If I pay taxes to the state why should I have to pay taxes on that money again to the federal government? Isn’t that double taxation?
(Edit…In retrospect, this could have gone in the money section, but I figured, given the push for tax reform in the news, this might fit here as well. Mods, move it if you think it would be better in the money section.)
What about the local property tax and sales taxes? Is that triple and quadruple taxation? I suppose I should read the article you posted.
Will look at it later if I remember. I can see by the first part of this article, I’m already annoyed; and I don’t have a strong opinion on this matter right now.
Here go again! The Republicans are going to fail to pass another major bill because we fight among ourselves.
There is no tax deduction for sales takes. That means that I am double taxed in Florida which has no state income tax. I have to live with that. If you feel like you are paying too much in taxes because you live in the northeast or California, move! If those states drive out all of the productive people and are left with nothing but welfare recipients an illegal aliens, they will go bankrupt which would be a good thing.
If you can lay a tax on a tax, you can get to a point where you can owe more in taxes that you earn. Examples are easy to construct. I don’t understand why they are even considering this,
Every single one of us pays double and even quadruple taxation. WE pay ALL the taxes levied on corporations, just for example. WE pay property taxes on our homes–even after they’ve been paid off and we “own” them free and clear of any liens. We don’t EVER “own” real estate. One of the very FEW exceptions is in Louisiana where, if your property is valued at UNDER $75K, you don’t pay property taxes–or you only pay taxes on the valuation that exceeds $75K…which is why you see so many cheap, mobile homes instead of comparative “mansions.”
This is a little different:
Assume income $100,000
State Income Tax: 13%
Federal income Tax: 90%
Federal rates are nowhere near that but they were at one time. The current rate in the People’s Republic of California is somewhere around 13%.
So, before you have spent a dime on property tax, sales tax, payroll tax, city sales tax, gasoline tax, cigarette tax, food, clothing and shelter you would owe:
$90,000 to the IRS
$13,000 to California
Effective rate: 104%. Bring money from home to take to work and surrender. This is what is meant by double taxation. A little more work would come up with a more realistic example but this illustrates the principle.
Exactly, it’s tax on the exact same money.
I should point out though, that even if you were in a 90% tax bracket, you wouldn’t pay 90% on $100k worth of income. However, if you were doing that just to simplify your example, I totally agree.
The issue is the folly in taxing income as opposed to consumption only; you cannot tax income without arbitrarily defining what “income” is.
Taxes paid to other government entities should not qualify as “income” eligible for taxation to other government entities but that makes no difference since we have accepted the reality that what is “income” will be arbitrarily decided.
If one of your dollars doesn’t count as “income” I will call that a “loophole”, if one of my dollars doesn’t count as “income” I will call that a “legitimate deduction”; you will do the same to me.
The premise of a tax on income is that the government has a right to everything you earn, therefore they will decide how much of what you earn you get to keep and use yourself; under such an unreasonable and immoral premise there will never be reason or integrity.
RET, i generally agree with everything you have said about income tax. However taxing the same income twice takes it to a new level.
I am dead set against any consumption tax until the income tax is repealed. If you start the VAT, we will end up with both an income and a VAT tax. All politicians are tax hogs. They will take as much as they can get. That goes for both parties.
That is the KEY, not VAT or consumption tax or sales tax (call it what you will), but we do NOT want a tax on income AND consumption. I will agree to a phase in on a dollar for dollar over say 3 years. Set in Sunset Law.
The consumption tax will never happen because we are taxed in so many layers that we do not know what we pay. Like tax on business, its just a hidden tax on us. I like many in the US own a business, I pay taxes and I include that in the sales price of my goods…DUH!
The problem from the view of govt is that a consumption tax and no other taxes, shows the people just how much taxes they actually pay and if the public knew they would rebel against and demand the govt get a lot smaller and a lot leaner, real quick.
Can’t disagree with any of this! That’s why I’ve long maintained that EVERYONE pays well above 50% of their individual incomes in some form of taxation–even the “poor.” When you buy a loaf of bread, you are also paying the taxes imposed on: The guy who sold the wheat seed to the farmer, the farmer himself, the transport of that wheat to the mill, the operator of the mill, the bakery, the bread company, and the grocery that sold you the bread, not to even mention the yeast company and the company that generates the power for the ovens AT the bakery.
Is the issue how much we are taxed, or is it to figure out what the purposes of taxes are and then decide what is needed in order to meet that purpose?
Easily answered, Mr. Brown. The PURPOSE of taxes SHOULD be to defray the cost of the CONSTITUTIONAL functions of government…period. Unfortunately, especially over the last 100 years or so, governments at ALL levels, local, county, state and federal, have decided to take on responsibility for MANY things they have no business in being involved. With The feds, this is especially true. There is no constitutional justification for the feds to be involved in health care, education, environmental “protection,” or how much water you are “allowed” to use to flush your toilet or how to illuminate your environment at night.
That’s a good answer.
Is there anything that you believe could justify the way America is today? That is, do you think there is a formal process whereby the people could choose to keep the system as it largely exists today assuming that a majority of the people want it that way?
A process? Yes, it exists, but a three-fourths majority won’t approve of the changes.
With increased societal “prosperity” eventually comes the attitude that, “Since I’m prosperous today, I have a “right” to be prosperous ALWAYS, and it’s the government’s job to insure that I remain so.” We see it in Kuwait, where NONE of the hard labor required to maintain Kuwait’s infrastructure is done by Kuwaitis, but by imported laborers. There are almost as many KOREANS in Kuwait than there are Kuwaitis. We’re seeing much the same happen here. Few people WANT to be mechanics, plumbers, heavy equipment operators, cow milkers or brick layers, but they STILL want all those things done FOR them because they are “entitled” to working cars, plumbing, streets built, cows milked and bricks laid.
This alludes to an interesting concept about the rich: Can you be too rich?
While the capitalist in me has always said no, times have changed. Way back, I had a friend who made the Forbes 400 most wealthy, it broke in with a $100 M and there were not billionaires. He never stopped chasing making another buck.
Times however have changed and we now have KIDS worth 10’s of Billions. As I look at some of these folks, I see people that cannot ever spend all the money they have, no life style they can live can absorb their wealth.
What seems to occur at some point in wealth is that you no longer chase a buck, there is no need, you and your family are taken care of as far down the road of life you can imagine. Even today we have families living off the wealth of the founder, Ford’s, Rockefeller’s, Kennedy’s and many others, some are well into the 4th and 5 generation. I have a friend now that his great grandfather was a founder of a still successful company. He has never had to work, but has owned businesses mostly to indulge his Ferrari lifestyle and he does some real estate development , nothing major but rather just to work a bit and have a business to allocate his trust fund income to in order to soften the tax burden. Not sure what his income is but noting his lifestyle and knowing him I would say about $250 per year.
The point: At some level you cross the threshold of chasing another buck and working at making your life a bit better and avoiding taxes to thinking and acting more like a govt entity than and individual. G Soros is a great example. He is currently down here in Texas spending money like crazy to change our political landscape from a RED state to Blue. From what I gather he is willing to spend over $100M to do it.
This begs the question, can you be to rich and to that I now answer YES! How much is to rich? For that its hard to say, But maybe $10 Billion??? I have a friend, her father is worth about $10 B according to Forbes. He started out as a roughneck in the oil fields of the Permian Basin, started a company providing oil field services, which grew to 25,000+ employees, sold it, retired to a small ranch here in Texas. He leads a very quiet lifestyle and by all appearances he and his family are just local people in a small town and I doubt most folks have any idea of their wealth.
Perhaps the way to get control of the Soros and others is to simply tax them into it. Your net worth hits $10B and your tax rate is 90% and no deducts past the $10B point.
Really Tex? They aren’t just sitting in a bunker with crates of hundred dollar bills. They are either investing in something new, lending it to someone else doing something new, keeping the markets fluid or buying overpriced stupid decadent stuff allowing someone else to sell overpriced stupid decadent stuff. What’s the problem?
I agree with the top of Oaks’ post. There’s a point where more money really doesn’t matter anymore. That’s not for me to decide for anyone though.