Why do people believe in redistrubution of wealth and more taxes for the rich?

I'm having a hard time here understanding the mentality of people. Most of my posts are long on here, but I am going to try to make this as short as I can so that people can enlighten myself (and others) as to their thinking.

I hear many people on ATS, around the globe, and in the Occupy Wall Street movements advocate more taxes for the rich and some even go so far as to say a "redistribution of wealth". I struggle to find where the belief in this comes from. Does it only come from people who don't have wealth or is it more wide spread?

Why should the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?

Now, I can understand that the "free market" in America isn't so free any more, and the priorities when it comes to careers in this country are vastly skewed, however, it is not the fault of the people who enter lucrative business that they make so much money - it is the fault of the people that follow and accept such lucrative business practices.

If, for instance, people weren't so massively addicted to entertainment and sports media, athletes and actors would not make so much money. Nobody is out there demanding that actors and athletes get paid less, but they would gladly advocate that teachers and private doctors gets paid more, not understanding that there is a level of payout that needs to be balanced using priorities.

Personally, I don't have much of anything. I live off of about $350 per month and most of that goes to keeping my business running so that I can make anything at all. Yet, as broke as I am, as much as I don't have the "luxuries" that some of the rich have, never will you hear me say that their money should be given to me, or that they should be taxed a higher percentage than anyone else. The only difference between them and the people working in factory labor jobs is that the people in factory labor jobs never pursued anything more lucrative. Not that it is a bad thing - it all comes down to personal choice. Some people would choose their profession on what they enjoy, what they are good at, or how much money they would make. I don't think it should be any different as it is the choice of the people what they do, and ultimately how much money they make by doing such.

With that said the question remains -

Why should wealthy people fork over their money more so than the average American? Why should their money be given to anyone other than who they choose to give it to, so long as it was earned through legal means?

Well let's see.

Most of them don't seem to see that the actual Really Rich pay next to, or actually, nothing for taxes and so they're attacking the next rung of the ladder, because they can see it. When they really realize what's going on they'll go after the Federal Reserve and the Corporations who have actually ruined us.

reply to post by gwydionblack

Why should the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?

See, that's where you are confused. Tax should be proportionate, and the US tax code allows for tax breaks and loop holes for the extremely wealthy, while not providing any of those breaks for people who actually need them. The IRS has scaled back their corporate tax fraud section and has increased the audits for people of middle or lower class.

I'm not suggesting the rich pay "more" than me. I'm suggesting they pay their fair share like the rest of us do. That's what people are upset about, and they see themselves losing everything including their homes, and what does the government do? It uses their tax dollars to bail out the banks, who intern foreclose on their homes and make it impossible to get a loan.

the federal reserve is the heart of the problem, but the joke of a tax system in the US is also a core issue. If those friendly rich people had to pay the same amount proportionately, as the average american, you wouldn't have a deficit.

Saying people, and I assume you are referring to the OWS guys and gals, are demanding the rich pay MORE is a cop out of an argument, they aren't saying that at all, well, the actual intelligent people aren't, but they don't get airtime only the morons do.

reply to post by phishyblankwaters


Trust me, there are people out there saying it. Not all, but they are there.

And I agree with you, there are plenty of loopholes in the system that should be remedied. However, as I understand it now, tax brackets in the United States range from 10% for a salary less than 8,500, and up to 35% for a salary $379,150 or greater.

This to me, is wrong as it stands. Perhaps they SHOULD be elegable for the loopholes simply because they are charged more than three times more the lowest taxed.

Why should their tax burden be any more than anyone else? Why shouldn't everyone be paying, say, 25% and call it a day?

Because of the earned income credit, most of the bottom 40% don't actually pay ANY taxes and most of them get MORE back on their tax returns than they paid to begin with...I know...I was in that category at one time...and enjoyed the free money...

I went to trade school, worked hard and now I pay around 30% in Federal Income Tax...

The "rich" pay an even higher percentage than I do...

A flat tax is the ONLY taxation that would be fair...

Get rid of the IRS and all the loopholes and redistribution of wealth (earned income credit) and make it so EVERYBODY pays the same percentage...then, if you make more money, you're paying more money and if you make less money, your paying less money...

By the way, a flat tax would only be between 7% and 12%, depending on who you talk to and could only be raised by a NATIONAL VOTE, thus limiting the power of the crooked politicians to get into our pockets.

Everybody wins...except crooks...

Because many people really don't have any idea what they are talking about. Here's the process:

1) See/experience a problem

2) Look for cause, but not very hard. It's normally the first thing at hand

3) Actually get angry at and blame the effect or those who reap some kind of benefit from the effects.

Immigration and taxes are perfect examples of this type of shallow thinking done by small people. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but most people don't think too much or too far.

Peace
KJ

Originally posted by gwydionblack
Why should the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?

To me, if I were a rich fella, I'd be happy to pay a higher tax rate in appreciation for the system that enabled me to be so successful. It's not like I wouldn't be able to afford it, and still have more money than I needed.

Of course, that's just me...

I actually think the system now would work....or work better if the backdoor deals, loopholes, corruption in the government, and big government went back to it's actual intended purpose, instead of this monstrosity of idiots we call "the government"

these same people that take advantage of the system on every turn, are the same people saying we need to change this and that, about whats wrong with the government

its like someone that cheats and refuses to follow the rules and then says this game isn't fair ....your damn right YOUR NOT FOLLOWING THE INTENDED PURPOSE

Income taxes are a con job on the American people. The American people have been raped, robbed, and plundered by this system for close to 100 years now. It is not how our system was suppose to operate. In fact. It's quite the opposite.

So arguing over who should pay the most or least taxes is a moot point. There shouldn't be an income tax at all! Nada! Zip!

The government was supposed to be small and efficient. Not taking from the American people, But supporting itself using good business practices that benefitted the American people.

Awww, nevermind.

reply to post by RealAmericanPatriot


Have to agree with everything said here. I'm not well aware of the statistics, but if that is true that many less fortunate Americans get away without paying, then to me they are just as guilty as the rich. In the time I was working, I received MOST of my money back, but never more than I paid in, so it wasn't really that bad on my part.

Flat tax is the way to go IMO, and screw the loopholes for anyone unless they are disabled or something along those lines.


reply to post by KrazyJethro


I can see that being the case, that the majority don't know what they are talking about. I'm eager to hear from people who think they do know what they are talking about though.


reply to post by subject x


If I were a rich fellow, I wouldn't like paying more than everyone else, but I would also be charitable with my money. I like the fact that we should be able to choose whether we are charitable and thankful, or greedy and miserly. To each their own, no one should be obligated to give anything if they don't want to.



reply to post by Klassified


This may be so, and I agree with you that there shouldn't be an income tax. However, let's assume that the income tax stays for good. I support a flat income tax, only because it provides money back to the government. However, in an ideal world, that income tax money would go back to helping the people, not to foreign wars and other countries and countless unneeded government organizations.

I don't think anyone would complain about an income tax so long as it went fully to satisfying the home grown needs of the American people, and ensuring that American infrastructure remains in safe conditions. Obviously NOT where it is going today.

reply to post by gwydionblack

I support a flat income tax, only because it provides money back to the government. However, in an ideal world, that income tax money would go back to helping the people, not to foreign wars and other countries and countless unneeded government organizations.

I don't think anyone would complain about an income tax so long as it went fully to satisfying the home grown needs of the American people, and ensuring that American infrastructure remains in safe conditions. Obviously NOT where it is going today.

So, you DO understand. There is a huge problem when those that have way way WAY more than they could ever need do NOTHING to help those who are starving and homeless and unemployed. Their greed leads them to hire slave-wage workers in developing countries rather than their own country-men. They line the pockets of the lawmakers so that they get away with "cheating" the system. They are not held accountable for their insider trading (for that matter neither are the lawmakers who heads-up them on what laws will be passed) and evasion.

They are morally bankrupt, and financially rich beyond all imagination.

The fair system would be a flat tax -- but not 25%, that's too much. 15%. And no enormous year-end Bonuses. That "bonus" money should be distributed to the shareholders, not the CEOs.
They DO NOT pay taxes at the same level that your average householder does. But TAXPAYERS bailed them out when they were going under. Now where are they to help those same taxpayers who are hurting?
High-tailing it to the nearest sweat-shop slum town...to AVOID paying taxes.
It's absolute crap.

As for actors and athletes and musicians and other "entertainers", they are all overpaid as well. It's asinine. Yes, if someone earns so much thay can't count it all without a staff of bean-counters, then they SHOULD be obligated to assist the poor and needy. (Actually, they ARE obligated in the cosmic big picture, but that's another topic).

I just signed this on the matter of the Rich not paying taxes as the average American has to. I`m not for them paying more as you say but paying the same as required to the working class.
[SNIPPED LINK]

Now it would be nice if these filthy rich that there is no reason they need that much money couldn`t pay their employees better then what is required by law. That is where I start to look down at the rich you see. They wouldn`t be rich if they didn`t have the slaves working for them.

Take my old boss as an example. Multi millionaire tells me there is no man worth more then $10 an hour yet he cuts himself and wife both checks for time spent at the business that exceeds that $10 cap he made. How is that man able to sleep?

reply to post by RealAmericanPatriot


if the government switched to a flat tax, the highest earners would rejoice.
using your suggested 12%, the poorest taxpayers would pay much more in taxes. The rich would make out like bandits.

take these two examples:
Guy makes $25,000. Currently, his taxes would be as follows:
Income $25,000
Standard deduction $5,700
Dependent Deduction $3,650
Taxable income $15,650
Tax: $1,929.
This doesn't take Earned Income Credit into consideration but, odds are, the actual tax would be less.


New Method:
Taxable $25,000
Tax @ 12% - $3,000

About a 50% increase.


Rich Guy:

Salary: $400,000
Standard Deduction: $5,700
Dependent/Exemption Deduction $3,650
Taxable Income $390,650
Tax: $$114,371

Flat Tax
Salary: $400,000
Tax @ 12% $48,000

Savings of $66,371. roughly 60% decrease in tax.


So, let's see, the poor pay more, the rich pay less and the gov't gets even fewer tax dollars.


The only way to "fix" the system is to leave the brackets alone and add one, or two more, for the highest level of earners.

Personally, I think the goverment should also add a corporate payroll tax so that, any employee that receives a bonus that is at least 50% of their annual salary, results in a corporate tax that charges an additional amount based on the overage. It might result in corporations paying smaller bonuses. Excessive salary taxes should also be added. A CEO doesn't need to make $50,000,000 a year or more. It's nonsensical and that money could be used for other things, or distributed to shareholders.

Originally posted by gwydionblack
reply to post by phishyblankwaters

 

Trust me, there are people out there saying it. Not all, but they are there.

And I agree with you, there are plenty of loopholes in the system that should be remedied. However, as I understand it now, tax brackets in the United States range from 10% for a salary less than 8,500, and up to 35% for a salary $379,150 or greater.

This to me, is wrong as it stands. Perhaps they SHOULD be elegable for the loopholes simply because they are charged more than three times more the lowest taxed.

Why should their tax burden be any more than anyone else? Why shouldn't everyone be paying, say, 25% and call it a day?

The mega wealthy control the system because their wealth give them inordinate control
and power over that system. It is just the beginning of normalizing the global economy, which means
Americans make 10 times too much money right now. You can see that wages are doing two things,
going way up at one end and falling on the other, this because the wealthy design it that way, it
benefits them, wages earners cannot effect the dynamics of the system.

I do not want to "redistribute", I just want these efforts to turn America into a third world nation to be
challenged.

Why are you so concerned for millionaires and billionaires?

You do realize that money naturally flows up?

100% of the money you spend ends up in a bank eventually, thats the truth, it is inevitable.

One thing to consider is that is globalization and a shrinking world that has caused the 1%.

Consider this - I'm a businessman, CEO, etc back in the 1950's. My company makes and sells vacuum cleaners. Because of limitations of communications, technology, infrastructure, etc at the time I pretty much need to make them in the US. So, I hire a bunch of people to make my vacuums in my factory.

I get filthy, stinking rich. But, I also have to pay my employees in the US a competitive wage, so most of them are somewhere in the middle class and fairly happy. Nobody really minds that I'm filthy rich, because my factory and the jobs I make allow 1000's of others to live in happily in the middle class.

Now fast forward to 2011. Because of advances in tech, communications, infrastructure, etc - I can make my vacuums anywhere in the world. Because of taxes, regulations, wage rates, etc - it might cost me $10 to make a vacuum in the US. It might cost me $1 in some far flung corner of the world. That makes the choice pretty easy. I close my US plant and open another one China to make my vacuums.

Now, I get even more filthy, stinking rich than I was before because my costs are way lower and my profits are higher. However, my former workers in the US are now jobless and they quickly fall out of the middle class.

They start to hate me because I'm so rich and they have no way to get back to middle class status because its not cost effective for me to hire them (for many reasons.)

So, what do we do? I've just made the best decisions I could make for my business. Do we take my wealth and give it to the people I used to employee in the US - or do we change the rules to make it the best business decision to hire in the US again?

If you take my money and give it to the people, it will only solve the problem until my money is gone or I move somewhere where you can't take it. If you change the rules so I can employee more US citizens then it will boost their income.

Its the old give a man a fish vs teach him to fish and let him do so.

Originally posted by thejlxc
Well let's see.

Most of them don't seem to see that the actual Really Rich pay next to, or actually, nothing for taxes and so they're attacking the next rung of the ladder, because they can see it. When they really realize what's going on they'll go after the Federal Reserve and the Corporations who have actually ruined us.

Durring the "panic" of 1811 the state of Ohio and some others put a tax on banks. The case went to the SC and they ruled that it was unconstitutional to tax banks! I have yet to look into that ruling should be of interest.

Durring this "panic" banks, federal banks, in Ohio were taking farms. The state came in and started making low interest long term loans to help people keep their farms. Clearly the banks were seen by the state as being in conjunction with some sort of chicanery which caused the panic and made it possible to take land. The state then working more for the beifit of the people taxed the banks and made loans. The state of Ohio cleary saw the banks in these early days as a rival to state power, power of the people....now look what you have today.

Its interesting that a war broke out around this time.

The problem is pretty simple actually. The people trying to protect the status quo throw out terms like socialism, redistribution of wealth, communism, unemployed-weed-smoking-unwashed-hippes and sing the virtues od democracy, capitalism and 'The American Way'. Excellent and clearly effective tactic. The facts, however, are incovenient to say the least.

We are not a deomcracy and haven't been for a very long time. The idea of Capitalism is based upon competition, free markets and a level economic playing field. We have none of those things. Politicians who are legally mandated by our charter (the Constitution) to protect the rights and interests of The People long ago sold us out to the wealthy minority. The latter wanted the ability to influence legislation and policy that would benefit their interests. The former wanted to enrich themselves. And it worked. The minority and the politicians have worked together to build a system of unequal representation (special interest groups, PACs, K-Street lobby industry, political donations, etc.). They have built an industry around influence and corruption.

And this is a vicious cycle. The more influence they got the more wealth and power they could accumulate. Squash competition, move jobs overseas and off-shore tax liablity. Sorry to bust your bubble but thsi ain't Capitalism. And it isn't Democracy either. We are, and have been for quite awhile, an Oligarchy --- a country ruled by the minority. And redistribution of wealth? That train left the station a long time ago. The minority, through the processes laid-out above, have concentrated wealth in this country at a rate that is unnprecedented, And they have not done it by honest hard work either. It's been done through peddling influence, inequitable business practices, greed and corruption.

The elite brought this on themselves. as has been said, 'you can shear a sheep every year but you can only slaughter it once'. They went too far. And that's the thing about greed. It isn't very good at 'regulating itself'.

Originally posted by thejlxc
Well let's see.

Most of them don't seem to see that the actual Really Rich pay next to, or actually, nothing for taxes and so they're attacking the next rung of the ladder, because they can see it. When they really realize what's going on they'll go after the Federal Reserve and the Corporations who have actually ruined us.

I believe I read that the top 1% average tax rate paid is 29%. The few who, lets say, paid no taxes is something that may happen one year but the next year they do. For them to not pay they need to lose a crap load for that year and/or give a ton away to charity. I'm somewhere in the top 10% and I pay a lot of taxes with very little write-offs, the few who really make the big bucks is not something that would save us with more taxes on them, nor would it help the 99%ers have a better life.

Our nation and planet are in economic freefall, no one can get a job. Do you think that this is somehow ok?

When the rich paid their fair share of taxes all nations and their people benefited. Since they haven't been paying their fair share we get economic collapse for which we are witnessing now.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by gwydionblack

 

Why should the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?

See, that's where you are confused. Tax should be proportionate, and the US tax code allows for tax breaks and loop holes for the extremely wealthy, while not providing any of those breaks for people who actually need them. The IRS has scaled back their corporate tax fraud section and has increased the audits for people of middle or lower class.

Can you give an example(s) of how they don't pay taxes? With 47ish% of American families not paying Federal taxes at all what is proportionate? I paid for many years what equated to well under 5% of my gross in taxes with child tax credits and your typical write-off. Last year I paid 32k in Federal taxes with very little write-offs.

One thing that people fail to think about is you need to pay taxes to get tax breaks while tax credits is basically the Government paying you and only those who make under about 130k a year get any credits. If you took ALL the people protesting and added up their paid federal taxes last year I would be very close to the amount they paid by just saying zero....

We are dangerously reaching a point where the federal government will dictate what is too much, and we see them waste trillions... TRILLIONS I don't think class warfare is where the fight really should be.

One last note, am I the only one who sees that as Obama's campaign propaganda to push our/his failures on to another group?

I'm not suggesting the rich pay "more" than me. I'm suggesting they pay their fair share like the rest of us do. That's what people are upset about, and they see themselves losing everything including their homes, and what does the government do? It uses their tax dollars to bail out the banks, who intern foreclose on their homes and make it impossible to get a loan.

So top 1% paid average is 29%, would you like to pay 29% too?

the federal reserve is the heart of the problem, but the joke of a tax system in the US is also a core issue. If those friendly rich people had to pay the same amount proportionately, as the average american, you wouldn't have a deficit.

I'm in favor of a federal excise tax, that way you pay more when you spend more. I agree everything in our Government is bloated and the IRS is up there. A simpler tax code would be better.