We pay an "income tax".....top 5% pays 75% of the tax because they take 75% of available income
By what right is that 75% not their property, but the government's? Do I own anything, and if so, who decides when what I earn is no longer mine? What do you have that you don't really own that I can take from you?
And please. Once again. What is the purpose of government?
For simplicity's sake, let's assume it costs $5,000 in government services to enable you to make $50,000, Fitz. The numbers aren't that important; what matters is, conceding there are government-incurred costs involved in enabling you to earn income.
On these facts, is it so unfair to expect you to pay some or all of that $5,000 in tax?
Now let me be clear. Government service should be paid for. It is a shared common good and responsibility for all citizens. But, there are some basic guidelines that should be followed.
1. Under equal protection and representation, if you want to get persnickity, everyone should pay the same amount. If it costs 5k a person, everyone who is a citizen should pay it. But since this is a retroactive tax that hurts the poorest the most, it is a reasonable request for a percentage to be paid to cover that amount for the cost of government. Therefore a millionaire could pay 500k and thereby paying the difference of those paying only $100 in taxes due to their poverty. This is a reasonable expectation, as long as the percentage taken is the SAME for everyone.
2. The cost of government is limited by the services allowed to be provided by government. Currently, the federal government has become a cancer. It has far outgrown it's original mandated duties and has taken on new, previously unknown and dubious, responsibilities when compared to it's original mandate. This of course means that to return the national government to its lawful limits would result in a massively dramatic reduction in it's size, services and scopes, ceded to the states where it correctly belongs. This also allows people to vote with their feet and leave states and systems of governance that they disagree with.
3. Financial crimes are woefully underpunished. Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay should have been looking at the death penalty for the amount of damage they did to people's lives and the nation at large. White collar crime needs to see a dramatic increase in the severity of the punishment for the damage is often far worse than mugging or assaulting a single person.
4. Lastly, the government needs to be removed from the 'shaping' of the private markets except in the form of national security, consumer protection, labor protection, pro-competition, and anti criminal activities. The fed should be abolished as it is using monetary policy as an economic weapon to shape the markets and pick the pockets of the citizenry through inflation (essentially acting as a pay cut) or against our trade partners. Money not backed by something other than our word, is dangerous ultimately, because if our word becomes worthless, so does our money.
I never said I wish to decriminalize theft, as you can see. I am saying that we HAVE decriminalize theft by government in the form of punitive/excessive taxation against a minority of people (the rich or at least those who earn) for the sake of the indigent or working poor. And a common economic law of course that you should know is that when you want less of something, tax it. When you want more of it, subsidize it. Through the tax code, we have stated, we wish more poverty and less productivity and wealth.
Back to the Laffer Curve. We are currently being overtaxed and that provides an incentive for people to, within the law and outside it, find ways to dodge paying taxes. This decreases the overall pool of money in which the higher tax rate can be applied to. Rich people are able to keep their capital mobile and move it away from high taxation, sheltering it, OR leave the place where they are suffering high taxation.
This means that, like the state of Maryland proved through it's Millionaires Tax passed 2 years ago, that the rich can and will flee taxation because the cost of moving it out of the reach of government is LESS than the tax savings. Like I said before, a 50k a year accountant who can hide 500K of your money from the tax man is a great investment as well as a good matter of principle to prevent what amounts effectively to looters in your bank account.
Now, if you dropped the taxes so that you were collecting only 100k in taxes instead of 500k, you have created a disincentive to hire the accountant who will be saving little more than what they pay in taxes. More people pay and thereby increase the amount of money in the pool because less can afford, or are inclined to dodge taxes. It is economically sensible to just pay the tax and be done with it. Now mind you that's an extreme example. If you go too low on the taxes there is an opposite effect that you are undertaxed and need to raise them to collect the most efficient amount for government to function.
We are far from there, still.
