[pyro-manic]

Originally posted by Liberator
Yes, but that's the thing, a progressive tax isn't fair.  It punishes a person, sometimes heavily, for being successful.

I don't see it as punishment. I'd call it their moral and societal responsibility to help those less fortunate than themselves. And if they're that rich, they don't need that portion of their income, because they should have everything they could possibly need already. If they just want to buy a holiday house, or another sports car, then they can get ****ed. That's just greed.

I personally would like to see a cap on all wages of about £500,000 a year after tax. I challenge anyone not to be able to live extremely comfortably with that kind of money.

Originally posted by Liberator
What drive do I have to work hard and get rich, if the government is going to take up to half of my money for no other reason than I've worked my ass off and become successful?

But your life's ambition shouldn't simply be to get as rich as possible. That's.... I don't know. Sad. Shallow and sad. Success isn't (or shouln't) be measured by the size of your bank balance. And the thought that the money you would have blown on a Porsche has gone towards paying for the education and healthcare of your fellow people should be a good feeling. Shame the govamint is so crap at spending it: "I know! We'll blow untold billions on stealth fighters we'll never use, and leave kids learning from 20-year-old textbooks in crumbling schools!" etc, etc. But that's another argument.

[Kazan]

hey liberator - you still fail to understand the economics - because the "progressive" tax system we have now doesn't stick to the exact calculation forumalae and still favors the rich, several years ago (read under clinton) they didn't favor the rich to an unacceptable level though (they were still progressive)

the Fair Tax, and National Sales Tax, the VAT, and everything like it are REGRESSIVE taxes


Liberator - can you (without using google or wikipedia) tell me what the following are

A) The Law of Dimishing Returns
B) Equal Dollars
C) Net Utility
D) Marginal Utility

if you cannot you don't have any business thinking your opinion on taxation is valid

[redmenace]

This would crush the people that need to spend more naturally such as large families with lower mean income levels. I do see some positives in that it might lower the cost of goods since there would be less taxes on corporations. However, any money they would save might be sucked up in corporate bonuses and fatter dividends. It would simplify the tax code but would harm the middle class.

[pyro-manic]

Calm it down, Kazan. There's no need for that tone. Don't throw things at him and say "Ha! you know nothing!". That doesn't get us anywhere. Explain it, tell him (and me!) what those terms are. Then we'll have more understanding of the system. As it is, we just have bad blood.

[redmenace]

Don't make me post a Koala.

[Kazan]

liberator just annoys me with his constant insistence he knows everything, when he knows nothing

-------------------------

Law of Dimishing Returns

in short, the LDR states that "The more of something you receive, the less each one is worth to you"

A diamond is nice, 100000 diamonds is boring -- do you follow me?

(im not as good as explaining this as a textbook/professor)

Equal Dollars

Equal Dollars are what someones dollars are worth to them after applying the LDR to their income

Net Utility
Net utility is the total "value", or "usablility" of everything you have, in this case your entire income.

even after the Equal Dollar Function is applied to income peoples Net Utility of the entire income still rises, so even extracting the same ammount of "Net Utility" in taxation dollars they're still going to be better oof

so NU(Income,100000)-NU(Tax,100000) > NU(Income,30000)-NU(Tax,30000)

Marginal Utility
Marginal Utility is the slope of the Net Utility function

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by redmenace
Don't make me post a Koala.

[pyro-manic]

Don't even try it... I've got pictures of kittens somewhere

Cheers, Kaz - that's straightened things out. And it is right....

[Thrilla]

Thank God for the PX on base.  Sales Tax Free.  

[Vertigo1]

Originally posted by Kazan
Holy freaking stupidity batman! Way to try and shift almost ALL of the tax burdeon onto the middle class.

Way to completely abandon the most conservative tenant of capitalizism - the progressive tax (yes it is a conservative tenant)


The repuglicans are trying to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a 23% national sales tax.

You read that right - 23% -- that means a $81 microwave costs $100 (99.63) after taxes


Sales taxes weigh entirely on the lower and middle classes


right now the only source i've seen is FuchsNews (So of course they're making this look like a great idea)

GEEBUS!  We already pay 9 1/4% sales tax (which the **** hit the fan BIG TIME when that happened).  If that happens, its going to be very hard for me to get buy seeing as I'm going to be attending the University of Memphis next month....and money is going tight for me as it is.  What, do they think we're made of ****ing money or something?!  I'll start buying my stuff from Canada before I'll EVER pay a 23% national tax....

[Goober5000]

The national sales tax wouldn't be in addition to what we have now... it would replace the current income tax.  Which IMO is a good thing.  In one fell swoop it would eliminate one of the largest federal bureaucracies that costs tons of money and paperwork just to sustain itself each year.  Not to mention getting rid of audits, which have been abused to harrass people far too often.

The tax code is so complicated now that no single person can hope to understand it.

[Kazan]

yeah.. it would also move the almost the entire tax burdeon onto the lower and middle class


you can keep the REAL fair tax - the progressive tax, and make the code simple

[Goober5000]

Not really.  We'd still have exemptions for necessities like food and clothing, as was posted earlier.  That takes the burden off the lower classes.  As for other material goods, basically, the more things you buy, the more you pay in taxes.  That scales nicely among the middle and upper class, as the more money you make, the more things you buy, and the more expensive those things are.  If people want to pay less in taxes, they'll save more of their money - which is also good for the economy.  It works out nicely all around.

[Beowulf]

Dare I say....

User Fees.

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Not really.  We'd still have exemptions for necessities like food and clothing, as was posted earlier.  That takes the burden off the lower classes.  As for other material goods, basically, the more things you buy, the more you pay in taxes.  That scales nicely among the middle and upper class, as the more money you make, the more things you buy, and the more expensive those things are.  If people want to pay less in taxes, they'll save more of their money - which is also good for the economy.  It works out nicely all around.

[redmenace]

But the whole exemptions and exceptions and provizos are how the current tax code got so friggin complicated. Reforming the tax code now will only allow congress to screw it up all over again.

[Terminator]

I'm personally calling an end to all taxes...

[Grey Wolf]

What do you want in their place? Tariffs again? The Federal Government is going to want to get money somehow...

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by redmenace
But the whole exemptions and exceptions and provizos are how the current tax code got so friggin complicated. Reforming the tax code now will only allow congress to screw it up all over again.

Such is the law of entropy.

But this method should make it much harder for people to complicate the tax code.  Theoretically, the only two things that need to be legislated are 1) the tax rate and 2) a list of tax-free goods.  That's far simpler than the system we have now, with tax credits, income brackets, marital status, itemized deductions, blah, blah, blah.  The cool thing about a national sales tax is that the Invisible Hand (tm) will automatically adjust spending to account for all those factors.  Thus you eliminate the need for complicated formulas and bureaucratic record-keeping.

[redmenace]

except now individuals now have to keep records to send to the IRS of what to write off.

BTW tariffs are an absolutly horid idea considering that the world has changed and adding tariffs on imported products would serve on to piss off international Industries and screw with trade in general. In the words of my marketing prof., who is an expert in international business, you DO NOT through up barriers to trade.

OH NO, I am starting to sound like Kazan