The Cellar - taxation

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And here is why it is never going to happen....

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The Obama/Buffett ruse arises just like any other magician’s trick. It focuses attention on just one tax rate paid on income arising from capital investment – the capital gains tax rate of 15%. The florid abusive rhetoric distracts from the multiple taxation of capital investment income, which is actually taxed at least four separate times under our tax code. Capital investment income is taxed first by the above mentioned, abusive, internationally uncompetitive corporate income tax. If any is paid out as dividends, then it is taxed again by the individual income tax. If the value of the capital interest, say a share of stock, manages to increase in the Obama depression, then it is taxed again by the capital gains tax. If anything is left at death, then it is subject to taxation again by the death tax.

That is how the top 1% of income earners ends up paying more than the bottom 95% combined. And it is why the average tax rate paid by millionaires is three times the average rate paid by the middle class.

On the basis of his abusively misleading rhetoric, Obama in his campaign speech on Monday called for $1.5 trillion in increased taxes. That would be on top of all the tax increases for which Obama has already won enactment under current law for 2013. In that year, the tax increases of Obamacare become effective, and the Bush tax cuts expire, which Obama has refused to renew for the nation’s small businesses, job creators, and investors.

As a result, the top two income tax rates will go up by nearly 20%. The capital gains tax would soar by nearly 60%. The tax on dividends would nearly triple. The Medicare payroll tax would rocket up by 62% for these disfavored taxpayers. That is all on top of virtually the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, and before the new tax increases President Obama called for on Monday.

President Obama said in his campaign speech on Monday that Congress should pass his jobs plan “knowing that every proposal is fully paid for,” supposedly by that $1.5 trillion tax increase. But the President’s proposed tax increases don’t have a prayer of raising nearly that much.

Obama and Buffett are blowing so much smoke over the 15% rate on capital gains and on dividends adopted in the Bush years. But over the last 40 years, every time the capital gains tax rate has been cut, revenue has gone up. And every time the capital gains tax rate has been raised, revenue has gone down.

The reason for this is that when the capital gains rate was cut, more taxpayers sold their capital and realized their gains, and a rising stock market produced more gains. When the rate was increased, more taxpayers held on to their capital and a declining stock market cut off the gains.

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All of those tax increases are to finance a so-called jobs plan which is really just a federal bailout of spendthrift states. About half of the $450 billion in increased federal spending under the plan goes to states to keep full employment of “teachers, policemen, and firefighters,” and for “infrastructure that states have already decided they don’t need or have deemed a low priority,” as AEI Executive Committee member Henry Golub rightly explained it in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. This after half the infrastructure spending in the first, 2009 stimulus bill has not been spent yet.

If you believe President Zero you are being duped....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfer...x-fallacies/2/

The tax hike Obama is touting isn’t about paying off debt or creating private-sector jobs, it’s about politics. He is pandering to his base and he needs them to get elected.

Tax Facts About Millionaires
09/21/2011 by Peter Hart

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Yesterday's AP "factcheck" (9/20/11) of Barack Obama's speech about raising taxes on the super-wealthy cleverly debunked an argument that Obama didn't make. No one is saying that all millionaires pay a lower rate than their secretaries--Warren Buffett drew attention because he said he did, and there are undoubtedly other multi-millionaires in the same boat. As Dean Baker observed at Beat the Press today (9/21/11):

President Obama made a simple and true statement in his speech on the budget Monday. He said that there were millionaires and billionaires who pay tax at a lower rate than middle income families.

Many news outlets went to town to point out that on average millionaires and billionaires pay tax at a higher rate than middle income families. Of course this is not what Obama said. He was pointing out that some of the richest people in the country (Warren Buffet was his model) get most or all of their income as capital gains and therefore only pay taxes at the 15 percent capital gains rate.

Baker recommends a piece in today's New York Times (9/21/11) that was more factual than AP's factcheck:
In 2009, 238,000 households filed returns with adjusted gross incomes of at least $1 million. One-quarter of them paid an effective federal income tax rate of less than 15 percent, the data shows, and 1,470 paid no federal income tax at all....

Though the group is small, the dollars are large. For the top 400 taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate has dropped from 29 percent in 1993 to 18 percent in 2008. The average adjusted gross income of those 400 households was $271 million. By comparison, households with $50,000 to $75,000 in income paid an effective rate of 15 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But the AP piece has legs--a Slate article noted: "But as a general point, Buffett is wrong: In aggregate, richer earners do pay higher rates." The link goes to the AP factcheck. Again--Buffett was talking about himself and others like him. It would not seem to be a hard concept to grasp, but for whatever reason there are reporters who seem interested in protected the super-wealthy.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/09/21/...eillys-threat/

Quote:

Originally Posted by henry quirk (Post 757843)

annual income $10K or less: taxed at 5%
$10K to $20K: 10%
$20K to $50K: 20%
$50K to $100K: 25%
$100K to $500K: 30%
$500K and above: 40%

Why would you tax someone with an annual income of $10K or less, 5%, and, someone with an annual income of $500K and above, 40%?

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Originally Posted by henry quirk (Post 757843)

Taxes should be on any income above a subsistence level*. How can you ethically ask someone to pay taxes when they can't feed even their family?

*TBD

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The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It seems as though a lot of the taxing and duties being levied now aren't really providing for common defence and general welfare but more for defending special interests (corporations) and specific welfare (people earning over $750,000 per yer) As to the uniformity of them, I can't say but I do wonder how "uniformity" was meant to be interpreted by the authors.

I just pulled that dollar figure out of my ass, btw because that's the biggest number I can wrap my head around at this point.

Anyway, it just seems that the people who are in control are stacking the deck in their favor but telling us it's a thorough shuffle.

And by people in control I don't mean whoever the president puppet du jour is, I mean the people in control.

you and your constitution....

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Originally Posted by BigV (Post 758030)

you and your constitution....

how about this?

We do away with all personal income tax and only tax corporations and businesses. Maybe a smattering of sales tax. Time for Corporations to get off the tit.

In addition to income taxes, I think we need a person tax - you pay a certain amount each year just to live in this country, whether you have an income or not. It would be kind of like rent. It might discourage people from having babies, and from keeping the old folks alive.

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Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus (Post 758277)

I<snip> It would be kind of like rent. It might discourage people from having babies, and from keeping the old folks alive.

Just a damn minute there, sir !

I meant those way older than you, LL.

A poll tax? You wait until Dana gets here, you're gonna be in TROUBLE!

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Originally Posted by henry quirk (Post 757385)

What is equitable ('fair') taxation?

That is: if you had your say, how would you structure American taxation (on the local, state, and/or federal levels)?

I put all the tax american's paid into a special 'help me' fund.

I guess that's why I don't get to decide. :)

My outlandish, fantastical, notion of tax reformation...

My opening question: 'If you had your say, how would you structure American taxation (on the local, state, and/or federal levels)?'

Since nothing about the question demands a 'realism' (that is: a snowball's chance in hell of coming to pass), my suggestion is...

End the IRS...end income tax...eliminate ALL exemptions, loopholes, cuts, credits, and special status for EVERYONE (rich, poor, real, or *paper persons are individuals and should be treated EXACTLY as any other person).

End all state income tax...eliminate ALL exemptions, loopholes, cuts, and special status for EVERYONE (rich, poor, real, or *paper persons under are individuals and should be treated EXACTLY as any other person).

Implement national and state point of purchase taxes...that is: at every purchase of a product or service there is a tax (say, **15%).

Everyone loses and wins.

The only drawback I can see is government (local, state, federal) may not have the kind of revenue those 'in' government like.

Boo-hoo for them

Since those in government (on both sides of the aisle, across the board, all the damned time) can't seem to get a handle on 'spending' for themselves, having a restricted reservoir of cash may be just the inoculating shot needed to get the bunch of them 'on track'.

Again: everyone loses (no privilges for the rich, the poor, or those 'in-between') and everyone wins (it's pay as you and consume...the more you consume, the more you pay...the less you consume, the less you pay).

It's simple: there are no corporate taxes, or death taxes, or 'whatever the hell else' taxes...you buy (a loaf of bread, a coffin, the services of a lawyer or plumber or proctologist, a yacht, a junker, a massage, cold medicine, and on and on) you pay...again: no exemptions, no rebates, no earned income, no reductions for martial status (or religious status).

It -- a direct, simple, national and state point of (all) purchases tax -- is equity incarnate.

*Corporations are a rotten idea...the fictional entity, the paper person is a rotten idea...if, however, we have paper people, then those 'folks' should be subject to the same woes as everyone else...another outlandish idea: BP could stand trial (for the deaths of those in the Gulf spill)...if found guilty then 'jail' BP...shouldn't be too difficult to translate the consequences of jail to a paper person...jail is essentially a loss of the capacity (to move freely, to transact, to 'do'...simply jail BP (if found guilty)...and: if BP is found guilty in a death penalty state: execute...for a paper person that means a legal termination of the corporation (BP ceases to exist).

*shrug*

**Pulled out of my ass for conversation's sake...such a tax may be higher or lower.