Thread: I got an idea...

Huh?

I was saying that if 10% of the pop makes more than 750k. Then that is all we should have to pay. 10%

Personally I would go as high as 1 million then the percentage would be less.

I just do not have enough data on this to accurately say which way it should go.

At the risk of being somewhat serious about this, how do those proposed rates correlate with what it actually costs to run the government and not plunge us even further into debt? Reducing the tax rate down to 10% sounds great, but if that was ever actually enacted, we'd decimate the military, our national defense, our infrastructure, army corps of engineers, etc.

I have a simpler idea, how about raise the tax exempt minimum income from where it is now, a.k.a. "the poverty level" to the level of either a single person's reasonable living wage or a family wage for married folks?

Let's say that $50k per year is the average living wage for a family, if you are filing as a married couple and you make less than that, then you don't pay taxes.


FYI, I say this as a single guy making about $40k, which is well above the average cost of living for a single guy in my area.

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

I have a simpler idea, how about raise the tax exempt minimum income from where it is now, a.k.a. "the poverty level" to the level of either a single person's reasonable living wage or a family wage for married folks?
Let's say that $50k per year is the average living wage for a family, if you are filing as a married couple and you make less than that, then you don't pay taxes.
FYI, I say this as a single guy making about $40k, which is well above the average cost of living for a single guy in my area.

You are getting close to resonable...
first exempt the first 52k a year from each WAGE earner. no earned income credits no penalties/rewards for lifestyle choices (single, married civil union, kids.... no extra deductions.)

roll back the Johnson era "great society programs", eliminate the Roosevelt era social net and tax everybody 20% on every cent above the 52K threshold.

return to the states the social welfare programs, the education system, the endowment for the arts and allow each state to decide how they want to raise the money to pay for theses things and how they are administered.

Any department or program that is not specifically defined in the US constitution needs to be eliminated.... thus the federal government will not need all that much money, the states will need more but there will be one fewer layer of bureaucratic stupidity to pay so all the programs will cost less.

Everybody saves money we are all happier. I have nave seen the reason why one person wages is taxed at 6% or less and another's is taxed at 44% the people paying the higher amounts do not get special money or privliges... why should they be taxed differently?


alternately, we could simply tax the poor so much they get better jobs to pay their tax bill and then are not longer poor!

As to deficit spending ban it. the government should not be allowed to spend money that will never exist in the tax coffer... as for the debt we have now ...shake down the civil service union pension program, the members of the house and senate and the pres (including all past holders of the jobs) for every cent they have and make a payment on it once they do their part then maybe the people should be asked... the other alternative it to simply declared all the T-bills and FDR notes null and void and start all over!

one last think in this rant... every city,county,state and federal job should start at minimum wage and top out at 52K if people want more than than that they should get a job in the private sector.

Abolish the Federal Reserve. That would eliminate the deficit. We do not need a bunch of greedy bankers to print our money and then charge us interest on it. We can print our own money. Most of the tax revenues go towards paying off the federal debt. http://straightrazorpalace.com/image.../jedi.gifhttp: Off with their heads. http://straightrazorpalace.com/image...guillotine.gif

On the topic of taxing the rich this way and that, check this out that I found a while back in a chain email. I guess it doesn't quite fit in here, but I always found it to be pretty interesting food for thought.

The Tax System - Explained With Beer
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.'Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly applying the same percentages that each man paid to the new $80.00 amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 ( 25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Originally Posted by syslight

You are getting close to resonable...
first exempt the first 52k a year from each WAGE earner. no earned income credits no penalties/rewards for lifestyle choices (single, married civil union, kids.... no extra deductions.)

roll back the Johnson era "great society programs", eliminate the Roosevelt era social net and tax everybody 20% on every cent above the 52K threshold.

return to the states the social welfare programs, the education system, the endowment for the arts and allow each state to decide how they want to raise the money to pay for theses things and how they are administered.

Any department or program that is not specifically defined in the US constitution needs to be eliminated.... thus the federal government will not need all that much money, the states will need more but there will be one fewer layer of bureaucratic stupidity to pay so all the programs will cost less.

Everybody saves money we are all happier. I have nave seen the reason why one person wages is taxed at 6% or less and another's is taxed at 44% the people paying the higher amounts do not get special money or privliges... why should they be taxed differently?


alternately, we could simply tax the poor so much they get better jobs to pay their tax bill and then are not longer poor!

As to deficit spending ban it. the government should not be allowed to spend money that will never exist in the tax coffer... as for the debt we have now ...shake down the civil service union pension program, the members of the house and senate and the pres (including all past holders of the jobs) for every cent they have and make a payment on it once they do their part then maybe the people should be asked... the other alternative it to simply declared all the T-bills and FDR notes null and void and start all over!

one last think in this rant... every city,county,state and federal job should start at minimum wage and top out at 52K if people want more than than that they should get a job in the private sector.

Wow. Interesting stuff!

Billyjeff,

What gives you the idea I might not be serious? A 12 % FLAT TAX, with NO deductions and no tax shelers, would bring in a goodly sum! We're talking 12% of EVERY dollar earned in this country. And everyone would pay exactly the same tax rate. What could be more fair than that?
12 dollars on a hundred and $120,000 if you earn a million. No way to get out of paying your FAIR share. The size of the IRS could be reduced by at least 80% and the Tax Code could be printed on one 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of typing paper. Your tax return could be filed on a 3 x 5 notecard.
Most Federal Programs should be scaled WAY back. The Department of Energy was created to get us off of foreign oil. That was under Jimmy Carter. It would seem that neither of them were very effective. Carter was voted out and the Energy Department needs to be done away with. Although we DID give it almost thirty years more than we gave Carter.



CUT THE FAT!

There's a ton of problems with your flat tax suggestion, and that's why it's never been given serious consideration.
Let's start out with the most obvious problem. Under the current (progressive) tax system, everyone who owes taxes pays the same rate within the same income strata (i.e. everyone pays the same rate on the first $10K, and then the next $20K and so on--my figures are just examples, not the actual tax numbers). The tax rate begins to escalate as the taxpayer's income goes higher, to the current max of (approx) 38%. Under the current system, folks at the lower end of the scale pay little or no income tax, the reason being if you're earning, say, $20K a year and have a wife and 2 kids to support, any tax liability would be financially devastating and beyond your financial ability to pay.
Now under your proposed system, everyone pays 12%. Unless you didn't mention exempting the lowest income earners, if they now have to pay 12% where under the present system they have little or no tax liability, guess who suffers? The folks who can least afford to pay.
But it gets worse under your proposal. This is because the wealthy, the very wealthy and the super wealthy,
who now pay significantly more that 12% of their total income, would see a HUGE reduction in their tax liability. So those who can most afford to pay taxes get a dramatic reduction. This, in turn, would result in a HUGE drop in overall revenue. As you postulated, if someone earns $1million per year in income, they'd only owe $120,000 in taxes, (as opposed to, say, $250-$300K under the current system, give or take). So the biggest winners would be the wealthy, the very wealthy, and the super wealthy, and the biggest losers would be those at the low and lowest end of the economic spectrum.
Now I suppose your response will be to "cut the fat" to make up for the drastic drop in tax revenue that would result under your proposal. Do away with, or severly scale back federal programs/agencies. Well, that's a nice idea that no one, and no political party, has been able to implement on any significant scale. Would you like to forfeit your social security benefits and retire on just whatever is in your personal savings account? Do you want to eviscerate our military with Draconian spending cuts? Do away with FEMA? NASA? The FAA? Want to leave it up to industry to police themselves in terms of medical or pharmacological safety? Want to take prescription meds that haven't been approved by the FDA? Want to leave it up to the meat industry to ensure our hamburger isn't contaminated with e-coli? Want to see the FBI budgetarily handicapped? How about if we do away with homeland security while we're at it?
If this is what you're willing to do, fine. But for me-no way.

A flat tax system sounds seductively simple; if things were truly that simple, it would have been done long ago. It would literally screw the middle and lower class wage earners.

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

Billyjeff,

What gives you the idea I might not be serious? A 12 % FLAT TAX, with NO deductions and no tax shelers, would bring in a goodly sum! We're talking 12% of EVERY dollar earned in this country. And everyone would pay exactly the same tax rate. What could be more fair than that?
12 dollars on a hundred and $120,000 if you earn a million. No way to get out of paying your FAIR share. The size of the IRS could be reduced by at least 80% and the Tax Code could be printed on one 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of typing paper. Your tax return could be filed on a 3 x 5 notecard.
Most Federal Programs should be scaled WAY back. The Department of Energy was created to get us off of foreign oil. That was under Jimmy Carter. It would seem that neither of them were very effective. Carter was voted out and the Energy Department needs to be done away with. Although we DID give it almost thirty years more than we gave Carter.



CUT THE FAT!

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

At the risk of being somewhat serious about this

party pooper!