originally posted by: Greathouse
The last time I checked I could be wrong now. But $7000 was the minimum requirement. Add on everyone receiving benefits from the government. Along
with the other factors I mentioned earlier. That's a lot of money!!!
Presidential candidates since 1996 have pushed for a flat tax. They have all had very wise people advising them. I believe a flat tax will work but it
is being resisted for nefarious reasons.
And I don't believe the numbers you referenced take a full accounting of the wealth. You are talking about 1% of the people in this country. You are
not including the banks and corporations oil companies yada yada yada.......... Who in turn will be losing their tax shelters if IRS code is cut. (
which Rand Paul mentions in his proposal)
You obviously know more about this than I . ( completely sincere remark) Do me a favor take a look at this tax plan and let me know what you see
wrong with it so that I can look into it?
The only fault I could find was the cut from paying Social Security. But then I thought why should we fund A system that soon to be dead anyway?
source
$7000 isn't all that much. It's approximately 5% of the population. 5%*244 million adults is 12,200,000. 17%*$7000 is $1,190 which is
14,518,000,000 or roughly 14.5 billion dollars. 4 trillion is 4000 billion, 14.5 billion is .3625% of that, or about 1/3 of 1%. I think you're
confused on the 47% that don't pay taxes too, most people pay taxes it's simply that a large percentage of the country are getting enough back in
deductions and credits however if we take that into account we're still saying that a flat tax is a tax increase on those with the least money, and
that going to 17% represents a tax decrease on those with more money which creates a regressive tax system unless incomes are more evenly distributed.
If the gap between the highest and lowest was say 20x as much such as JP Morgan advocated I believe that would be close enough for a flat tax to be
equitable, but we're currently at gaps of more than 1000:1. A person who makes $10 million per year makes $4808 per hour, that person makes $400
sitting on the toilet for 5 minutes. That's 33% more than a minimum wage person makes in a week, even with far more people at a lower wage you can't
make up that discrepancy.
Many presidents have proposed a flat tax but you have to keep in mind that just as many have proposed other methods. The truth is economics and
especially taxation is at best a soft science and at worst little more than modern day voodoo. The best theories anyone has been able to come up with
still aren't proven. On the taxation scale we have Singapore but we also have Norway which are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. All
indications are that taxation does little to effect quality of life, it's much more about having effective people in charge of whatever programs or
companies that are in place.
Corporate taxes are largely irrelevant because corporations can and will pass the cost on to the consumer, if we were to be honest about things we
would simply set the corporate tax rate to 0% because that's what it truly is anyways. Then we could eliminate all the deductions and tax loopholes
used to give large corporations negative tax rates (where we pay them to set up business here). To put it another way, if the corporation is charged
a 17% tax rate, they'll simply charge you 17% more just like with the sales tax we have currently.
Anyways, because of the wide wealth gap that most flat tax plans involve is it being a tax on income where the first x thousand (varies by plan) is
excluded. In some plans it's $10,000 while in others it's as high as $35,000. The intent of such a plan is to avoid a regressive tax structure by
having lower incomes taxed less while higher incomes are taxed at almost the full amount which seems to me like a roundabout way of just having a
progressive tax structure in the first place.
I think that what you would find is that a flat tax of 17% would reduce revenues rather substantially. Those at the top who don't put all of their
income back into the economy would be taxed less, while those at the bottom who do spend everything they have would be taxed more, which would then
double hit revenues because people are spending less.
It's the same idea as why successful stimulus packages have been aimed at the lower and middle classes.