Tax Code RIF
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Reduction in FORCE</div>If you make 40k per year in America, Uncle Sam will take about 10k of that. And depending on the state you live in, you'd pay another 1-3k to the state and local governments.
That is ricockulous. Not to mention all the hours you have to spend on your tax return considering the legions of bean counters and paper pushers on the payroll for the IRS, we gotta strike back.
This is my proposed new Federal tax plan:
10k income is exempted
All income earned through wages/salary will be taxed at a flat rate of 20%.
All capital gains will have a 5k exemption. Anything over that amount is taxed at a flat rate of 12%.
Add a 2k exemption for every listed dependent
Eliminate corporate tax
So under the new tax plan, if you made 40k and had no dependents, the IRS only steals 6000 of your earnings
The objectives are to slash the size and scope of the government, keeping more money <b>and responsibility</b> to the American citizen, massively simplify the tax code, and make our government's financial workings much more transparent.
Of course, the massive windfall that the government would be used to would reduce itself about 40%. So we gotta cut a bunch of useless stuff. Cut down on pork (more money stays in the district in the first place), obligations (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security). Let's keep the Federal government mean and lean - National defense, infrastructure, research/education grants, minimal economic regulation
Who's with me?
That is ricockulous. Not to mention all the hours you have to spend on your tax return considering the legions of bean counters and paper pushers on the payroll for the IRS, we gotta strike back.
This is my proposed new Federal tax plan:
10k income is exempted
All income earned through wages/salary will be taxed at a flat rate of 20%.
All capital gains will have a 5k exemption. Anything over that amount is taxed at a flat rate of 12%.
Add a 2k exemption for every listed dependent
Eliminate corporate tax
So under the new tax plan, if you made 40k and had no dependents, the IRS only steals 6000 of your earnings
The objectives are to slash the size and scope of the government, keeping more money <b>and responsibility</b> to the American citizen, massively simplify the tax code, and make our government's financial workings much more transparent.
Of course, the massive windfall that the government would be used to would reduce itself about 40%. So we gotta cut a bunch of useless stuff. Cut down on pork (more money stays in the district in the first place), obligations (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security). Let's keep the Federal government mean and lean - National defense, infrastructure, research/education grants, minimal economic regulation
Who's with me?
Comments
Can you clarify what you mean by 'capital gains'? Would any non-cash payment by your employer constitute a capital gain?
What about business expenses? Do I get tax exemption on a laptop purchase if it is required for me to do business?
Also: unless we're talking about strategic economic investment, there should be no tax incentives for businesses to operate. The whole point for a business to operate is that the owner believes they can make a profit on the good or service they are selling. There should be no tax incentive or exemption for the costs of doing business.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In Norway most people pay around 30% income tax as long as they earn more than 15k$, the first 6,600$ are tax free to encourage students and young people to work besides their education.
People who have large incomes pay more though, and as a well-paid physician you can expect to pay close to 50% of your income in taxes.
We've got high taxes, but what do we get back? All Medicare is free after you reach a medical bill of 200$ a year. Yeah, that is maximum 200$, and healthy people don't even come close to paying that since normal doctor visits are already strongly subsidized by the government. All education is by law free, even school books for the first 13 years of education is free. University and college only have symbolic tuitions which go to student clubs who subsidize apartments for students. You get around 5000$ a year from the government to pay for costs of living as a student, and you also get a huge interest-free loan as long as you are a student. The interest on the loan starts first when you are finished with all of your studies. You get this offer up to 8 years of higher education.
We do pay a lot of taxes here, especially if you earn more than 150k$, but you never have to worry about paying for neither you education or health. And I'm not suggesting that the US should raise their taxes, perhaps the federal government isn't efficient enough? Perhaps free Medicare is more expensive in a country with a large proportion of overweight people? Or perhaps it will never be culturally acceptable to pay so much of your individual income to the nation? But high taxes works in the stable socio-economies of Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
So take this not as an argument against your point a view, this is just a different point of view. I myself strongly believe in capitalism, the government should get to involved with business-ownership. But Medicare and education who's interest should primarily be in it's customers is better ruled by the people who use it.
I'd take great interest in your viewpoints on the subject matter, and would like to hear about your ideas of lowering taxes in the US. Perhaps lowering taxes is the best way to go ahead in the US? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well guess what? Norway is a tiny country of 10 million people sitting on VAST oil reserves on top of your already substantial natural resources, which allowed your country to leap ahead of countries like Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (which make 25% less per capita than your country) and allow you to keep high quality public services and a robust economy.
Your oil sales fueled your private and public sectors, which in turn were able to invest in high tech endeavors. Your country is basically sitting on a lottery ticket.
Countries like the UK, France have the same social programs as yours, but they are in much worse shape because they are larger countries without extensive natural resources (relative to the population) so they have less to work with. Every non-Scandinavian system's health systems are struggling because there's not enough money going into it.
Oh, and as for your education: guess where everybody wants to send their children to college? That's right, the United States. We're number 1 in education and our very best universities are all private.
I'm not saying that heavily socialist governments like Norway don't work or even don't work well, I'm just saying it's not the best option, and certainly not a feasible option for countries who aren't sitting on a plethora of natural resources (ever notice how the small, resource-rich, export oriented countries seem to be doing much better than everybody else?). Like in NS, a 2 hive lockdown strategy works, but if a commander goes straight for the second hive while it's building, it's much more effective.
Less government is better than more government, but both systems can theoretically work.
So, I'm paying all these taxes so that someone else can goto the doctor and get pills on my tab. If I just get that money, I can invest it, or pay for my own doctor bills, or buy insurance. The same is sorta true for education. I'm paying for 8 years of easy riding, but I only go for 4 and a half. It's not really fair.
I admittedly do not know enough about French politics, but British politics have been right-wing by Scandinavian standards the last 25 years.
It might very well be that it's not plausible for a country of the size of the US. to create a welfare state. But I think Americans would be much better off if they instead of campaigning against taxes rather put their effort on <b>what</b> their government spends money on. Surely something can be done about the military spending and government inefficiency? Perhaps you could have free Medicare with a smaller armed forces and without the Iraq invasion. The quality of live for a large proportion of the US could be better with smarter spending and pre-Bush taxes.
More important than less government spending is the right government spending.
What torques me about the high-taxes, high-benefits situation is that I hardly ever spend 200 bucks a year on medical concerns. Aside from the six month dental visits and an occasional checkup if someone wants it done, I stay outa the doctor's office as much as possible.
So, I'm paying all these taxes so that someone else can goto the doctor and get pills on my tab. If I just get that money, I can invest it, or pay for my own doctor bills, or buy insurance. The same is sorta true for education. I'm paying for 8 years of easy riding, but I only go for 4 and a half. It's not really fair.
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I think this is much of the key to the discussion. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches to welfare and taxes. And the US being much more individualist of nature, and especially Japan, and to a lesser degree Scandinavia and the rest of Europe are group-oriented, views on the responsibilities of the government towards it's citizens will differ. The typical right stance would be that poor people are cause of their own situation, where the left would say as victims of a their situation they've become poor.
If you were to be randomly placed in the world, which would you rather choose? The pyramid world where there are a lot of unhappy people on the bottom, and there is a narrow top where some people worked their way up too, other just got lucky, or would you rather live in a world were everyone was guaranteed equal opportunities of support to lead a happy life?
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It's not really fair.
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Is the distribution of wealth perfectly fair? Capitalism under controlled circumstances is very efficient at generating wealth in a society. But it is hardly fair. Merit isn't even close to be the sole determinant of how this wealth is distributed. The socio-economic status of the family and community you are born decides to a huge extent the value and the possibilities of your future accomplishments. I'm sure you wouldn't mind those taxes, Rob, if you were a victim of Katrina.
What torques me about the high-taxes, high-benefits situation is that I hardly ever spend 200 bucks a year on medical concerns. Aside from the six month dental visits and an occasional checkup if someone wants it done, I stay outa the doctor's office as much as possible.
So, I'm paying all these taxes so that someone else can goto the doctor and get pills on my tab. If I just get that money, I can invest it, or pay for my own doctor bills, or buy insurance. The same is sorta true for education. I'm paying for 8 years of easy riding, but I only go for 4 and a half. It's not really fair.
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It's called solidarity. The chances of being hit by a high cost affliction is not evenly distributed. As a matter of fact, the less you earn the higher the medical costs throughout your life.
If you look at it from a national economic perspective it's still smart to commonly finance health care, as the productivity of the work force drops drastically without such care.
I think this is much of the key to the discussion. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches to welfare and taxes. And the US being much more individualist of nature, and especially Japan, and to a lesser degree Scandinavia and the rest of Europe are group-oriented, views on the responsibilities of the government towards it's citizens will differ. The typical right stance would be that poor people are cause of their own situation, where the left would say as victims of a their situation they've become poor.
If you were to be randomly placed in the world, which would you rather choose? The pyramid world where there are a lot of unhappy people on the bottom, and there is a narrow top where some people worked their way up too, other just got lucky, or would you rather live in a world were everyone was guaranteed equal opportunities of support to lead a happy life?
Is the distribution of wealth perfectly fair? Capitalism under controlled circumstances is very efficient at generating wealth in a society. But it is hardly fair. Merit isn't even close to be the sole determinant of how this wealth is distributed. The socio-economic status of the family and community you are born decides to a huge extent the value and the possibilities of your future accomplishments. I'm sure you wouldn't mind those taxes, Rob, if you were a victim of Katrina.
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Don't do any tear jerking. Katrina doesn't happen every day, and we should be thankful it doesn't. Your 50% taxation of the rich would hardly cover all the needs of even one of those disasters. I would mind taxes for that, because I'd rather donate to an organization going into the danger zone because I know that more of the money will actually help the people in the fray.
The problem with such a system is that it gets abused. Just like our welfare system. We have incomes less than 20-some-thousand dollars being tax exempt. I could live off of twenty-thousand easy. In fact, I made less than that last year when combined with all my grants and loans (don't even count) for school. I still paid taxes, yet there are those out there who not only dictate policy through the vote, but also don't pay into the kitty for what they vote to spend on.
This to me is a bad situation. It's also a bad situation when I can pay endlessly for service that others use when they don't really need to. You end up with a few at the bottom paying the price for a larger number of slackers. If everyone used your system to it's fullest, it would collapse, and collapse hard.
Even with our modest Medicare system, if we had everybody take full advantage of it, we would run 35 trillion in the hole. That's what they mean by our 35 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities.
Look, Canada, the UK, Germany, and France all have teetering healthcare services. There's been serious talk of privatization because taxes are already at the deep end. When the government provides services that the private sector can do much more efficiently and cheaply, then it'll go to hell after a few years.
The government needs to concern themselves with public goods - roads, research, and national defense.
Well, perhaps you're right that you extensive welfare can't be applied to that many countries. Economic realities have to dictate policy. But moral obligation still request that you do what you <i>can</i> for those less fortunate. And the economy of a country can only be used as an argument about the extent of welfare your government can supply. It doesn't change the discussion about the priorities a country should make towards it's inhabitants. The advantages of not cutting taxes seem far better than the disadvantages. Is really the minor increase of wealth for each individual who gains from a tax cut greater than the suffering of those less fortunate? Is the US economy really that much better after Bush cut taxes for the richest 2%, compared to economy of Clinton's presidency?
Whatever the economic situation of the US, it can still priorities spending money on health-care of the poor more than killing Iraqis and infuriating Muslims to become more radical.
(Prior to this, I had already written a response to earlier discussion.)
I agree we should be strict on those who don't work who still are able to, so they'll be encouraged to do what they can to get a decent job. I can't see how health-care isn't better paid for by the government though. There are a lot of illnesses that are not determined by lifestyle, should random victims of cancer (call it tear-jerking if you want to) get a different treatment based on socio-economic background? Of course you disagree, because somehow the value of a human life is equaled to their economic standing. But a lot of people really can't help it if they have health problems and can't afford a treatment that equals treatments people of great wealth get for lesser illnesses. I would go as far as to say all citizens deserve as good a treatment as the next person.
And free education can't (or rather doesn't) get abused because educated people is good for the country as a whole. Educating the proportion of society that can find use of it is very valuable for a country. Getting the education you want in Scandinavia is about competing for grades, not about money. So I'd think even conservatives would like the thought of merit and hard work instead of merit plus money should count for the education you get. Helping people with health-care and education certainly would be a decent way of spending tax-money. The better-off portion of the population would have slightly less to spend on consumer good and investments so the economy of the rich would suffer slightly more than the raw change in taxes. But isn't it worth it for the common good?
I'm an American myself and consider myself to the right of the majority of Norwegians. And my parents belong to the group who has to pay the maximum tax in this country. But I can't help but appreciating the free education and health care which even the poorest of my fellow university students can afford.
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I might even be closer to your view than it appears, but all discussions polarize, and bringing up and defending points (emotionally investing in them) is bound to make you attach yourself to those points you are using.
(Prior to this, I had already written a response to earlier discussion.)
I agree we should be strict on those who don't work who still are able to, so they'll be encouraged to do what they can to get a decent job. I can't see how health-care isn't better paid for by the government though. There are a lot of illnesses that are not determined by lifestyle, should random victims of cancer (call it tear-jerking if you want to) get a different treatment based on socio-economic background? Of course you disagree, because somehow the value of a human life is equaled to their economic standing. But a lot of people really can't help it if they have health problems and can't afford a treatment that equals treatments people of great wealth get for lesser illnesses. I would go as far as to say all citizens deserve as good a treatment as the next person.
And free education can't (or rather doesn't) get abused because educated people is good for the country as a whole. Educating the proportion of society that can find use of it is very valuable for a country. Getting the education you want in Scandinavia is about competing for grades, not about money. So I'd think even conservatives would like the thought of merit and hard work instead of merit plus money should count for the education you get. Helping people with health-care and education certainly would be a decent way of spending tax-money. The better-off portion of the population would have slightly less to spend on consumer good and investments so the economy of the rich would suffer slightly more than the raw change in taxes. But isn't it worth it for the common good?
I'm an American myself and consider myself to the right of the majority of Norwegians. And my parents belong to the group who has to pay the maximum tax in this country. But I can't help but appreciating the free education and health care which even the poorest of my fellow university students can afford.
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I might even be closer to your view than it appears, but all discussions polarize, and bringing up and defending points (emotionally investing in them) is bound to make you attach yourself to those points you are using.
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You may be misunderstanding me. I'm all for the <i>idea</i> of socialism. I just don't like the fact that it will more than likely be abused. Personally, I find it a bit ridiculous that I could be incapacitated in an accident, and without my approval taken in a helicopter to a hospital, nursed back to health, and charged 10,000 dollars for healthcare and helicopter fuel.
Seems a bit like city-street window washers, to me. ("I washed your window, now give me five bucks, even though you didn't want the service.")
But matters of health are somewhat different, if only because we think they are. That's why I'd rather have an insurance system. At least there's some competition, and every good capitalist consumer likes that.
The United States has free primary to secondary education. Tertiary (college and postgrad) education comes at a price, and incidentally it's also the best in the world while our secondary schools rank near the bottom of the developed nations and yet we spend the most per capita (10k per head, is the nationwide average).
Regulation and high taxes stifle the economy. For example, everybody agrees that our medical system (private health care) is highly flawed and has huge problems. It's also the most regulated sector of the economy. AT&T was a huge, expensive monopoly sponsored by the government. When telecommunications was deregulated in the 80s, suddenly we had a bunch of companies in the 90s to present day competing for our business.
The problem with taxation is that the government spends that money in areas where the private sector can do better. There are certain things, called public goods, which the government excels at. Education, health care and welfare are not public goods, because various people can utilize them much better than others. Public goods are something that everybody benefits from at any time and at about the same utility (a rich person walking on a sidewalk gets the same utility from the sidewalk as say a hobo walking on it as well).
If you make 40k per year in America, Uncle Sam will take about 10k of that. And depending on the state you live in, you'd pay another 1-3k to the state and local governments.
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I calculate about $4500 in Federal Income taxes and another $3000 in Social Security taxes. Thats for a single taxpayer with no dependants, doesn't own a house, and has no significant deductions. Care to share your calculations?
Also, I do my taxes myself in an afternoon. It doesn't really get complicated unless you own a business.
<!--quoteo(post=1634644:date=Jun 19 2007, 04:21 PM:name=Kassinger)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kassinger @ Jun 19 2007, 04:21 PM) [snapback]1634644[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
If you were to be randomly placed in the world, which would you rather choose? The pyramid world where there are a lot of unhappy people on the bottom, and there is a narrow top where some people worked their way up too, other just got lucky, or would you rather live in a world were everyone was guaranteed equal opportunities of support to lead a happy life?
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Funny you should ask that. That kind of depends on where that single tier falls in the one-tier world. All real-life experience suggests that the single tier tends to be very close to the position of the lowest tier in the pyramid world.
So I would gladly choose the pyramid world where a member of the lowest tier can at least hope to climb to a higher tier through hard work, rather than the flat world where a member of the lowest tier is faced with the unfortunate reality that there <i>are</i> no more tiers to reach--this is as good as it gets.
So I would gladly choose the pyramid world where a member of the lowest tier can at least hope to climb to a higher tier through hard work, rather than the flat world where a member of the lowest tier is faced with the unfortunate reality that there <i>are</i> no more tiers to reach--this is as good as it gets.
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Good point. A single-tier society as Soviet communism was <i>supposed</i> to be (but with huge differences between party members and common people etc.), clearly everyone suffered more than in a typical western capitalistic democracy. It a question about degree though. Scandinavian countries have high minimum wages and typical low wages for high paid jobs. A medical doctor's wage is only in the range of 100k$ - 250k$, but because of this even your lowest paid worker can support his or her family. Admittedly still suffering from social stigma for not being able to afford expensive travels etc., but still only needs those 37,5 hours a week to see fully educated college children. But yes, perhaps this is hard to do elsewhere, and I'm sorry for that. I'll move on. I hope you're not all sick of listening to me jabber on. =)
<!--QuoteBegin-rapier7+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rapier7)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
The problem with taxation is that the government spends that money in areas where the private sector can do better. There are certain things, called public goods, which the government excels at. Education, health care and welfare are not public goods, because various people can utilize them much better than others. Public goods are something that everybody benefits from at any time and at about the same utility (a rich person walking on a sidewalk gets the same utility from the sidewalk as say a hobo walking on it as well).
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I have to agree that the private sector can generally be expected to be much more efficient than our governments. But this is not true for all areas, as I believe airport security has been a good example of, though this is related to security, not cost-efficiency. And when it comes to health-care, we simply have different views, and we relate to our own current country's way of doing it.
I think I want to end my participation in this discussion with that we just have to continue to disagree what responsibilities the government should have towards it's country's inhabitants, and who should pay for what. And tax levels, which is the main topic here. But I'm content that this seems to have been a good discussion so far and I imagine both "sides" understand each other, which is all anyone could ask for.