Yes.... How in the world is the TOP paying too much when they pay 18% or much less compared to the middle classes 30%?
not sure what #'s you're looking for Justin. The top 10% earn less than half of the income but pay 70%. Is this not lop sided? Not sure about you but I've never been employed by the poor. If you raise the taxes on the job creators they in turn hand out pink slips. AND of the 50% who pay nothing what percentage get something back. This I don't know. 18%? Are you thinking of cap gains? top rate was 36.5 and went to 39.5 as was under clinton IIRC.
trying a commission based job, my pay is taxed as bonus pay. Back when I was filing 1 on my W-4, I was paying a tax rate of 48%.
70%? They are not taxed 70%. Are you talking 70% as in the grand total overall? That's skewed and messed up. EVERYONE should pay the same flat percentage...doing so you can actually lower the percentage the working class pays now. Fair tax ftw.
or after all the bs methodology, calculations, or whatever they use to calculate. bottom line is half pay all and the other virtually none. http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2012
I agree, and yes earned less than half of all total income and paid 70% of total taxes not tax brackets or effective tax rate see the link above.
This is the part where I want to take a life long vacation to Canada or Europe. They may have tax rates that are similar, or in some cases higher than ours, but at least they do it in an organized fashion. WRXCanada, here I come!
and trickle up does? I suppose you think welfare is a good thing? Food stamps stimulate the economy? is 99 weeks not long enough to be on unemployment? Come on man, tell us, how much extra do you pay willingly in taxes annually with that fat google salary? Seriously (if you can be online), do you feel our tax code should be more progressive as is/was in spain, greece, other countries in yonder land (they are doing so well I hardly notice the daily riots)? Flat tax? Fuck the gov't no taxes, the strong live weak die? please enlighten me thy wit almighty!
The IMF has this to say regarding income inequality: Inequality is widely seen as having increased sharply in many developed countries over the past decade or more – as described in a recent paper from the IMF, which showed marked increases in the so-called Gini coefficient, which economists use to measure how evenly income is shared across societies. source: http://www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/irb/2012/02/index.pdf if it's trickling down, you wouldn't see an increase in inequality. Couple that with decreasing effective tax rates on large corporations (not to mention overseas tax havens, where an estimated 21 trillion was shelved to avoid paying taxes) business investment decreased during times of reduces tax rates: income growth for the middle class was virtually nonexistent: rich people like being rich. they keep their money.
thanks for the 14pg read but that brings in many more variables than what we are talking bringing in large corporations. Honestly, I will have to read that a few times to grasp it fully. You're far smarter than me...I just look better. as far as corportations are concerned, I agree with the loopholes and tax havens but I guess at some point most are like why work when I can just get handouts. I have seen it first hand over and over again the past few years never having seen it previously in my lifetime...when I was coherent. I would like your opinion. Higher taxes progressively and where should that start. Flat tax? I don't know the answer but one thing is certain our gov't spends too much and if the dollar wasn't the worlds currency we would be paying 8$ a gallon for gas. oh shit lets get into quantitative easing. JUST FUCKING KIDDING! I need a beer and a bong.
I think a flat tax would get us closer. Something like say EVERYONE pays in 23% for starters. We would see the middle class get better and the upper class would have to pay in more but face it they are not hurting. If it does hurt them then curb your lifestyle to where you can afford it. Even Warren Buffett agrees with this thinking. Now on the corporate level.....that's a whole other ball game and out of my area of comfort to discuss as I am not educated enough to input anything. Speaking of which I need to brush up on that knowledge. Just my thoughts.
Corporate taxes are a bigger disaster than the personal tax code. Thanks to lobbyists and our reps in Washington, every bill passed has some new "loophole" for a corp that was able to bribe their way through. The biggest thing the American people forget is that companies don't "pay" taxes. They pass that tax/fee on to the consumer. Example: As part of ObamaCare there is a new medical device tax being charged to companies that sell products that the FDA claim is a "device". My current employer is the medical field and we spent a lot of time last quarter figuring out how much and where to raise prices to our customers to generate extra income to pay that tax. So we just passed it along. Our tax code is a joke. While I don't think the "fairtax" is the best answer, I would be all in favor of something that simple instead of the disaster we have now.
I like the fairtax cheifly for 2 reasons: 1: it removes the idea that the government has 'first dibs' on our income thru the witholding. 2: it removes the idea that the governemnt even has any business knowing what our incomes are to begin with. I dont think any other tax reforms satisfy these things, and still will collect the same revenue as before.
Also of side note to the politics of tax level right now: There is basically one small department in the IRS that has any perspective of the tax payer, and thats the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate in the IRS. That office has released a report stating that the taxpayer average spend over 50 work hours a year taking the steps or paying the costs associated with complying with the tax code. Thats the average, mind you. so there is a significant chunk of the population that is dragging that number down due to not owing any income tax for one reason or another. That comes to 6.1 billion work hours a year, and that doesnt count supplemental activities, like Audits -_-. I wonder, if that was 6.1 billion minimum wage $7.25 hours.... then we can safely say thats a lost revenue to the economy of no less than $44.2 billion.