Forum Post: Question: Flat Tax Rate?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 18, 2011, 12:35 a.m. EST by vickyval
(3)
from San Mateo, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Is this movement asking for a flat tax rate? So we all pay the same percentage of our income? Why isn't that the case?
No. A flat tax means either a radical shift of the tax burden off of the backs of the 1% and onto the backs of the 99% -- precisely the opposite of what we seek -- or else a radical reduction of government funds, which are essential if the government is to have a chance of holding Wall St accountable, since regulating and overseeing markets and prosecuting white-collar crime costs money.
Have you ever played a game of Monopoly? Do you realize that it is based on actual principles of economics? Tell me. What happens when the winning player pulls way ahead? The other players go broke, the pie stops growing and the game stops. Now do you understand? No? Are you aware that Albert Einstein went on record with similar views after the first Great Depression? And Mariner Eccles? Do you even know who he was? What about Alan Greenspan? Have you ever heard of him? Are you aware of what he said in the spring of '05'? "The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide and is growing so fast that it might eventually destabilize democratic capitalism itself." This was published in the Christian Science Monitor in June of '05'.
Ron Paul, Robert Reich, Edward Wolf, and several others with experience in the field have gone on record with similar views.
The financial assets within every major economy are horribly concentrated. The rich are too rich. It's that simple. No redistribution. No recovery.
Hear hear. A flat tax system would make us worse off than we already are. Cripes.
Monopoly was originally called the landlords game and was created. By an admirer. Of HEnry George.
Am I the only person who finds it odd that we are still trying to solve 21st century economic problems with 20th century economic theories. I just read a thread where people were debating Hayek and Mises. Granted that there is a lot to be learned from studying the great economists of generations past, but those theorists were limited by their technology and their understanding of human psychology.
I was just going to post thread on my idea to reform the welfare system in this country. It is inspired by recent research by psychologist Paul Slovic and colleagues. They concluded that human capacity for empathy reaches its maximum when regarding other individuals and diminishes with greater populations. That is how you can have many people who are reluctant to give to government programs even if they are said to benefit millions of their fellow citizens.
I will post a link to a blog post elaborating on the idea below. But I have reduced it to 5 easy to remember steps:
Place all recipients of public funds, individuals and organizations, on an online social networking site, complete with text and picture profile.
Allow taxpayers to subsidize these recipients directly in exchange for tax credit.
To prevent fraud, use existing public sector employees to confirm the identity of the recipients.
Use existing public spaces (schools, libraries, post offices*) as places where recipients can have access to the network, edit their profiles, and receive their funds.
Reward citizens who give more then their government mandated share special awards and recognitions.
*since the post office is no longer pulling its weight anymore, converting them to service a nation wide network of distributed funds would be the perfect alternate use.
http://metalheadmotionpictures.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-imroving-welfare-spending.html
From time to time wealth has to be redistributed. Taxes only slow down the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the rich. You can tax the rich at 99% on everything and unless they spend all their income every year they will always accumulate more wealth that year. Thus those who do not spend all their income every year will be the ones that eventually hold all the wealth.
Thus we need to redistribute the wealth. So the tax rate should be progressive. Very progressive at higher tiers.
Income taxes can actually accelerate concentration of wealth. Asset taxes with an exemption can contain or even reverse concentration of wealth.
The really wealthy often have low declared incomes. Income taxes just don't impact them that much.
They do if they are done right. But our tax system is such a disaster it is about as effective and trying to drive a nail in wood with a rubber mallet.
Progressive income taxes do not tax wealthy people. They tax people becoming wealthy.
They tax wealthy people gaining more wealth which is all wealthy people. Otherwise they would be getting more poor since they would have to spend their own reserve of wealth to live.
Not really. Bill gates would only be affected if he sold Microsoft stock. It doesn't impact him if he donates to a pet foundation he still controls. He can accumulate all the wealth he wants inside of Microsoft and only pay a low corporate tax rate-and he has lots of lawyers to help keep his taxes nice and low. He can also give away shares to lots of individuals as long as he stays under the limits.
Even someone like Donald trump an insanely lavish lifestyle probably writes a lot of it off as publicity-though he might pay more tax than a less flamboyant Buffet.
Now folks liquidating assets would be impacted.
Karl Marx was a big proponent of income taxes. One of his big rivals was Henry George who advocated asset taxes including taxes on land and concentrated wealth. I think history has proven George more right than wrong.
Really big money escapes income taxes via stuff like foundations and offshore corporations but those assets in the us can still be taxed.
LOL - what's next - "9 9 9"
I'm part of this movement and I oppose flat tax rate. Flat taxes are regressive. They are more burdensome on the poor than the rich. Our biggest problem right now is that the rich aren't paying their fair share. The 1% make money off of the backs of the 99%. No reason why they can't support programs that help the rest of us.
Flat tax will not raise the revenue to pay for medications for the old folks, pave the roads, build the prisons, protect the country, build advanced weapon systems. GOP sell cool aid as much as some Democrats do.
Why do we want more advanced weapon systems, and more prisons? Local communities know how to build roads and care for their elderly. We don't need a huge centralized government giving away goodies to its big corporate buddies, we need a country like the founders envisioned, small central government ensuring basic human rights are observed in all of the states, and 50 states all as incubators of new policy competing with each other to develop the best systems.
We don't have friends in the world only interests and its in the USA interest to build advanced weapon systems to protect the economy and country. The prisons are there house and rehabilitate the criminals that misbehave in society. Can local and state agree where to build 40,000 miles of divided highway, can local community hook up transmission lines across thousands miles of land without needing more environmental reviews. The Federal government connect all corners of this nations and makes its being.
17% flat tax with poverty level exemption
Paired with a 2% tax on assets over $5 million and 1% over $1 million.
You could gradually decrease the flat rate and increase the asset tax if the rich got richer
If the rich get taxed more and more would they just not leave and take their money to another country? Then who would pay the taxes in their place?
Flat tax is grossly unfair and assumes the basic philosophy of trickle-down economics, which the past 30+ years have pretty well shown do not work well.
Flat Tax leads to less $$$ over the long run and invites more tax evasion
I'm asking for voluntary taxes, like the founders put in the Constitution (Excise and use taxes, and duties). If you can't opt out or easily avoid it, it is not morally or socially justifiable.