For a change, use this poll and comment space to discuss whether those who can most afford it should be treated the same as the rest of us or should they be treated differently. In other words, ignore the issue of raising taxes vs. cutting spending. That has been discussed to death. This is purely about who pays for what taxes there are. Tied up with this is keeping or eliminating tax loopholes and other things that allow the wealthy to pay less taxes. Discuss!
President Obama will propose that people earning more than $1 million a year pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class earners to help reduce the soaring budget deficit, according to administration officials.
Obama will call the plan the “Buffett rule” after billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, a supporter of his who recently called the tax system unfair, noting that it lets him pay a lower rate than his secretary does.
The plan would replace the complicated alternative minimum tax, which was enacted decades ago to ensure that the wealthy paid at least some income taxes, according to the officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
#56 said, “On top of that, you get a consumption tax. Your grandmother eats cat food? She’ll pay the same percentage as Buffett does on his next tin of beluga caviar. If all are equal, then all should pay the same percentage.”
Yes, consumption tax must be a percentage of the goods or services consumed. So the consumption tax on a 40 cent can of cat food is a LOT less than on the tin of caviar. Fair.
But none of this matters UNLESS we pass a law that if you’re caught hiding your U.S. fortunes off shore, a severe penalty ($$$ and jail time) is imposed. This goes for private citizens and corporations.
So, if you got rich here, keep it here and spend it here.
AND, the banks shouldn’t be able to sit on the money they accumulate OR piss it away irresponsibly. We need more bankers who think like George Baily (minus absent-minded Uncle Billy).
It could be a Wonderful Life.
Funny that Warren Buffet feels is so concerned that others who haven’t made their millions yet need to start paying more taxes, when he has been in a dispute for years over taxes he has not paid in his Berkshire Hathaway fund. Can you say hypocrite?
http://blog.pappastax.com/index.php/2011/08/26/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-is-disputing-irs-tax-assessment/
this is a bad idea because it won’t work…if you just tax the rich they’ll pass it down to their customers in the form of higher priced goods and services that “they” provide. anyone who isnt’ a moron should understand this. for those of you who don’t, sorry.
read – http://ajc.com/opinion/neal-boortz-why-taxing-911632.html
I definitely do not want to pay the millionaire tax. I’d rather have you pay my portion for me.
# 99 Olo Baggins “The reason they pay no taxes is the standard deductions” A fair point though I’m not certain on the math. A fair taxation system will start at just above the poverty line then, for every dollar you earn, you are responsible for a set percentage. No deductions, no tax credits. You’re not going to make money off the poor folks, you make the money off people like me. I can’t deduct the interest on my house loan. And people like Buffett who can’t amortize his private jet over five years. You put solar on on your house? Good for you. You’ll save money on your utility bill. But you don’t get no stinkin’ tax credit for it!
Schmidt is right. If people wanted more kaleidoscopes, the toy factories would hire the people to make them. Which is why I favored the stimulus. More money in the economy would have raised demand for goods. Instead, it was squandered on union pension funds and bank capital and paying off previous capital expenditures, etc. Now he wants to do it again? Fool me once…
# 100 Alfie “lets tax the loudest…” You couldn’t afford it.
#99 Baggins,
Do you have anything to back up your claim? All the data that I have seen says the vast majority of the tax revenue comes from the middle class an below. There are a lot of wealth tucked away by the richest people in the country, but if you look at the money actually being earned (not yet taxed) consistently by the rich, it is not enough to solve our debt problems even if we take 100%.
Both the flat tax and Fairtax ideas have easy ways of lowering or preventing tax burdens for those in poverty. How this would be done in the flat tax has already been explained above by several people. The Fairtax would do it by having reduced taxes or no taxes on basic life necessities. This really isn’t that hard to implement or understand.
If you have a consumption based tax, it is true that the rich might spend less initially because they don’t have to. However, this brings up an obvious point. Why are the democrats not debating on increasing the estate taxes instead of this minimum millionaire tax? That is where the real money is, and that is how you can make up for the rich folks not spending as much. I get that this money has already been taxed so it is like double taxation, this is an easy thing that can be done that will not de-incentivize innovation and hard work as increasing the income tax does.
Should end “capital gains tax” and TAX ALL INCOME AS INCOME !!! Close other LOOPHOLES AND GIVE AWAYS AS WELL !!!
cranky…I’m too lazy too look it up, it came from government data and was spun into that form by Jon Stewart. Can’t locate the video, and not a peep about it on the usual fact-check sites so I assume he was accurate.
One of the main points continually whistling through the right-wing echo chamber is how the rich pay 78% of all taxes. They probably say this 30 times a day on Fox News. Assuming it’s mostly true, that’s probably due to the fact that they’re the only ones making any dough these days.
But, the problem with “earnings” stats is that most of the uber-wealthy aren’t earning wages, they’re living on capital gains, which aren’t always categorized as earnings in traditional data sets. Either way, 15% on CG is too low. Return it to pre-Clinton levels.
In any case, the idea that you can tax our way out of debt in ten years on the back of the wealthy is ludicrous, nobody is saying that except conservatives, usually. The bottom line is that in dire times, historically the US raises taxes on those most able to afford it. When times are better, those rates drop. It’s worked until Bush decided to borrow to fund his wars. Now we’re stuck in a “can’t tax the job creators” endless loop.
I’m for a targeted stimulus, a partial repeal of Bush tax cuts, and ending wars while focusing on reducing the cost of health care.
Geez, this one got rolling in a hurry.
The fiarest tax is probably a consumption tax like the Fair Tax. The weakness is that it is difficult to implement in a way that it can’t be gamed or combined with other taxes that just stack up and leave us worse off than before.
That leaves a flat tax as the best compromise solution to “fairly” tax everyone. So the answer to should “those who can most afford it should be treated the same as the rest of us”? is yes.
Set the federal income tax to a flat 10% for *everyone*. No lower limit, no upper limit, no exemptions. Capital gains count as income, capital losses count against income.
Strictly speaking, it’s probably not fair to tax gapital gains the same since it comes from money that was already taxed, but it’s probably a necessary compromise to catch folks with good accountants like Buffet.
Even under this system, there’s still an incentive to invest since static ‘wealth’ actually loses value at the rate of inflation if it just sits there in the mattress.
How about 80%-90% tax on all the welfare people out there….
I saw a speaker on Book TV 4-5 years ago. He was a “poverty expert.” His scheme was an “income redistribution scheme” that would give money to poor people if they didn’t make enough. I think at the time it was up to $30K per year. He then listed the pro’s and con’s that were quite striking. No more welfare, no more welfare cheats. No more additional children to get more money. No more poor motivated to crime. Marriage rates to go up because young poor men had money and therefore increased the marital wealth.
the cost aspect was handled but sadly, I either forget or I tuned in late but evidently, if you add up all the social/criminal programs and divide it out among the needy masses, you’d make money on this deal.
“Probably” have to stop illegal immigration? And I’d think crack sales would go thru the roof for a certain segment.
I need to find that guy’s name and his alternate view of things. Funny his idea was only mentioned once, and lost to the ether now.
The remaining problem would be the same we all are dealing with now at some level: a Calvinist emotional response to what other people are “worth” and how do we maintain our superiority? Too many can’t be happy unless they see others suffering by comparison.
Yes, too many are like that. Its like the gay marriage debate: if two other people 3000 miles away get happily married, then my marriage will suffer. Your mileage may differ. Ha, ha.
Jobs, money, work, worth, tax, freedom, greed, envy, slavery, government, salvation, rich, poor, – – – amusing how they all get mixed up with one another.
Design the kind of society you want, fund it.
We’re all doomed.
#91, all that money Buffett is giving away will be untaxed, and then he will turn around and say he is paying a low rate, this is unfair, we need to raise taxes. If he thought the government could do things better with his money than he can, he should be giving these billions to the Treasury.
There is a difference between income and wealth. The people in that top millionaires bracket change year to year, with many of them being one time sales of businesses or property.
“The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up — take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.”
Barack Obama while running for President.
A recovery is when Barack Obama loses his job.
Just a factual correction. There is no such thing as a “Fair Tax” or entities paying their “Fair Share”. Whatever one groups deems as “fair” another group will consider as “NOT fair”. The closest thing to the term “fair” in this case is a “Reasonable Compromise”. Unfortunately the U.S. is largely made up of unreasonable people these days so don’t hold your breath for a “Reasonable Compromise”.
I’m always amused by the republican agrument that “if you don’t think you’re paying enough taxes – then send in a check.” They never offer the counter argument: If you think you’re paying too much tax – don’t send in as much.
#17–Paul Has the Runs==so you are amused by the concept of totally self centered anarchy huh?
Let me guess: do you call it “freedom?”
Hah, hah, what a dolt.
#112 – Your BookTV buddy sounds like a proponent of Social Credit. Good luck with that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit
too funny..
100+ posts of you people still trying to decide which class of moron will be force to hand over (more of) their hard earned cash to the (now armed, dangerous, -and giggling) extortionist in the room.
-there is not a finer bunch of clueless individuals to be assembled anywhere on the net..
Dvorak will be (proud?) [sic]
-s
lol -Surprise!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-government-fees-pepper-apf-4120540659.html?x=0&.v=2
Best line in the article:
welcome to “NewSpeak 2.0”
..brought to you by the
“Thieves on The Hill Gang”
-film at 11
-s
(Orwell would be proud)
They are arguing in court that the insurance mandate is a tax.
#119–Pres Amabo==thank you for the link. Yes, that is very much what I saw. Good to know it has a name and like everything else that is “new” to me, it has a history.
Lots of good ideas/review in that link. Just another “touchstone” to keep in balance looking for the sweet notes in the cacaphony (sic–my words are better than real ones) of convinced dogmatic advocates.
I wish I knew “everything.” then maybe I could be dogmatic myself.
Yea, verily.
The current tax system is too complex with too many exemptions and deductions. If you eliminate the exemptions and deductions, tax everyone at a lower rate, you might be able to generate more income. You will also need to reduce spending. The problem is that the 90% of our politicians are rich. Why in the world would they want to change a system that benefits them?
We already have a simple, relatively flat tax system. It’s called the Alternative Minimun Tax. It’s only a matter or time until everyone is paying it. The tax rates everyone is anguishing about today don’t matter because they don’t really apply to the AMT – it’s a totally separate taxation system. The only downside is that you pay more under the AMT than under the current system.
I think I have reached my monthly quota for wasting time on this blog, but I am glad I stuck it out to see President Amabo’s link which points out the fact that bobbo’s wealth redistribution system of the day was once called “Practical Christianity”. Are you torn between your hatred of Christians and love of wealth redistribution?
cranky–I did have to overcome an involuntary gag reflex at reading that but while I am anti-thiest it doesn’t have an emotional component of “hate” just the intellectual appreciation of it in a category with lots of overlap with Taro Card Reading, Astrology, Anti-Global Warming or any other crackpot set of beliefs==and I’m not “for” wealth distribution as such. The system really should be set up so that people can’t get that wealthy to begin with, then redistribution doesn’t have to happen, or rephrased, if the working masses aren’t ripped off to begin with, then the government doesn’t need to step in to stop the Revolution that will eventually follow.
Looks like there is going to be lots of analysis about “fair” taxing policies and Class Warfare. About time these all got a good airing.
Cranky–we both suspect that Christian Redistribution of Wealth is suspect. But lets say you have a job you like to do===that was my case for every job I ever had. Now imagine the government would pay you subsistence wages to do nothing. Which would you choose? Call me crazy–but I would always choose working. I don’t envy people on the dole, don’t feel jealous. If it keeps them from breaking into my house to steal, and keeps my taxes lower by needing fewer services, why wouldn’t a sane person chose that system?
Makes sense to me—IF, thats a big if, IF it worked. Now, too many people, including all dogmatic libertarians would be against the such a system even when they actually would benefit from them.
THAT is a very religious/anti-human point of political view. And not by coincidence===I’m against it.
Yea, verily. Catch you up the first of next month?
Is this Buffet tax of which Obama speaks an increase in the capital gains tax? Sounds real good. Lets tax all the money that comes from regular people’s 401ks and while we are at it, let’s make it impossible for small businesses to attract any investment income. Small businesses create jobs, so there goes those jobs out the window.
The capital gains tax is set lower than the income tax for a reason. We want investments and we want people to make a profit on those investments so they can invest in jobs for this economy. I guess Obama doesn’t care about creating jobs.
Benji–who is this “we” you speak of? Sounds like just the same group you reference: those idiots who think rich people provide jobs.
Thats Puke Big Lie #1. What was it about Bush’s 8 years of tax cuts makes you believe just the opposite of what we are all suffering from right now?
Jobs: a complicated multi-factorial interactive matrix of more elements than we even know.
Why don’t you believe Puke Lies when the tax credit for moving jobs overseas is terminated?
Until then: VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” RETARDS OUT OF OFFICE.
>the tax credit for moving jobs overseas
I keep reading about this on liberal sites. Could someone explain it to me? Seems like an easy thing to eliminate. I’ve never seen any IRS forms with a deduction for sending jobs overseas.
The only thing I can think of is that the US taxes all corporate income everywhere, while other countries only tax income earned in that country. So a company can save taxes by sending operations to other countries. That is not the same thing.