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JohnStOnge wrote:Ok my household had about $33,000 in Federal taxes in 2013. You know the thing about people on average paying more in Federal taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and housing? I'm pretty sure that applies to my household.

So I'm looking at the Excel file available at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44604" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. You can get it by clicking on the "Supplemental Data" link to the right. As far as I can tell my household probably falls near the lower end of the top quintile. I know that my overall Federal tax rate was about 22%. I can see that in 2010 the overall effective rate for all Federal taxes was 18.5%.

But once again the data show that the majority of the people in the United States are parasites. The bottom 60% of the population contributes 13% in total Federal taxes and the bottom 40% contributes 4%.

"Progressive" taxation is one of the most immoral things that ever happened to human civilization. It created a paradigm by which the unsuccessful suck the blood of the successful. You can try to candy coat it all you want but that's what it did.

JohnStOnge wrote:Ok my household had about $33,000 in Federal taxes in 2013. You know the thing about people on average paying more in Federal taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and housing? I'm pretty sure that applies to my household.

So I'm looking at the Excel file available at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44604" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. You can get it by clicking on the "Supplemental Data" link to the right. As far as I can tell my household probably falls near the lower end of the top quintile. I know that my overall Federal tax rate was about 22%. I can see that in 2010 the overall effective rate for all Federal taxes was 18.5%.

But once again the data show that the majority of the people in the United States are parasites. The bottom 60% of the population contributes 13% in total Federal taxes and the bottom 40% contributes 4%.

"Progressive" taxation is one of the most immoral things that ever happened to human civilization. It created a paradigm by which the unsuccessful suck the blood of the successful. You can try to candy coat it all you want but that's what it did.

Wait a second. Weren't you just telling us that the middle class never had it so good? Why aren't they paying more in taxes?

JohnStOnge wrote:

Wait a second. Weren't you just telling us that the middle class never had it so good? Why aren't they paying more in taxes?

I know that's tongue in cheek but the reality is this: Most of the middle class of the United States is in the "net drain" category. If you consider the middle class to be the 20th through the 80th percentile the "average" tax rate for the 2nd and 3rd quintiles is lower than the overall average tax rate while that for the 4th quintile (80th percentile to 90th percentile) is higher. So MOST of the middle class is getting to ride along while paying less than their share.

JohnStOnge wrote:Ok my household had about $33,000 in Federal taxes in 2013. You know the thing about people on average paying more in Federal taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and housing? I'm pretty sure that applies to my household.

So I'm looking at the Excel file available at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44604" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. You can get it by clicking on the "Supplemental Data" link to the right. As far as I can tell my household probably falls near the lower end of the top quintile. I know that my overall Federal tax rate was about 22%. I can see that in 2010 the overall effective rate for all Federal taxes was 18.5%.

But once again the data show that the majority of the people in the United States are parasites. The bottom 60% of the population contributes 13% in total Federal taxes and the bottom 40% contributes 4%.

"Progressive" taxation is one of the most immoral things that ever happened to human civilization. It created a paradigm by which the unsuccessful suck the blood of the successful. You can try to candy coat it all you want but that's what it did.

A lot of the parasites that you are speaking of are the military, and their families. You know, the guys who fight our wars so that you can complain on a message board that you make too much money.

JohnStOnge wrote:

A lot of the parasites that you are speaking of are the military, and their families. You know, the guys who fight our wars so that you can complain on a message board that you make too much money.

If we didn't have all of the income transfer programs we have we could afford to pay military personnel more so that none of them would feel to need to utilize income transfer programs.

Regardless, we have a system in this country where most of the people have no "feel" for how much having a government do all the stuff this one does costs. They're not the ones paying for it so who cares?

So you must be a champion of higher wages pulling them out government dependency and making enough to have to pay taxes.

Adam Smith wrote:The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich . . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion...

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

Adam Smith wrote:The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich . . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion...

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.

Baldy wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:

lubeboy...cherry picking...and...misrepresenting...Adam Smith.....again.

kalm wrote:

Baldy wrote: lubeboy...cherry picking...and...misrepresenting...Adam Smith.....again.

Exactly! You must read Adam Smith in totality like the Bible to truly understand his meaning.

JoltinJoe wrote:

kalm wrote:
Exactly! You must read Adam Smith in totality like the Bible to truly understand his meaning.

When you've read either, let me know.

kalm wrote:

JoltinJoe wrote:
When you've read either, let me know.

Hey! I've skimmed both!

JohnStOnge wrote:

So you must be a champion of higher wages pulling them out government dependency and making enough to have to pay taxes.

No, I'm a champion of getting as close as possible to a system in which the tax burden is truly shared equally. The ideal is take the cost of running the country, divide it by the number of people to get the cost per person, and have each person contribute that amount.

That is actually the fair way to do it and it would mean that people would have some understanding of how much things cost when they're deciding whether or not to support having the government do things and spend money on things. What we have now is a "money grows on trees" mentality. Just make "the rich" pay for it. Or borrow the money.

This thing of thinking that those who earn more should contribute more is wrong-headed and always has been.

JohnStOnge wrote:

Wait a second. Weren't you just telling us that the middle class never had it so good? Why aren't they paying more in taxes?

I know that's tongue in cheek but the reality is this: Most of the middle class of the United States is in the "net drain" category. If you consider the middle class to be the 20th through the 80th percentile the "average" tax rate for the 2nd and 3rd quintiles is lower than the overall average tax rate while that for the 4th quintile (80th percentile to 90th percentile) is higher. So MOST of the middle class is getting to ride along while paying less than their share.

JohnStOnge wrote:So MOST of the middle class is getting to ride along while paying less than their share.

CID1990 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:So MOST of the middle class is getting to ride along while paying less than their share.

The ACA will help to take care of that little problem for you

the left loves to lament the demise of the middle class but the latest and most ambitious piece of social spending since the great depression is landing squarely on their backs

OL FU wrote:The problem is when the tax code becomes progressive and when it stops being progressive. I have what I consider a middle class income. yes it is above the medians and the means but it is prettty much middle class. If you count everything, STate fed, and SS. I paid 31% of my income in income taxes. If you add in my employer paid required expenditures the number goes to close to 40%. That doesn't include taxes not based on income. Now you can say 40% isn't that bad and I will say .

Now for the problem with that drop my salary some add a couple of kids which I have I just don't have the tax deduction for and with not to big of a drop that percentage gets closer and closer to zero. So in other words for a large portion of the population the tax rate is state and social security only and then it zooms to my rate and even higher as the fed marginal rates increase.

On the other side of the spectrum, which pertains mostly to the very rich the tax rate drops significantly due to lower capital gain rates ( I understand all the arguments for it). So you have a cliff to climb over in the middle income groups and then when you hit some of the higher income groups, progressivity goes totally away.

which is why some of the ideas put forward to flatten but at least keep the code somewhat progressive are good ones. Lower the rates, eliminate deductions and, the part a lot won't like, change the capital gain rates. It only works though if the highest margin income tax is a lot less than now. Taxes capital gains at 40% would be detrimental. Taxing it at 25% maybe even 30% seems much less egregious.

houndawg wrote:

OL FU wrote:The problem is when the tax code becomes progressive and when it stops being progressive. I have what I consider a middle class income. yes it is above the medians and the means but it is prettty much middle class. If you count everything, STate fed, and SS. I paid 31% of my income in income taxes. If you add in my employer paid required expenditures the number goes to close to 40%. That doesn't include taxes not based on income. Now you can say 40% isn't that bad and I will say .

Now for the problem with that drop my salary some add a couple of kids which I have I just don't have the tax deduction for and with not to big of a drop that percentage gets closer and closer to zero. So in other words for a large portion of the population the tax rate is state and social security only and then it zooms to my rate and even higher as the fed marginal rates increase.

On the other side of the spectrum, which pertains mostly to the very rich the tax rate drops significantly due to lower capital gain rates ( I understand all the arguments for it). So you have a cliff to climb over in the middle income groups and then when you hit some of the higher income groups, progressivity goes totally away.

which is why some of the ideas put forward to flatten but at least keep the code somewhat progressive are good ones. Lower the rates, eliminate deductions and, the part a lot won't like, change the capital gain rates. It only works though if the highest margin income tax is a lot less than now. Taxes capital gains at 40% would be detrimental. Taxing it at 25% maybe even 30% seems much less egregious.

I think income taxes are barking up the wrong tree; inherited wealth should be taxed at a higher rate than income.

houndawg wrote:inherited wealth should be taxed at a higher rate than income.

89Hen wrote:

houndawg wrote:inherited wealth should be taxed at a higher rate than income.

Go **** yourself. I didn't inherity any sums of money, but I certainly don't begrudge the people that do.

With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

The states left no doubt that in taking this step they were giving expression to a basic and widely shared philosophical belief that equality of citizenship was impossible in a nation where inequality of wealth remained the rule. North Carolina's 1784 statute explained that by keeping large estates together for succeeding generations, the old system had served "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" and promoting "contention and injustice." Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance would by contrast "tend to promote that equality of property which is of the spirit and principle of a genuine republic."

Others wanted to go much further; Thomas Paine, like Smith and Jefferson, made much of the idea that landed property itself was an affront to the natural right of each generation to the usufruct of the earth, and proposed a "ground rent" — in fact an inheritance tax — on property at the time it is conveyed at death, with the money so collected to be distributed to all citizens at age 21, "as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

Even stalwart members of the latter-day Republican Party, the representatives of business and inherited wealth, often emphatically embraced these tenets of economic equality in a democracy. I've mentioned Herbert Hoover's disdain for the "idle rich" and his strong support for breaking up large fortunes. Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first president to propose a steeply graduated tax on inheritances, was another: he declared that the transmission of large wealth to young men "does not do them any real service and is of great and genuine detriment to the community at large.''