Analysis: 'Fair share' in taxes? Not by the number!

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Originally Posted by Arroyo_Doble

It is pretty straight forward; income taxes aren't the only taxes assessed at the federal level.

I really don't know why that is so difficult to understand.

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Oh, so you're playing the semantics game too. Embedded taxes aren't income taxes. And these other federal taxes you and wee wee keep bringing up are minuscule compared to income taxes.

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Originally Posted by Arroyo_Doble

It is pretty straight forward; income taxes aren't the only taxes assessed at the federal level.

I really don't know why that is so difficult to understand.

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WE KNOW THAT. This is strictly talking about INCOME taxes. You need to get that through your thick skull and quit with the asinine meme that you developed over "other federal taxes".

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Originally Posted by Arroyo_Doble

The taxonomy of turds:

At the very bottom: dogshit. the lowest of the low-ragpickers, bag ladies, and people who hang out in dung heaps. when you treat somebody like dogshit, your contempt knows no bounds. Next we have chickenshit. Chickenshit allows for certain humanity. A chickenshit may be a disgusting coward, but at least he's not dogshit.

Bullshit comes after that-blatant and aggressive untruths. But at a certain level, of course, we admire our liars, don't we? Bullshitters get elected, chickenshits, never.

At the top of the hierarchy, at the summit of the heap: horseshit. Horseshit is false too, but it is not manifestly false. Horseshit is subtle. It's nuanced. It plays to win. Horseshit fools some of the people some of the time. Divine justice, for example, is horseshit, not bullshit. Indeed, we hold horseshit in such esteem that we decline to bestow the epithet on one another. A person can be a bullshitter but only a horse can be a horseshitter.

~ Paraphrased from Bible Stories For Adults by James Morrow

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However it's produced, you're clearly full of it.

And, once again, no answer to my question, nor do you address Lager's post, which sums up the issue nicely. I guess that you'd rather just talk $#'+. Typical, really, but not very informative.

I'll ask again: What constitutes a fair share of income to be taken out in taxes? Give me a number.

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Originally Posted by Lager

I agree with the argument that it's unjust to claim that the individual in your example isn't "paying any taxes." But all those taxes you describe are equitable and apply to all income levels the same. It's the epitome of fairness. It's the federal income tax that's at the forefront of the discussion because it's being used as a political tool of wealth redistribution rather than an honest, straightforward mechanism for funding the government.

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That isn't true. Payroll taxes only apply to a certain level and type of income. They are not uniform.

I have no problem discussing the proper level of taxation but if you start from the premise that only income taxes should be discussed, leaving out taxes that fall more on the working poor and middle class, you are not seeking an honest discussion.

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Originally Posted by fettpett

10% across the board, everyone pays it, no refunds, no deduction, and Can't be raised. Get rid of Capital Gains and the death tax, cut spending dramatically and watch the economy boom like no other in the history of the world.

While I prefer the Fair Tax, a Flat tax would work just as well.

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I think 15% is the rate of the Hong Kong Miracle bandied about.

Each time I heard that though, I wondered who was paying the 15% tax. Every oriental business person I have ever known, actually most small retailers or restaurateurs are quite the little tax cheats. I watch the owner of the Vietnamese market I go to routinely sell nonfood merchandise to other orientals without sales tax. When I grew up in a neighborhood of Jewish merchants, they didn't charge each other tax either.

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Originally Posted by Arroyo_Doble

That isn't true. Payroll taxes only apply to a certain level and type of income. They are not uniform.

I have no problem discussing the proper level of taxation but if you start from the premise that only income taxes should be discussed, leaving out taxes that fall more on the working poor and middle class, you are not seeking an honest discussion.

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Sure we are. Income taxes fall disproportionally on the rich (and, by rich, we mean the upper 50% of the country, since half the country not only doesn't pay income tax, but gets "refunds" from those who do). You want to bring up other taxes, fine, but our question, the one that you keep dodging, is how much of someone's income should the government be permitted to claim as its due?

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Originally Posted by fettpett

WE KNOW THAT. This is strictly talking about INCOME taxes. You need to get that through your thick skull and quit with the asinine meme that you developed over "other federal taxes".

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Then it isn't a genuine conversation. It is propaganda eating.

Get your fill!

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Originally Posted by Novaheart

............Here is an example. A woman who makes $10/hr and pays $1000 a year in property tax is paying about 5% of her income in tax. Between fuel, comunications, utilities, and sales tax she pays out another 10% of income.........

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Look at what you have done, though. You have constructed a perfect straw man and then skewered your own creation with your razor sharp sword.:cool:
WHAT?, 10 dollar an hour worker pays property tax? That doesn't happen. $10/hour workers don't buy houses. They rent, and they don't even rent from me because they don't qualify for my properties. And how on earth would you know what portion of my income MY property taxes are? Go to New Jersey. They pay $10,000 in property taxes. You just haven't thought it out.

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Originally Posted by Novaheart

Meanwhile, the last time I saw something on this, Exxon was getting $2.00 in tax dollar support for every gallon of gasoline they sell. ...

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If true, SO? Poor people benefit from cheap US gas the same as I do. Go to Europe; pay more.

Since yoyo likes to play little games by posting little stories allow me to retort with my own:

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The U.S. Tax System Explained In 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 ball. “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 men would 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 ? 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 a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the
tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he
suggested that each should now pay.

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

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

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” 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 benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I
got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get
anything at all. This new tax 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 their 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 government ministers, is how our
tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will
naturally 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.

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Originally Posted by Arroyo_Doble

That isn't true. Payroll taxes only apply to a certain level and type of income. They are not uniform.

I have no problem discussing the proper level of taxation but if you start from the premise that only income taxes should be discussed, leaving out taxes that fall more on the working poor and middle class, you are not seeking an honest discussion.

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That's not exactly true. Payroll taxes are fair because in theory, if not in practice, payroll taxes fund individual benefits that one receives later in life. The reason that payroll taxes are capped is because the benefits are capped. The left whines about how somebody who makes a million dollars pays the same amount in FICA taxes as someone who makes around 120,000. That's because the person who makes a million dollars will accrue the same benefits as the lower wage earner.