Flat Tax?

[Cyrus]

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I am in favor of a flat tax.

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So you're in favor of tax avoidance.

Please realize that the IRS is more dangerous than the CIA.

[natedogg]

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On what do you base your "guarantee"?


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On historical precedent of conservative previous tax plans.

For example, the Bush tax plan sold as good for the middle/lower class, really shifted more of the tax burden to them. The ole Repub bait and switch.

Forbes is disingenuous with the 'simplification of the tax code' angle.

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A middle class taxpayer pays less tax now than before. It's very simple math.

natedogg

[natedogg]

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It lowered taxes for everyone, but it shifted more of the total tax burden to the lower and middle classes.

Surely we can agree on this fact?

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Yes, but so what? That is the least important part of the entire picture.

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My my are we at opposite poles.

To me this is obviously the most important part of the entire picture. Class warfare at its finest.

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Surely you are not so partisan and blinded by talking points that you'd rather pay *more* taxes as long as the total tax paid by the "class" you are in is more/less/whatever. And you are the one talking class warfare....

I mean, your tax payment is lowered and all you can do is complain about some spin on the total tax burden based on arbitrary cutoffs of groups of people, some of whom you happen to indentify with.

*You pay less tax now*. And you're mad about it.

amazing.

natedogg

[warlockjd]

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A middle class taxpayer pays less tax now than before. It's very simple math.

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Everyone pays less under his plan. My point is that adds up to deficits, won't work. Then, the poor will end up paying more if I know repubs, and the rich less.....

[natedogg]

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A middle class taxpayer pays less tax now than before. It's very simple math.

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Everyone pays less under his plan. My point is that adds up to deficits, won't work. Then, the poor will end up paying more if I know repubs, and the rich less.....

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So your main objection to the proposal has nothing to do with the proposal itself, but rather a fear of some future proposal that will change it? Interesting....

natedogg

[warlockjd]

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2) economic growth helps them too, and lowering taxes for everyone spurs economic growth

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I have always maintained (since the Bush tax cut was proposed) that the proper way to go about stimulating the economy is as follows.

Reduce the poorest of the poor's tax rate to zero. This money, from broke people that aren't even getting their necessities, goes directly into the economy right away on staples they need..

Wal-Mart, Goodwill, you name it.

Then demand increases for Wal-Mart employees and production Wal-Mart like goods.

This is the proper way to stimulate the economy, from the bottom up, and it will not spur a jobless recovery, as we have seen.

Here is Warren Buffet's view. linky




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Surely you are not so partisan and blinded by talking points that you'd rather pay *more* taxes as long as the tax paid by the "class" you are in is more/less/whatever. And you are the one talking class warfare....

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This would not apply if I was in the plutocrat class, or even the $250k bracket. Poor people in this country are overtaxed. My particle bracket is irrelevant to the argument.

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I mean, your tax payment is lowered and all you can do is complain about some spin on the total tax burden based on arbitrary cutoffs of groups of people, some of whom you happen to indentify with.

*You pay less tax now*. And you're mad about it

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You misunderstand my point entirely, I think the above clears it up.

[warlockjd]

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So your main objection to the proposal has nothing to do with the proposal itself, but rather a fear of some future proposal that will change it? Interesting....

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My main problem with the proposal is that the numbers do not add up and it simply will not work.

He assumes increased tax revenues from increased GDP due to the incentive to work more at a lower tax rate. This is at this point an unproven theory.

As a sidepoint, as posted above, in countries such as Russia, that people use to support the flat tax, the very rich were going largely totally untaxed, so that flat tax increased total tax revenues. That simply is not the case with the U.S.

Now, believing that his plan is unrealist and will not work, yes, I look at what the logical revisions would be if as a Repub admin did the necessary reshaping to make the numbers balance. And I further believe that I am on the right track.

[MMMMMM]

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Reduce the poorest of the poor's tax rate to zero. This money, from broke people that aren't even getting their necessities, goes directly into the economy right away on staples they need..


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The poorest people don't pay any income tax now anyway.

Other than that, it appears you've managed to mix my post and Natedogg's post with your use of the Copy function, and are responding to him in the latter part of your post. Don't worry, it's happened to me before, too.

[warlockjd]

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The poorest people don't pay any income tax now anyway.


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I guess everyone has a different definition of poor, but if you're single and making less than $40k that's poor in my book.

Obviously, though, I would start with those making less than $10k, then $15k, and gradually go up the chain until all tax cut $ was budgeted.

[Taraz]

So the basic problem of a flat tax is a basic principle that you learn in economics called diminishing marginal utility. The basic idea is that for every additional dollar that you earn, every single dollar is worth less. If I only have $5 to my name, every dollar is precious. I will probably not be spending any of that money on any luxuries. If I want a candy bar for example, $1 is just too steep of a price. If however I have $1000, I can afford to spend a couple bucks here and there for my pleasure. Candy bars galore!

This relates to taxation because for someone who makes $60,000 a year, 20% ($12,000) can cause tangible differences in one's lifestyle. However for someone making $10 million a year, that 20% ($2 million) doesn't affect all that much (aside from luxuries). Basically you are taxing a rich person's luxuries and a poorer/middle class person's necessities with a flat tax.

This is why a progressive tax is much more fair. Nobody gets taxed on their first $30,000 of income, everybody gets taxed X% on their next $30,000 of income, >X% on the 3rd $30,000, etc.

I'm not trying to say that our tax system is perfect or that we can't use some serious reforms. But a flat tax is not the way to go.