a $270,000 tax break. What is interesting to me is that between 65,000 and 110,000 Obama's paln gives a slight advantage over McSame. McSame's plan is all about helping the richest, while Obama's is about giving more of a break to the bottom 80% of taxpayers. Sure, the richest pay more, but they have more to pay. If some family is earning $50,000 a year, as most are, their basic expanses eat up a far larger percentage of that $50,000 than someone who is making $500,000 or someone making $5,000,000. They don't have left over money to pay taxes, and taxes are already a huge burden on them that eat up as much as 25% of their $50,000 (between sales taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes, vehicle taxes, etc). > <http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html> And what's your point? More poor people should be paying taxes? More minimum wage single mom's should be "paying their share"? In point of fact, I think the fact that ONLY 90 million Americans (which includes about 40 million children) pay 0 income tax is a poor reflection on our country. The estimated total of 121 million, if accurate, is closer to ideal (50%). I don't believe it though. NO ONE I know, other than me, paid 0 in taxes last year (I lost a bundle on my business and closed up shop). Most people paid between 1,000 and 7,000. My brother paid well over $15,000. I have a friend who delivers pizza. His income was something like $26,000 and he owed something like $1200. You know what would be interesting, how many of those 0 tax payers own homes valued at more than 500,000. Or more than 1,000,000. > Obama's tax cuts in the middle are more evenly distributed. The red/ > blue argument boils down to who is creating jobs and wealth. If you > believe the red argument then increasing taxes at the top will slow > capital investments, slow hiring and reduce growth. If you believe > the blue argument, the top will not "notice" the change enough to > matter and the middle will be better off with more money to spend, > driving growth with demand. > > I'm on the red side. I think that Obama doesn't take into account > the small business owners and farmers in the 200k range that get > trapped into looking well off on paper (thus being hurt by his tax > increases) but don't actually have a lot of disposable income. You > increase the taxes on a small business owner, they are NOT going to > eat it. They are going to raise their prices to make of the > difference. The next thing you know, the blue side is arguing for > an increase in minimum wage (since prices have gone up..) and we > start the circle over again. The only part of that argument that is reasonable is the minimum wage angle. Raising minimum wage indiscriminately is foolish. However, that has almost never happened. The minimum wage has just recently gone up, and is still well under the true minimum (Most low-level fast food jobs can be had at $8.25/hr or more around here, and more on the coasts). However, keeping the minimum wage artificially low, as it has been since Reagan, is just as foolish, if not more. > No one is *actually* ever better off this way, but it does get you > elected. > > I also don't believe that his tax increases can be limited to the > ranges he says and still manage to implement the social programs he > is in favor of so I suspect he will "discover" different > circumstances if he gets elected. I still say the ideal tax structure would be to completely eliminate personal income tax and simply tax all businesses at some percentage (2%? 5%?) of GROSS income. (Every dollar you accept, the government gets a nickel) It would never happen since the government loves to use taxes as carrot/stick and this wouldn't given them much leeway. But it would put the tax where it belongs and everyone would be paying it every time they paid for anything, anyway. It would also make collection much easier, and cheaper. It would eliminate 95% of the IRS and hundreds of millions a year in collection related activities, writing opaque tax code, and auditing people. -- showing snuffy is when Sesame Street jumped the shark _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
