a question about taxing high income individuals

[akelch]

Gotta love our tax code.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

1. question 1 is irrelevant because they POSSESS the largest proportion of the wealth in this country.

Dear, taxes are paid on income not on wealth. If someone pays his taxes and saves his money he accumulates wealth. If someone pays his taxes and blows his money he does not accumulte wealth.

To steal the wealth of the saver is Nazi-like. Since S=I ( savings equals investment) stealing his savings is merely stupid, liberal, and depressing to the economy. Of course as a liberal you will find that way way over your head.

 

[Rshermr]

So, eflat asks:

Three questions:
1) Which country has their top 1% of earners paying a larger proportion of the overall tax burden than America?
2) What percentage of Americans do you think should not have to pay any federal income tax? More than pay no fed tax now or less?
3) Since you clearly advocate for higher taxes on wealthy people, what do you think the result of higher tax rates will be?

1. question 1 is irrelevant because they POSSESS the largest proportion of the wealth in this country.

Another one that thinks wealth is a finite pile of cash from which we all must draw. That, or your envy is showing.

How insulting you try to be, eh, eflat. Everyone knows what wealth is. Do you have some proof of that stupid statement? And the envy card you just played is stupid. It also tells us a lot about you. The envy statement is a talking point used by every right wing talking head out there. And it is used by no one else. So, you are insultive and a con tool.
Your question is naive. All other industrialized nations have two things different from the US. One, a large portion of their taxes go to pay for health insurance. Health insurance, for everyone, is less expensive in any of these countries than here, but it is a tax. And second, the wealth of their top 1% is less. So, difficult to compare. Do you have a point? Are you suggesting that we should have federal managed health care insurance?

Quote:
2. question 2 is irrelevant unless you're willing to say that old people on social security and people deployed and serving our country should pay income tax.

Half the country is not old or serving. What about everyone else that does not pay federal income tax. You were saying something about fair???

Guess that eflat is simply solisciting opinions so that he can insult anyone who he does not agree with.
Here is the thing, eflat. Most of the remainder of the folks not paying taxes, after military, unemployed, retired, medically incapable of work, ARE working and ARE paying taxes to the federal gov. The stats are that the 1% pay about 23% to 28% if akk taxes when you include social security, excise taxes, and corporate taxes.
PolitiFact | Michele Bachmann says top 1 percent pay 40 percent of all federal taxes
And, by the way, the top 1% receive about 21% of all income. so, not quite as lop sided as you would like us to believe.
Income inequality: 1 percent still going strong - CBS News
Quote:
3. i think a RETURN to the same tax rates they paid previously is an irrelevancy. They paid it then. They'll pay it now.. and it's still lower than tax rates when Reagan was president.

Sure, they'll pay them, only less so. Just as the UK learned last week, raising tax rates on the wealthy usually results in LESS revenue. So, why would you want to raise taxes if it isn't going to raise revenues? Envy again?

First of, eflat, you forgot to mention that the uk tax rate was rased to 50%. With way less tax deductions than in the US Code. So, lots of millionaires moved their tax earnings, and or themselves, to other locations. Not a 4% increase to 39%, where we have been before. See the difference, eflat.
And there is that envy statement again. Been listening to Rush again??
So, any cases where tax increases in this country have decreased revenue??

And by the way, when Reagan was President, we passed the Tax Reform Act, which took tax rates to 15 and 28 percent.

eflat, you are aiming at misleading. Lets look at that statement. Because, it is a great way of misleading without actually lying. Reagan lowered the taxes to the rates you say, in 1988, The last year of his presidency. But they only stayed in place for 3 years. In 1991 the rates were back to where they were before reagan lowered them. Because, as you also did not mention, the economy went down hill.
You may remember the clinton saying, used during the campaign over and over. It was "It's the economy, stupid." It was because reagan left his successor and ex vice president, the first bush, with an economic problem that put him in a bad situation. So, Clinton ran on raising tax rates, faught the repubs who faught him with everything they had and they promiced us all an economic disaster. But he did raise the taxes. To the same level as is now proposed. And had the best economy for his presidency that any president has had in decades. Lowered unemployment. Raised GNP. And ended with the economy in a DEFICIT for the first time in forever. So, why was it that you were so worried about that tax increase?? Could it be because your con heroes said you should be against it??
U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History, 1913-2011 (Nominal and Inflation-Adjusted Brackets) | Tax Foundation

The current highest tax rate is 35%...heading higher next year.

And again, can you document why we should all be afraid. Very afraid.

 

[blastoff]

Please help me understand this:
The main argument AGAINST raising taxes on incomes over $250k is that it would hit small business owners. They'd have less money to pay salaries and they'd cut hiring and the US
would loose jobs. Seems to make sense.
But, salaries are a business expense. They're paid with pretax dollars. A tax increase on incomes over $250k would not impact money used to pay salaries. It would only impact the owners salary. No?

example: assume a business has revenues of $1M /year and their only expense is salaries and thats $300k/year. The owner of the business takes home each year $700k in profit.
Now the tax increase goes thru. It does NOT decrease the money available to pay salaries.
The $1M is left alone. It ONLY impacts the $700k in profit that the owner gets.
It appears the proposed tax increase would NOT affect jobs.

What am I missing?????

For starters you're missing a basic understanding of accounting, Business 101, etc. Here's but one problem. If the owner's annually "taking home" $700k then that's salary and a very neat trick when factoring in other salaries on revenue of only $1M.

 

[DiamondDave]

you mean like deployed military personnel?

old people on social security?

who's not paying their fair share?

besides the top 1%, that is...

Three questions:
1) Which country has their top 1% of earners paying a larger proportion of the overall tax burden than America?
2) What percentage of Americans do you think should not have to pay any federal income tax? More than pay no fed tax now or less?
3) Since you clearly advocate for higher taxes on wealthy people, what do you think the result of higher tax rates will be?

1. question 1 is irrelevant because they POSSESS the largest proportion of the wealth in this country.
2. question 2 is irrelevant unless you're willing to say that old people on social security and people deployed and serving our country should pay income tax.
3. i think a RETURN to the same tax rates they paid previously is an irrelevancy. They paid it then. They'll pay it now.. and it's still lower than tax rates when Reagan was president.

So why are you taking a position on something that has no bearing on your life?

We do not tax possession.. we tax income.. and if you have even a flat tax, if you earn more in a year, you will pay more in total in that year... but as we stand now, we have a growing number of people who pay ZERO in federal income tax even though they are not earning ZERO

Anyone who earns even $1 should pay federal income tax

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

And the envy card you just played is stupid. It also tells us a lot about you. The envy statement is a talking point used by every right wing talking head out there.

liberals are leeches and lazy losers who see themselves as victims so they have an excuse not to be productive. Of course they envy successful independent people. It is in keeping with their charatcer.

Why else would the support basic things which they often admit make no logical sense.


Capital gains is perhaps the best example:

When Charlie Gibson ask BO why he wanted to raise the Cap. gains tax when it always resulted in less revenue, BO said it had to with appearance,[read envy] not revenue. A liberal lacks the intelligence to think clearly.

NYSUN: It came when Mr. Gibson questioned Senator Obama about the capital gains tax. Mr. Gibson quoted Mr. Obama as talking about raising the tax to 28% from 15%. Gibson: "But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent," Mr. Gibson said. "And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?"

Why, Robert Bartley couldn't have put it better himself. Mr. Obama was totally flummoxed, betraying a fundamental lack of understanding of the Laffer Curve. The Democrat of Illinois spoke of the need to "finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it," and of the need to "invest in our infrastructure" and in "our schools."

Mr. Gibson, to his credit, wouldn't let the point go. "But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up," he replied to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama replied by changing the subject, to "a housing crisis that this president has not been attentive to."

Mr. Gibson tried the same question, more or less, on Senator Clinton. She, at least, disavowed raising the capital gains rate above 20%, ruling out a return to the 28% rate contemplated by Mr. Obama. But when Mr. Gibson pressed her on why she would raise it at all, she went into lunk-headed, static analysis mode, displaying a lack of understanding as severe as that afflicting her rival. "You know, Charlie, I'm going to have to look and see what the revenue situation is," she said.

Dwyer,Washington Times: By 2003, Mr. Bush grasped this lesson. In that year, he cut the dividend and capital gains rates to 15 percent each, and the economy responded. In two years, stocks rose 20 percent. In three years, $15 trillion of new wealth was created. The U.S. economy added 8 million new jobs from mid-2003 to early 2007, and the median household increased its wealth by $20,000 in real terms.

But the real jolt for tax-cutting opponents was that the 03 Bush tax cuts also generated a massive increase in federal tax receipts. From 2004 to 2007, federal tax revenues increased by $785 billion, the largest four-year increase in American history. According to the Treasury Department, individual and corporate income tax receipts were up 40 percent in the three years following the Bush tax cuts. And (bonus) the rich paid an even higher percentage of the total tax burden than they had at any time in at least the previous 40 years



http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~cromer/draft1108.pdf

Or the National bureau of Economic Research? They non-partisan enough?

http://www.nber.org/digest/mar08/w13264.html

 

[Politico]

What am I missing?????

Nothing.

 

[Toro]

Instead of raising taxes on anybody that already pays taxes, why not tap into that nearly 50% of the population that pays no federal income tax at all? Let's see them do their "fair" share for a change.

The Bush tax cuts took more people off paying taxes because of increased deductions. So does that mean the Bush tax cuts were a bad idea? Or just part of the Bush tax cuts, i.e. the ones that helped lower income people? And if tax cuts for the poor were a bad idea, were tax cuts for the rich then a good idea?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Instead of raising taxes on anybody that already pays taxes, why not tap into that nearly 50% of the population that pays no federal income tax at all? Let's see them do their "fair" share for a change.

Yes, they are the ones who really owe big time since they don't contribute by creating the new jobs and products that grow an economy and create a civilization.

 

[akelch]

Instead of raising taxes on anybody that already pays taxes, why not tap into that nearly 50% of the population that pays no federal income tax at all? Let's see them do their "fair" share for a change.

Yes, they are the ones who really owe big time since they don't contribute by creating the new jobs and products that grow an economy and create a civilization.

HR 25 bill....consumption tax

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Instead of raising taxes on anybody that already pays taxes, why not tap into that nearly 50% of the population that pays no federal income tax at all? Let's see them do their "fair" share for a change.

Yes, they are the ones who really owe big time since they don't contribute by creating the new jobs and products that grow an economy and create a civilization.

HR 25 bill....consumption tax

A consumption tax hits everyone with the same % tax. What's fair is that everyone pay the same amount not the same %, just like in the supermarket.