Serious Question. What makes a "fair tax" fair?

[Mr. Shaman]

The price we pay for each individual owning a car in America is lower air quality aka more air pollution.

The price we paid for riding horses was manure clogged streets and the attendant rampant diseases that caused.

Which diseases were caused by horse-manure?? ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

My concept of a fair tax is a pure flat percentage tax on all income. Everyone pays exactly the same percentage on all income no decustions or loopholes.
How much fairer than that can you get?

By reducing spending to the point that no direct tax is necessary.

What a concept!

In the real World, we call that Fantasy.

Whose gonna finance this Country's security; Corporate America????

Please. ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

My concept of a fair tax is a pure flat percentage tax on all income. Everyone pays exactly the same percentage on all income no decustions or loopholes.
How much fairer than that can you get?

By reducing spending to the point that no direct tax is necessary.

What a concept!

but only a pipe dream concept for the foreseeable future.

.....The same (exact) reason "conservatives" supported Lil' Dumbya's candidacy for The Presidency; he insisted there were easy-answers to ALL our problems.

He just forgot to mention that'd always been his Life-experience, up to that point. ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

my concept of a fair tax is a pure flat percentage tax on all income. Everyone pays exactly the same percentage on all income no decustions or loopholes.
how much fairer than that can you get?

by reducing spending to the point that no direct tax is necessary.

What a concept!

but only a pipe dream concept for the foreseeable future.

right...controlling spending is a pipe dream, but debating the merits of a silly new direct tax that doesn't have a snowball's chance of ever coming about is worthwhile.

You know fully-well that uscitizen was suggesting "no direct tax is necessary" was the pipe dream.....but, you (expectedly) resorted to a Porky-Limbaugh-tactic. ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Right...Controlling spending is a pipe dream, but debating the merits of a silly new direct tax that doesn't have a snowball's chance of ever coming about is worthwhile.

, We could simply take spending down to the levels it was in 1999; just a little over a decade ago; and completely do away with the individual income tax and not replace it with jack shit.

....Yeah, and we should start planting more money-trees, as well, right?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Who gives a shit about fair, I care about smart taxation. The Fair Tax eliminates the income, corporate, capital gains and payroll tax. It creates ginormous incentive for corporations to stay in America, come back to America and even start in America. It would allow us to compete with China, Mexico and the 3rd world's slave wages, without having to reduce to their level!

That sounds like a John Boner proposal; heavy-duty Fantasy-scenerio....no details required.

​

 

[Bern80]

I personally would like to see a fair tax on consumption. I don't really buy into the fears that it would curb consumption mainly because it would be offset by no income tax, plus most people are paying a state sales tax of some type anyway. Someone on the boards here should do an experiment and see if they would pay more in taxes per month with a 23% federal tax or through two paychecks worth of income taxes. I would be willing to bet most would be paying more in income tax.

Part of the tax debate needs to be about holding government accountable for its spending. If government were to spend money efficiently and only on the things that are actually the role of government (a debate for another time I know) a lot of the debates about the type of system and class warfare over who should pay more taxes would go away. We the people are the ones that somehow need to do that.

An interesting notion I heard for accomplishing that woud be just doing away with the automatic withholding part of income taxes. Instead of the taxes being taken before you even get your pay check, governemnt has to send you an itemized bill telling you what you owe them each month. Think maybe then citizens might start to raise a little ruckus about how government spends their money?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Guys, I'd really like you guys to start adding qualifiers to the statements you make.

"A consumption tax is not fair." Why? Says who? How did you derive at that conclusion?

Are you saying that a person or entity should be able to consume as much as they want and not have to pay the price for their consumption?

I say no. Everything comes at a price. The price we pay for each individual owning a car in America is lower air quality aka more air pollution. More air pollution means more sickness, less health, which boils down to people spending more in health care costs and also experiencing a lower quality of life and earlier probability of death.

Its a price. It should be paid for. Not only is it the right thing to do, its the fair thing to do.

Please lay out your argument for why a "Fair Tax" would be fair other than it makes those who want to consume the most pay the least as a percentage of their consumption. Which is actually...very unfair.

Most people would argue that a consumption tax is unfair because poor people would pay a larger portion of their income than rich people. This is a knee jerk reaction based on the progressive-regressive designation of taxes that we have been taught since grade school.

It's also a typical "conservative"-response (on your part).

WHO suggested "poor people would pay a larger portion of their income than rich people"???? ​

About the cars. With everyone in the US owning a car we get the benefit of living in the suburbs instead of being crowded into cities, not being dependent on public transportation and unions to get to work, more freedom to work in a different neighborhood than you live, and a better selection of schools.

....AND, those suburbanites get to enhance the amount of pollution we all strive to enjoy. ​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Umm Marc we are a consumer society. Consumers should be rewarded instead of punished?
Well that is the current situation anyway, not the ideal one becuase much of our economy is based on excessive consumerism and waste.
But until we change our economy is based on consumerism.

Why is the "fair tax" proposal called the fair tax? A sales point, nothing more than that.
Every time I have seen something coming out of politics and government give a good sounding name like "blue Skies" or something it is time to get out the vaseline and bend over.

And to think that only a generation ago, we were a manufacturing society. We were better off when we built things rather than imported them.

Let's be fair, here.

During the BUSHCO-years, the 1%ers/high-roller$ DID manufacture....financial-in$trument$!!!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJ4sjgtIR0]YouTube - American Casino[/ame]

*

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Umm Marc we are a consumer society. Consumers should be rewarded instead of punished?
Well that is the current situation anyway, not the ideal one becuase much of our economy is based on excessive consumerism and waste.
But until we change our economy is based on consumerism.

Why is the "fair tax" proposal called the fair tax? A sales point, nothing more than that.
Every time I have seen something coming out of politics and government give a good sounding name like "blue Skies" or something it is time to get out the vaseline and bend over.

And to think that only a generation ago, we were a manufacturing society. We were better off when we built things rather than imported them.

Maybe manufacturing is not as important to our economy as the talking heads you listen to want you to believe.

Yeah....who wants to deal with the messy-process of developing new engineers/products, when we were always so successful at producing MBAs, in the past??!!!

 

[lizzie]

I'm genuinely curious - no one ever explained why a "fair tax" consumption tax is "fairer" than an income tax.

Thoughts?

Because almost half the population pays nothing in fed income taxes, they don't have any personal stake in the well-being of the country as a whole, and generally speaking, people don't appreciate what they don't earn in one way or another. Paying consumption taxes makes everyone cognizant of what they personally, and we, as a country, are doing fiscally. Iow, it makes them think more responsibly about their own part that they play in society.

This is not true, btw. Payroll taxes count as federal taxes, and EVERYONE who works pays payroll taxes. You even pay taxes when you're receiving unemployment.

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

 

[The Rabbi]

Because almost half the population pays nothing in fed income taxes, they don't have any personal stake in the well-being of the country as a whole, and generally speaking, people don't appreciate what they don't earn in one way or another. Paying consumption taxes makes everyone cognizant of what they personally, and we, as a country, are doing fiscally. Iow, it makes them think more responsibly about their own part that they play in society.

This is not true, btw. Payroll taxes count as federal taxes, and EVERYONE who works pays payroll taxes. You even pay taxes when you're receiving unemployment.

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

NO, that's not true. Everyone pays sales taxes. So you're obviously wrong.
That's at least how the Doctor argues. Make sense? No, of course not.

 

[lizzie]

This is not true, btw. Payroll taxes count as federal taxes, and EVERYONE who works pays payroll taxes. You even pay taxes when you're receiving unemployment.

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

NO, that's not true. Everyone pays sales taxes. So you're obviously wrong.
That's at least how the Doctor argues. Make sense? No, of course not.

But the discussion is about "fair" taxes, and my post was about federal taxes currently paid, not sales taxes.

 

[The Rabbi]

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

NO, that's not true. Everyone pays sales taxes. So you're obviously wrong.
That's at least how the Doctor argues. Make sense? No, of course not.

But the discussion is about "fair" taxes, and my post was about federal taxes currently paid, not sales taxes.

Gasoline has a federal tax, right?

 

[lizzie]

NO, that's not true. Everyone pays sales taxes. So you're obviously wrong.
That's at least how the Doctor argues. Make sense? No, of course not.

But the discussion is about "fair" taxes, and my post was about federal taxes currently paid, not sales taxes.

Gasoline has a federal tax, right?

Fuel taxes are not sales taxes, and are not deductible.

Can I deduct tax on gas or diesel?
No. The tax on gasoline and diesel for on-road use is not a sales tax. The federal deduction is for sales tax only.

http://dor.wa.gov/content/findtaxesandrates/incometax/federaldeduction.aspx

 

[Bern80]

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

Okay. What exactly am I getting from my payroll tax?

 

[loosecannon]

Right...Controlling spending is a pipe dream, but debating the merits of a silly new direct tax that doesn't have a snowball's chance of ever coming about is worthwhile.

, We could simply take spending down to the levels it was in 1999; just a little over a decade ago; and completely do away with the individual income tax and not replace it with jack shit.

No we couldn't.

Our current budget is 40% unfunded. If we reduced spending to 1999 levels and changed noting else we would be shortchanging medicare and SS dependents and paying the same taxes.

Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget: Fiscal Year 1999

 

[loosecannon]

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

Okay. What exactly am I getting from my payroll tax?

unemployment insurance, social security insurance and medicare insurance.

 

[lizzie]

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

Okay. What exactly am I getting from my payroll tax?

The "promise" of social security when you retire. This is in addition to federal income tax withheld.

The FICA payroll tax is the deduction taken from income as a result of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act that requires employers and employees to contribute to Social Security and Medicare.

You may have noticed that the FICA payroll tax deduction on your pay-stub is just under 8% of your income. 6.2% of that amount goes to Social Security and the other 1.45% is contributed to Medicare. The FICA payroll deduction is actually only half of the requirement. Your employer must pay the same amount.

Self-employed individuals are required to pay the full tax, which is 15.3%. If you run a business, you can deduct the "employer" half from your adjusted gross income when you file taxes using the 1040. (Note: This is not an itemized deduction and should not appear on the Schedule C)

http://www.finweb.com/taxes/what-is-the-fica-payroll-tax.html

 

[Bern80]

I said federal income taxes, not payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are paid with the understanding that you will personally get something back out of the taxes paid. Not so with federal income tax.

Okay. What exactly am I getting from my payroll tax?

unemployment insurance, social security insurance and medicare insurance.

Then the first quote is not a true statement if I never collect unemployment and have no need for medicare. I am forced to pay for something I have no intention of and truly may never use.

The purpose of those plans is so that you have some income upon retirement and health insurance upon retirement. Frankly I have far more faith in myself to provide those things for myself than I do the federal government. I can do far better on my retirement in the private market. So what that means is the people I am actually paying taxes for are the people who are not willing to plan for their own futures.