I'll bet I can get you to happily pay more than your fair share of taxes

I've thought about this for a long time and have found no basic constitutional impediment to it.

If we as a nation were to set up neighborhood tax payment centers, somewhat like post offices with a secure network, we could pay our taxes vastly more efficiently. More importantly, if opens new options. Each tax payment center would consist of a number of secure terminals where you could log in and pay your taxes.

Since it is our money, we should be able to allocate as we see fit. The budget process is merely whatever the Congress agrees upon, subject to change at their whim. Therefore it can be changed to implement this idea.

Under my plan, the Congress would pass laws and bills just as they do today. But then those bill and laws must be posted in their entirety at the tax center. The tax payer (you) would then look at the summaries, delve into the text if they so desire and then decide which he or she will fund. The payment method would work like this: the amount of tax due determines the "tax block" size, and allocatins are made by blocks.

Example: You owe $2,134 in taxes. This is not what you have to pay, it is what you paid after refund if any, your tax bill. At this level your tax block size is $100. This means you can fund up to 21 different bills or laws. The remaining $34 goes into the general fund for the politicians to allocate.

Now here is where you get to pay more and be happy. If you choose to add enough to make it to the tax block size, you get to allocate it and keep it out of their hands. This wouldn't be a credit on next year's taxes, it is a fee for the privlege of assigning it yourself. In the example above, you'd need to add $66. That may be too much for some, but what if you needed to add less than $20? Wouldn't you toss it in to keep the rest out of a politician's hands?

Now if you are too lazy to be bothered to allocate your own money, you could always just put it all into the general fund and let the politicos give it to the banks and corporations as they do now.

When a budget item is completely funded, it would be closed for further deposits. I think this would make the country stronger and better, and cut the politicians off from the source of their power: our money.

Thoughts?

Hate to break it to you but people don't like taxes.

This might interest you.

www.jstor.org...

Peace

This too...sorry

democracy.mkolar.org...


[edit on 9-1-2010 by letthereaderunderstand]

I know I would feel alot better about people stealing my money if I knew where it was going.

Thats what youre tryiing to get across, right?

reply to post by SuperSlovak


I take it you responded to the title, not the body of the post.

Taxes are necessary, no matter how much you might dislike them.

Tanstaafl: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Roads must be paid for, infrastructure built.

I was actually hoping for an intelligent discussion.

reply to post by SuperSlovak


I think you can get more popular support for tax hikes, or at least be less resentful of taxes, if people were able to decide how their tax dollars are spent. Many people are resentful that their tax dollars are being wasted on items they do not agree with like pork barrel programs, ill-conceived wars, and bureaucracies. Perhaps they would be less resentful if they could have some say in directing their tax dollars.

You are right however. For the most part, people are not going to pay their "fair share" unless their is some compulsion.

reply to post by InertiaZero


No, what I was trying to get across is a real way to take control of our government back.

The only real power the politicians have is the power of allocating our money. If my proposal was implemented, their power would be drastically diminished, and the lobbyist industry would collapse, as there is no point in wining, dining, and bribing someone who can't give you a few billion in return.

I expect better thinking from ATS, frankly.

reply to post by apacheman


Your proposal would not eliminate lobbying, it would just shift the lobbyists efforts. Lobbyists will focus their efforts creating propaganda so people will "vote" for government expenditures instead of political candidates.

You also can never expect people to make highly specific allocations when choose what their tax dollars will be spent on. For example, people will check a box next to "military," they will not check a box next to specific items like "gaskets for tank motors" or "navigation systems for submarines."

When people check a box next to "military" or some other non-specific expenditure, someone is going to have to decide how the "military" funds will be allocated amongst specific expenditures. It is easy to predict lobbyists will attempt to curry the favor of the officials who allocate expenditures. For example, a lobbyist for a navigation system manufacturer could lobby the official(s) who allocate "military" to buy more navigation systems.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


I'm not talking about tax hikes, I'm talking about deciding where your money goes.

If you don't like the military, then don't fund it. Put your tax money into the programs you believe are worthwhile and well-run. Over the broad expanse of the tax-paying populace, I believe true consensuses would be reached, and the things we the people thought important would be funded, while the fluff would not get much money.

It would leave a much smaller general fund for the politicians to allocate as they see fit, thus one more easily supervised and harder to hide black budgets in.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint


I would expect not a box marked "military", but rather a military category, under which would be not only subsections for the various branches, but also subsubsections for different programs such as the V-22 Osprey.

Each program would be listed and described in detail. Anyone who wanted would be able to dig as deep as they liked to determine if they actually wanted to fund it. Of course, yo wouldn't have to go into that detail if you were too laxy, you could simply allocate a few hundred to the branch, and let the branch prioritze where the money goes.

My proposal requires real work and thought on the part of the taxpayer, it isn't designed to be a quick, thoughtless procedure. However, it would provide an easy out for those too lazy to participate in self-government: just hit the "general tax fund" button and all your tax money goes to the general fund and the politicians decide for you.

Lobbying wouldn't die completely of course, but it wouldn't be the cancer it currently is.

I think your idea is brilliant man sign me up for it. Would you mind terribly if Canada used your idea? Id be sure to give credit where it was due of course. This would actually give some people an incentive to care about what the country is funding and maybe get them involved more politically.
Kudos OP I love the idea!

Cheers

So, if I didn't agree with anything they were doing, could I just keep it all?

If so, I'm down with your plan.

reply to post by thebulldog

Thanks, you're welcome, and certainly.

This would be genuine change for the better, even if it had teething problems. It puts control of our money back in our own hands.

But what do you want to bet that tax increases would suddenly become popular among the political class as a way to increase the general fund they get to play with? That's the only downside I can think of to it, and that wouldn't be such a bad thing, at least until we got the infrastructure rebuilt.

reply to post by subject x


Lol, sorry, no.

But I'll bet that if you looked, you'd find plenty to spend your money on, like roads and bridges, air traffic control, the Coast guard...there are tons of things that are legitimate expenses that need paid. Responsible citizens understand this and are quite willing to pay for them. What they are not willing to allow is a politician to use the money or the ability to allocate the money for purposes other than the general good.

The problem is we've allowed businessmen to take over the government and "run it like a business". Government isn't a business and shoudn't be run like one. In a business, everything's for sale, including the business. Is it any wonder that businessmen turned politicians have sold us out? That's exactly what they said they would do, if you were paying attention.

For participatory democracy to work, the people have to maintain control of their money and other resources, including time. And yes, I know we are a republic and not a democracy, that's not relevant.

Given the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow multinational corporations free rein in our domestic politics, doesn't my idea sound better?

Take the power of the purse back from those who use it unwisely and for selfish reasons? I'd rather, by far, trust the decisions of my fellow common citizens on where and what to spend their tax money on than the collection of treasonous corporatists in Washington and New York.