Anonymous says:

Everyone is for everything until a choice has to be made. I notice they didn’t ask the respondents how much extra tax per year they were willing to pay themselves to make it happen.

I am not arguing against this blog article, I am merely stating there is a lack of scientific application of logic.

I think the government needs to do more to help the disadvantaged; I also question how effectively they spend the money.

I can — and do— hold both of these opinions. Therefore, I think the government should do more for the disadvantaged and spend less doing it to (privatize!).

Mr. Dvorak should have to work for the government for a week to see how “well” they do what they do.

Augie De Blieck Jr. says:

Anonymous has it right.

There’s one more thing I’d like to see a poll on: Just how much taxation of the top 2% will be too much? I keep hearing how the top 2% are undertaxed or don’t pay their taxes or just don’t pay their fair share.

Can someone please tell me what their fair share is? How much money do we siphon off the top before it becomes such a disincentive to make money that less people do it, less jobs are created, and the economy stagnates?

Mike Voice says:

I believe the problem lies more in the loop-holes we allow, than in the taxes themselves.

Examples:

1. Open a mailbox in a “tax-haven” foreign country and claim to be “incorporated” there – and not pay any taxes in the US.

2. Be like Enron – and collect fees for “taxes” from Oregon customers of Portland General Electric – then claim enough write-offs to only pay a pittance in taxes – and pocket the millions in “taxes” paid by PGE’s customers.

On the issue of rich “hiding” their wealth, or not investing it – I read an interesting book, a couple of years ago – titled The Sovereign Individual (or something along those lines) which explained how the rich & talented could move off-shore – and already were, in the internet-boom economy – and pick the country they wanted to live in; since the US was losing it’s unique advantages as a place of residence, or employment, in an increasingly inter-connected world. An advantage, for some, since the countries identified do not have the large defense/welfare/Social Security tax-burdens the US does – and the well-to-do don’t draw on welfare or Social Security.

How many people have already abandoned US citizenship, the way British rock-stars were fleeing outrageous taxes in England (years ago)?

John C. Dvorak says:

Thomas, Your credibility is shot. Income tax was an FDR idea? For WWII? What are you completely insane or do you just hate democrats that much?? The 16th Amendment is the origin — in 1913. I have income tax returns from my family dated 1918 when they jacked up the rates. Let me see, Roosevelt was , what? Somehow behind this?

Income tax history from Findlaw..read it

History and Purpose of the Amendment

The ratification of this Amendment was the direct consequence of the Court’s decision in 1895 in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 1 whereby the attempt of Congress the previous year to tax incomes uniformly throughout the United States 2 was held by a divided court to be unconstitutional. A tax on incomes derived from property, 3 the Court declared, was a ”direct tax” which Congress under the terms of Article I, Sec. 2, and Sec. 9, could impose only by the rule of apportionment according to population, although scarcely fifteen years prior the Justices had unanimously sustained 4 the collection of a similar tax during the Civil War, 5 the only other occasion preceding the Sixteenth Amendment in which Congress had ventured to utilize this method of raising revenue. 6

During the interim between the Pollock decision in 1895 and the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, the Court gave evidence of a greater awareness of the dangerous consequences to national solvency which that holding threatened, and partially circumvented the threat, either by taking refuge in redefinitions of ”direct tax” or, and more especially, by emphasizing, virtually to the exclusion of the former, the history of excise taxation. Thus, in a series of cases, notably Nicol v. Ames, 7 Knowlton v. Moore, 8 and Patton v. Brady, 9 the Court held the following taxes to have been levied merely upon one of the ”incidents of ownership” and hence to be excises: a tax which involved affixing revenue stamps to memoranda evidencing the sale of merchandise on commodity exchanges, an inheritance tax, and a war revenue tax upon tobacco on which the hitherto imposed excise tax had already been paid and which was held by the manufacturer for resale.

Ed D. says:

Thanks for the clarification John.
Some propose a flat tax as a solution, but I think that is also completely wrong. Taking away 30% of $15,000 is far more debilitating than taking away 30% of $30,000,000. I don�t understand how people justify it. Also, taxes are necessary. Almost all infrastructure is built with tax money. All business is dependent on this infrastructure so it is only fair that they help pay for it. Mike is right, the loopholes of tax-havens, expatriation, pork-barreling, outsourcing, etc. need to be shut down.