The Super Rich Tax you to death, page 1

Yes it's amazing that the working class Republicans go into over-work, volunteering their time via the Tea Partiers (over whatever populist propaganda is being pushed by the corporate media overlords) to make sure the super rich are not taxed at the same rate as the working poor:

www.alternet.org...

In the 1950s the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $3 million a year (in today’s dollars) was 91 percent. By 1990 it was 28 percent. The IRS says that the top 400 richest tax filers actually paid a rate of just 16 percent in 2007 (the latest numbers we have). Yep, the richest earners — people who took in an average of $343 million each — probably paid a lower rate than you did. Something to consider as you sign your 2009 return.

Now my contention is that the Superrich don't pay taxes (yes that means the corporate "people" out there protected by the Supreme court and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. constitution) is because

Americans just don't read anymore! I'm referring to award-winning journalists Bartlett and Steele -- dragged over the coals by this "patriot" explaining -- why should anyone - including the super-rich -- want to pay taxes?

dailyreckoning.com...

Well I guess this ain't the 1950s is it? Nope the concept of equality and fairness was just a post-depression moment of truth, lasting a bit after WWII and then, onto our next neocolonial adventure, Southeast Asia, whereby war is freedom and taxes are slavery, thereby unleashed the

mass sacrifice of the American working class so that the super-rich could continue to rake in their imperial extractions out in the peripheries (first Southeast Asia, then Latin America, then Africa, then the Middle East, etc.)

Taxes? That's for the brainwashed!

Instead it's time for the real tea party -- War Tax Resistance!!

www.nwtrcc.org...

[edit on 14-3-2010 by drew hempel]

Let's give Bartlett and Steele a fair shake

www.philadelphiaweekly.com...

I know reading the truth is painful and so Rush needs to take oxytocin.

I'm just glad there's a couple of journalists out there reporting the obvious:

findarticles.com...

In four consecutive issues of Time magazine, they demonstrated the astoundingly high costs of city, county, state and federal government payments to corporations that rarely need the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.

Ah at least Amy Goodman is giving Steele and Bartlett some new air time:

crooksandliars.com...

Here's the media interview with Steele and Barlett -- rock on!!

crooksandliars.com...

I don't know how they come up with those numbers, because they are in disagreement with the tax brackets and their associated taxation rates published by the IRS.

www.irs.gov...

All other information I have been able to find is based on the IRS documents or is unsourced. When all is said and done though, if you're in the highest tax bracket - between state and federal income taxes - you end up paying almost 50%(depending on which state). 35 federal and variable state.

Also, the top 1% of gross income earners pay 40% of the total federal income tax that gets payed in this country. The top 10% pay 71%. The bottom 50% of earners pay less than 3%.

www.ntu.org...

For all intents and purposes average income earners and people earning bellow average income don't even pay taxes. Those people cost the government money. It is more expensive to provide public services like roads, police, and schools per capita than those people pay in taxes. All of those services are supported almost entirely by the tax income from the wealthy. The contribution of the bottom 50% is trivial.

So, to say that the rich don't pay taxes is rather deceptive. The rich pay all of the taxes. The entire government is funded almost exclucively by taxing successful people and businesses. It's the poor who recieve from the government, and it's the rich who "give" to it.(although give isn't the right word because it is taken, it wouldn't be called taxes if it was a choice)

The reason that our government doesn't take more money from wealthy people is not because Americans don't read, it's because it's wrong to take money from people who earned it. Especially when you are going to spend it on stuff that the people who you took it from don't want you to spend it on. Namely, giving it to other people who didn't do anything for it, except elect officials who promised to steal from the rich and give to the poor. It's easier to vote democrat than to get a high paying job.

A world in which we demonize success and tax the wealthy at 50%, and blame them for all of the major problems of the country, while at the same time making them pay for literally everything, is not a sustainable world. Unfortunately, that is a pretty accurate description of the current state of affairs.

No argument about how the rich don't pay enough taxes holds water, because the numbers say otherwise. All of the taxes that get payed are payed by rich people, and poor people pay nothing. That's an exaggeration, but not by much. It's so nearly the case that it might as well be true.

The reality is that within a capitalist free market, the amount of money you make is an exact reflecton of the value of your services to society. You are not stealing anything, people are giving it to you. If people are willing to pay you three million dollars a year for your services, then that means that your services are worth three million dollars to them. By definition that is true. And they are the people who are paying you and recieving the service, so certainly no one else should decide how much what you are doing is worth except you and the person who is paying you. If they could find someone who could do what you are doing for less, they would hire that person. If you could go elsewhere and do the same thing and make more money, you would.

As long as the government doesn't try to control it, the market values everything exactly according to what people are actually willing to pay for it. Being rich just means you provide valuable services to society, and being poor means that you don't( you can find exceptions to this when you look at industries which the government runs or highly regulates, for example teachers are not making free market salaries, and it is not a free market event when the government gives bailout money to companies who pay it out as bonuses). If poor people were providing very valuable services, people would be paying them more money.

The problem with any capitalism system is never the rich. These are the people who support the government financially, and by doing that they indirectly support the welfare state. The problem, or at least one of the big problems, in any society is the huge group of people who are not doing anything that is valuable. And this second group are the same ones complaining about how the rich people don't give the government enough money.

Any politician can and will be elected if they promise to take from the wealthy minority and give to the average and below average majority. This is the fundamental failing of democracy.

Dont hate me. I'm just calling it like I see it. I totally agree with the logic of economics which is directly manifest in a capitalist free market system. I can never understanding telling the people who pay for everything that they are not doing enough for this country, or telling rich people that they owe half of their money to poor people.

reply to post by OnceReturned

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"How the Super Rich AVOIDED taxes, despite making millions"

abcnews.go.com...

I's not that hard to get around paying taxes assuming you can hire an accountant or invest some time in research for loopholes, etc.

Is it legal? Well that depends -- but the IRS targets the poor! As this insider so well details:

www.amazon.com...

www.wsws.org...

www.albionmonitor.com...

I'm interested in sorting out where they got the numbers for the article you linked first in the OP. Apparently they're based on this report. That is an original IRS document. I don't really know what to make of it. The report about the top 400 reports that they payed much less than they should have payed according to their tax bracket taxation rate. The report makes no effort to explain why this is the case. I don't know if it is supposed to be implied that they are using unconventional accounting methods to avoid paying their full rate, or if there is some other explanation which the report just assumes that its reader knows.

Anyway, the numbers are legit but they are in disagreement with what would be predicted based on the highest tax bracket taxation rate. I don't know how to explain the discrepancy. I do know, however, that a more representitive sample of the wealthy( ie more than just 400 people) shows that they do indeed pay higher taxes than average income earners. See the links in my previous post.

reply to post by OnceReturned

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Sounds like you need to hire a "forensic accountant" -- specializing in "ferreting out fraud"

www.encyclopedia.com...

White collar crime is institutional -- the tax system has always been elitist --

Shay's Rebellion demonstrates that:

www.calliope.org... 1786

reply to post by drew hempel

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Well, I think that depends on what you mean by "targets." They certainly get a lot more money from wealthy people, whether or not that is because they "target" them is a matter of semantics.

Why would they spend very much effort at all going after the people who contribute so little to their bottom line?

reply to post by OnceReturned

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Fear -- kicking the dog -- why are innocent people slaughtered? Sadism. The weak are destroyed. Might is Right. You need a boogeyman -- Jews, Muslims, Blacks - the poor are lazy, etc.

It's not supposed to make sense -- why is there slavery?

70% of U.S. chocolate comes from child slavery!

Cargill imports it -- let's see how much they're taxed.... here you go -- it's the IRS AMNESTY PROGRAM -- you won't be seeing that for the poor!!

www.corpwatch.org...

US: Ex-UBS Banker Seeks Billions for Blowing Whistle by Lynnley Browning, New York Times November 26th, 2009 Bradley C. Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for helping rich Americans dodge their taxes. Now he is hoping for a bit more — a few billion dollars more.

The names and account details of about 4,450 UBS clients are being turned over the I.R.S. under a settlement with the bank. These people will pay billions of dollars in back taxes, penalties and interest. Scores more are coming forward independently to disclose their assets. More than 14,700 offshore tax evaders emerged under an I.R.S. amnesty program, and while the I.R.S. does not yet know how many are from UBS, it presumes that the majority are. Douglas Shulman, the I.R.S. commissioner, has said that he expects “billions” of dollars to roll in from the amnesty program.

reply to post by drew hempel

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When you're dealing with a lot of money, you have to have an accountant. That accountant might as well save you as much money as possible within the law. There is no conceivable motivation for paying more taxes than you have to.

The idea of the tax system being elitist just doesn't make sense to me when I look the data. Look at the government's income, where does it all come from? The answer is taxing elite businesses and individuals. Look at the tax brackets, who pays the highest percent of their income? The wealthy.

I don't know how a system which gets all of it's money from wealthy people, and gives so much of its money to poor people can be seen to favor the wealthy. The average earners and bellow are the people who benefit most from the tax system, because the proportion of what they give as taxes to what they get in services is most favorable to them.

The wealthy pay for virtually all public services, yet they are the least likely to benefit from these services. It's one thing to say that poor people are paying too much in taxes and the wealthy aren't paying enough - which I believe is totally untrue - but you can't base the claim that the system favors the wealthy on this idea. Where does the money go?

If you rank people by how much money they contribute to the government's budget in dollars, wealthy people are the highest on that list and poor people are the lowest. If you rank people by how much they benefit from public services supported by the government(with money they just got from taxes) in terms of dollar value of the service, the list is reversed; poor people are on top and wealthy people are on the bottom.

How can such a system possibly be said to favor the elite?

reply to post by OnceReturned

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Let's be real simple about this

over 50% of U.S. taxes goes the military.

Those who have no capital gains money coming in -- dividends -- with a LOW TAX RATE -- are forced to

SACRIFICE their kids

so the elite effeminate rich can continue with their

"passive ownership" of the corporations.

This investment goes to technology which then further automates production and seeks the lowest paid labor pool

SLAVERY if possible.

And there you have it.

Questions?

Social security and other wage poll taxes are REGRESSIVE and not counted in the tax rate since they're not income tax....

reply to post by drew hempel

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The people who are successful are the ones who are driving the engine that powers society. Many will tell you that it's the factory workers and farmers and mechanics and construction workers that are keeping it all going. That's not right though. Those people are all interchangeable, replaceabe. If they were special and we needed any more of them we would pay more money for what they do. Right now for every opening in an unspecialized construction job in the US there are 50 qualified candidates competing for that position. It's not important who gets it, they will all do. If someone will do it for less money why should we pay someone else more?

Might is right. It makes perfect sense. Not everyone can live well. Not everyone brings something of value to the table. Most people are average and a small number of people are great. That is just the way the world is. I don't need a boogyman any more than you need to demonize a tyrant who is holding the lower class down. There is no such thing. No one is preventing the world from being the way it should be. I'm all about goodwill towards men, but I'm also bound by reality. There is no such world as the world in which half the people don't make less than the average wage. It is impossible.

In America, right now, there is a very clear set of steps that you can take if you're 95% of the population that will lead you to the job you want, making enough money to not have to worry. But, that's not quite right, because even when the path is so clear, and there are no obstacles in the way, only a small number of people are actually capable - I mean constitutionally, spiritually, intellectually - capable of taking the path. There is no doubt about what to do to achieve the ends that so many people claim to desire. It's just that they don't desire those ends enough to actually do what it takes. That's what maintains a lower class, not the elite scheming against them. No one has to do any scheming of any kind. The elite any more of an edge. If left completely to their own devices, almost everyone will turn out to be unremarkable. Average or below, in every sense.

We do one step better though in this country, we don't leave them to their own devices. We broadcast on all channels exactly what to do to succeed. A clear plan that would work for almost everyone if only they would just do it. The most powerful institution in the entire world will pay for your education, from kindergarten to post-doc. They will protect you from those who would hurt you with the police. They will give you emergency medicine, worth many thousands of dollars, if you just walk into the emergency room. It's all taken care of all. All anyone has to do is say okay; I'll work hard in school and get a scholarship to college. I'll work part time and get good grades in college. I won't commit crimes and I'll contribute something which society places value on. It will just work out it if you play along. But still, even when it's like this, people are incapable of playing along.

Then at some point they realize that this isn't how things are supposed to be, this isn't how they imagined it. Then they blame the people who did what they dreamt of doing, and start asking for things to be different. The pursuit of an impossible fantasy is central to the worldview of half the population. An unfortunate predicament for the other half indeed.


I don't mean to sound so callous and cold, but I just don't buy into this whole idea of demonizing success and blaiming the existance of the lower class on the upper class. We can explain the situation without those ideas. Thing are the way they are because most people are average, by definition. Of course I don't want the chocolate to have been made by slaves. Is this where I should talk about how if they weren't slaves they probably wouldn't be making any money at all, because the chocolate factories are the only jobs? . . . No. I'm not going to go there. I'm all in favor of minimizing abuses, and making things better when we can for people. We should do what we can to make peoples lives better, but we should keep in mind that everyone can't live the dream. Any pursuit of that goal is counterproductive, because no group of people can possibly work that way. If the people who are enslaving the children to make the chocolate would just get their sh!t together . . . But that's too much to ask of nearly anyone.

I can't help but feel like this is what they meant when they said "capitalist dogs" when I write this. Or was it pigs?

reply to post by OnceReturned

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Slavery has just increased -- it's called primitive accumulation.

Monopolizing technology has nothing to do with success. Freemasonry is more of a factor -- nothing like having inside subsidies from banks and the government - for a regional monopoly.

If you want to brown nose because it's personally to your advantage to ignore the obvious truth -- then ignorance is bliss isn't it.

Personally just ignore that 70% of your chocolate comes from child slavery!!

That alone disproves anything you say.

The War in Asia -- genocide - why -- so the rich can protect their cheap rare metals collected in Southeast Asia.

That's called PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION!!

Diamonds -- same.

Gold -- same.

C'mon -- genocide in Iraq -- for what? Cheap oil!!

Slavery and genocide in the U.S. -- for what?

Cheap cotton, cheap sugar....

The drug trade completely subsidizes Wall Street -- and the poor are thrown in jail.

The U.S. has the highest per capita prison population -- why?

Because the Rich put the prisoners to work!!

Nonviolent drug offenders -- it's SLAVERY!!

reply to post by drew hempel

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But the military employs mostly people who didn't go to college, and it pays them well, and provides potential college tuition, great benefits, and if they want it a respectable career. All of their gear comes from factories, and is made by factory workers. The military benefits the middle and lower classes tremendously.

No one is forced to, or even can, sacrafice their kids. Their kids are free to take action themselves. I don't know exactly what you meant by that so I can't really respond.

Technology does not make it harder to get jobs. That is just not born out by the history of the rapid and parallel developement of technology and the economy. It's never one or the other. It's always both. And even if that weren't the case, the world is going to continue to develope technology whether or not we join them. It you think workers are going to become outdated, it's only a matter of whether it is by american robots or chinese ones.

And what is even the end game here? We completely reject the most successful system of economy and government in the history of the world? And do what instead? Take all the money from the rich people and give it to the poor? Pay fry cooks the same as doctors? What does anyone even want? Reward and subsidize less valuable services by taking away from the reward for very valuable services? If you don't pay people a lot to work hard they won't work hard, and if you do pay people a lot to take it easy, they will take it easy.

I just don't see where any of this can possibly go. Nothing has ever worked better than what we in America have done over the last hundred and twenty or so years. Its all capitalim and industry and science and technology. Reward hard work, show people what to do to get ahead, vote to elect our government. These are the best ideas any has ever had for how to run a country and look at what has come of it.

reply to post by OnceReturned

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The military is the most inefficient means of creating jobs -- that's just basic knowledge.

And what kind of job? Suicidal massacres? It's not even war -- go abroad - wipe out as many colonial victims as possible?

How expensive is the loss of one U.S. solider??

General Smedley Butler will tell you all about the military:

www.lexrex.com...

reply to post by drew hempel

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It's not slavery when you can just opt out by going to college on the governments dime + low interest student loans + scholarships and need based financial aid. You can just choose to do that and then five years later you can buy a Mercedes. That's not what slavery is like.

If people didn't want those commodites, they wouldn't buy them. It's not like the rich are buying up all the chocolate. If no one wanted any gold or diamonds they would be worthless. People set the value of these things by agreeing to pay that much for them.

Everyone you use all day needed oil somewhere along the way. We feed half the world by farming with mechanized equipment that runs on oil, then transporting our products by gas powered vehicles. All plastics are made with oil. Cars? We absolutely have to have oil. I don't think that was the deciding factor in going to war, but even if it was, is it not acceptable for a country to go to war for something that it absolutely needs? Isn't oil a better reason to go to war that the dreaded WMDs? Even if the WMDs could kill 50000 people, do you know how many people would be dead in a week if the US stopped producing surplus agricultural products? Within a year?

Oil is not valuable because rich people like, it is valuable because people everywhere need it and will pay for it. We need oil as badly as we need to not have a nuclear bomb go off in NYC, if not more.

I agree the drug and prison thing is a disaster, but thats a government sh!tshow and not a product of any free market capitalism. Also, as far as the slaves go, American capitalism is not responsible for solving every single problem in the world.

People need stuff and what you call slaves are the largest group of workers doing the jobs that anyone can do. This level of the system has to exist in order for people to get the stuff they want. Rich people aren't responsible for this. The only way to get rid of the base of the pyramid is for everyone to stop needing and wanting - and most importantly paying for - stuff.

What sort of solution can possibly even be considered? There are unpleasant aspects of the world. We cannot get rid of all of them. It does us no good to just hate reality because its not utopia and blame the people who seem to be benefitting the most. If you were king of the world then what? Don't you still need people to make chocolate? Aren't there so many people willing to do it that the only way to proceed is to hire the ones who will do the job cheapest?

reply to post by drew hempel

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I'm not saying it creates the most possible jobs per dollar, but all the money has to go somewhere. It's all spent on bread and butter economic staple industries. Materials, manufacturing, and so on.

So, what would happen if I just said okay your right all this sucks? Then what? We just agree that it sucks? I mean even if we were both terribly powerful, what would be the first order of business? Spread the wealth? How many doctors do you think will go to work tomorrow if we do that?

reply to post by OnceReturned

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Puh-lease there's an epidemic of college student loans going unpaid -- and why? Because student loans are 2nd only to home mortgages as the most lucrative rip-off scam by banks.

Besides just because you get a degree doesn't mean there's a job waiting for you -- unless you have a technical degree -- any social science degree is practically worthless.

The price of college rises much faster than wages rise -- it's a big scam -- and for what?

Take your typical top 10 university -- you're going to find some 300 businesses getting FREE research -- they just donate some money as a TAX DEDUCTION and in return the business gets to supervise "public" research getting a free building, free equipment, free labor and a free patent deal!!

It's one of the biggest corporate welfare scams on the planet -- just read Professor David F. Noble's books:

America by Design

Forces of Production

World without Women

Religion of Technology.

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