Taxes
The whole taxation process leaves a lot to be desired. It's entirely too complex with too many loopholes. I'm completely in favor of everyone paying their fare share in taxes, and I don't necessarily agree that people should be able to get out of paying their share because their income is too low.
The easiest way to fix the problem is to migrate to a flat tax system. This would eliminate a lot of the problems we face in regards to taxes and it would eliminate a lot of verbal pollution and doublespeak on Capitol Hill. Just to pick a number out of the air, let's say we had a flat tax system and everyone contributed 15%. That means the person flipping burgers for minimum wage would contribute 15% of his or her income to the tax rolls, but so would the CEO who works on a 2 million dollar per year salary. It's the only fair way to do things.
The easiest way to fix the problem is to migrate to a flat tax system. This would eliminate a lot of the problems we face in regards to taxes and it would eliminate a lot of verbal pollution and doublespeak on Capitol Hill. Just to pick a number out of the air, let's say we had a flat tax system and everyone contributed 15%. That means the person flipping burgers for minimum wage would contribute 15% of his or her income to the tax rolls, but so would the CEO who works on a 2 million dollar per year salary. It's the only fair way to do things.
posted by Mark at 4:06 PM
2 Comments:
Again, I disagree.
The current "gressive" system (liberals call it progressive, conservatives call it regressive) isn't fair. And neither is anything else in life either.
Rich people should pay more taxes because they can afford more taxes. If a man makes 20,000 a year, 15% is huge. But if a man makes 20,000,000 a year, 15% still leaves him a multi-millionaire.
On it's face, the idea of a flat tax isn't so bad. But look closely at every real plan you've seen put forth over the last 15 years.
The flat tax plans out there now do not address all forms of income equally. Capital gains are treated differently than wages. Corporate income is treated differently from personal income.
Every flat tax plan I have ever seen has been tailored specifically to fuck me. I don't have a large stock portfolio. I don't have sizable interest income. I don't have any investments worth mentioning. What I do have are wages. And those are treated least favorably out of all types on income.
The real problem with the tax system is that it's too complex. We've got tens of thousands of people employed just helping ordinary Americans figure the damn thing out. And we've got thousands more trying to catch cheaters.
We have millionaires who don't pay a dime and multi-national corporations that use accounting tricks to get rebates on top of billion dollar profits.
We don't need a flat tax. We need to hire 1000 geniuses to take a year removing the bullshit from the existing tax code. Once our wizards have wheedled the code down to twenty typewritten pages, then we'll have reform worth crowing about.
The first topic we appear to be 180 degrees different on. Yay!
The current tax system isn't fair, therefore it doesn't work well.
I think I completely disagree with your second paragraph, but I may need clairification on it. I completely disagree that rich people should pay more because they can afford more. I think rich people should pay their fare share (which will be higher than yours or mine). Penalizing a person for making the American Dream a reality doesn't make sense to me. You're absolutely right that 15% of 20,000 is huge, but is it no more huge than 15% of 20 million? Both people contributed an equal percentage to the tax rolls, and the millionaire contributed more in dollars and cents at the end of the day.
The flat tax programs that have been discussed over the last 15 years have not addressed all incomes correctly, which is why I didn't endorse a particular plan. I think all forms of income should be treated equally. If you receive $10,000 in capital gains, how or why should that be treated any differently than picking up a second job in which you made an equal amount? Income is income is income, and the only reason the flat tax programs haven't treated all income the same is particularly a problem created by conservatives. They don't want their investments and current tax loopholes messed with.
Every tax plan you've seen has been specifically tailored to screw you because most in Washington don't care about you. They get votes by tailoring to the ultra rich and super poor. I don't think this is as much a taxation problem as it is an election reform problem.
I agree that our current tax system is too complex. I should be able to file my taxes without any help, and in it's current form it does need to be trimmed down. If a person wasn't in favor of anything else, I'd support this approach, and maybe this approach should be the starting point.
Millionaires getting out of paying their share of taxes is a big deal, and more should be done to close the loopholes in the current tax system, if you want to keep it.
I still don't see a problem with a flat tax solution if all income is income, and all debt is debit, and there aren't loopholes or various ways to reduce your percentage. Once you start allowing exceptions, you'll eventually get to what we have now, which is a complicated mess with too many people cheating.
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