An open discussion on taxes

Put them back to pre-Reagan taxes. His trickle down idea didn't work.

The rich should want to pay more. They can't get rich off the rest of society if most of society isn't doing well.

Does anyone *want* to pay more taxes? I mean, aside from Midmorning's guests who are petitioning...

Your point about a health society deserves some focus and will probably generate some comments. Considering infrastructure and general economic health, would it be a benefit.

After the anti-tax propaganda that's been drilled into us by Reagan and his disciples, it's easy to see why people would just see paying for government and society as BAD (as if they could do without).

I don't see why the super rich would flip out paying more out since after increased taxes they would still be super rich. And it's on the backs of the middle class they got super rich, so destroying the middle class would be killing the goose that lays them their golden eggs.

But the rich probably don't think about the big picture and only think of themselves. So it's time we started voting for our own self interests and stop voting for the short-sighted rich. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Clinton taxed the rich more and the sky didnt fall.

No one likes to pay taxes but we all support things like libraries and decent roads.

The rich should pay their fair share of taxes.

Thanks for joining, Lori. What would constitute a fair share?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Julia,

I will give you a warren Buffet quote.

At a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton he stated that his administrative asst pays more of her income, about 33%, then he does, 17%.

We need to get rid of the tax loopholes for the wealthy.

Each person needs to pay their share of taxes based on their income bracket. This is not charity this is the price you pay for living in the US.

We need to stop letting people hide income in out of the country banks.

I hear the supply-demand economics used so often when it comes to taxation. Even if the Laffer curve is useful, we have no reference on which side of the peak the US is at. The stereotypical conservative assumes we're on one side of the peak, the stereotypical liberal assumes we're on the other side of the peak. It is a totally unproductive argument unless you can add more to the discussion than posting a link to the Laffer curve.

"""The top 20% in income pay roughly 33% of the taxes but have and make 98% of the income and assets.""""

You really need to get away from those kook sites.....

"""The top fifth of households made 56% of pre-tax income in 2006 but paid 86% of all individual income tax revenue collected, according to the most recent data available from the Congressional Budget Office. """

"""Narrowing in further: The top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes."""

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/15/pf/taxes/who_pays_most_least/index.htm

Facts are stubborn things sweetie.....

If they want to pay more, why don't they just write another check? What's stopping them?

How would that opt-in system work, Winston?

They can just write a check to the State or Federal Treasury. Put your social security number on it with your name address like anything else. You could do it today, nothing stopping you.

Remember Gov Jesse, when people bitched about the rebate he said send it back. Very few did.

Why does everyone want everyone else to pay more? Or I'll pay a little more but I want someone else to pay alot?

JUST SHUT UP AND DO IT FOLKS! It's that easy! If your liberal guilt wants you to pay more taxes than do it! Leave me alone! I've got other charities that get my money. The state or fed doesn't get one dime more!

I listened to the Midmorning program. Really interesting.

Winston is in favor of people volunteering to pay more taxes. The guest in the program brought up a good point regarding this. Why collect taxes to pay for national defense? If you think national defense is a good thing, then you write a check for it. If not, don't. Would that work?

Which one of your charities build bridges? Highways? Energy infrastructure? Which one of your charities defend this country from terrorist?

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm

‘The wealthy should pay more taxes?’

Yes they should feel morally obligated to, as the wealth they obtained came in general from this society; therefore, they should also support it, as a matter of principle.

Don't they already?
When will it ever be enough?
Should they feel morally obligated to provide jobs? Provide goods and services?

If you tax something, you get less of that behavior, right?
So if you tax hard work, you get less hard work? Right?

Winston the disproportinate amount of taxes paid is at the middle and lower middle income brackets.

The top 20% in income pay roughly 33% of the taxes but have and make 98% of the income and assets.

It is not a matter of charity or one being obligated over the other.

It is the price you pay to live and prosper and be part of the human race.

I doubt that the relationship between taxation and "hard work" is as predictable as some people seem to think. There's an elasticity component that's awfully hard to measure. X amount of monetary disincentive does not automatically produce Y reduction in "hard work." People just aren't built that way.

Also, money is far from the only incentive people have to do stuff.

"So if you tax hard work, you get less hard work? Right?"

Interesting idea, Winston. We should tax laziness, so we get less laziness.

Interesting idea, Winston. We should tax laziness, so we get less laziness.

Eric you are the hero of the day.

On a more cooperative note...

I really appreciate the conservative voice on Gather. Although I often make liberal-sounding posts and comments (because I'm mostly liberal), I think open discussions likes these help each of us see issues from the other person's point of view. Democracy works best this way.

So, Winston, thanks for contributing. And I'll remind myself to be nice :)

No, I don't think the rich should pay more taxes. I think we should cut the federal government way back - perhaps starting with the czar positions Obama created, then cutting the crap from the spending bill that should have never been there. We certainly should not be considering another government program of any kind (like health care) without a plan FIRST about how it will be funded. That should be a requirement of every proposed project.

Next, I think we should make sure every working American actually pays taxes. It's easy not to care if Uncle Sam spends more if you don't pay any taxes. There should be no more refunds of 2, 3 or more times what people put into the system. Whether one's income is from working or pension or unemployment, each one should contribute some taxes. Imagine if the 40% of Americans who file taxes but pay no taxes at all suddenly did. Wow. That's over 40 million people who, if they paid something, could help our economy. They should be patriotic and pay taxes. Isn't that what liberals say about the rich? I think it should apply to everyone.

Marilyn you are missing the point. The rich need to pay their share.

I find it funny that you want to make sure that every working american pays their taxes unless of course that person is weathy.

20% of the country pays 80% of the taxes now, Lori. It's time for the 40% who pay no taxes to put in some of their money. Perhaps if they did, they wouldn't always have their hands out.

It's time for those folks to start being patriotic. It's un-American for them not to pay taxes. (Isn't that what liberals think? That paying taxes makes you patriotic?)

The more the government takes away, the less "rich" people have to invest in new businesses, new factories, new stores, new machines, new product lines. The more the government takes way, the less money the "rich" people have to invest in companies that are trying to expand.

If you punish people for taking the risk of entrepenuership, you won't get any.

Don't kill the goose that is laying your golden eggs liberals.

When the productive people get tired of socialism and either stop working or rebel, the government then needs to use a gun and it becomes communism.

The top 5% of income earners pay 60% of the total federal tax revenue. The bottom 50% of income earners pay just under 3%.

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

Not according to Warren Buffet - whose secretary pays a higher percentage of taxes that he does.

"Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.

Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation. "

(from the Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece)

It's an irrelevant and inappropriate comparison, Winston. Try this one:

Someone makes $35,000 a year net working two jobs. Basic housing, food, car, gas, education, and the occasional night out (at McDonalds) for a family of four takes up $30,000 of it, leaving about $5,000 for discretionary spending (e.g., new clothes instead of hand-me-downs, a driving vacation to the campsite, etc.)

Now, someone else makes $3,000,000 a year, half of which comes from dividends and capital gains, i.e., interest on excess money he isn't really using because the costs of "basic" shelter, clothes, food, etc. are almost entirely flexible. He could buy a mortgage on a $40 million house, or buy a $2 million dollar house and have lots left over for discretionary spending like trips to Europe or purchasing a yacht.

Add in Diana's Warren Buffet example above and you can see how the very wealthy actually can - and usually do - pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes (obviously 17% of $3 million is still more than 30% of $60,000, but the actual percent rate (and the impact) is substantially less.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNaqecavD9ek

You folks diversifying your 401K's, 403B's, IRA's? Better start.

What will lower and middle income people do about inflation?

I think everybody should pay the same percentage of what they earn. That means the wealthy DO pay their fair share instead of an unfair share.

Actually, the wealthy pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than most of the middle class. How is that possible, you ask? Easy.

The tax structure is progressive, meaning that the more money you make the higher the percentage tax you pay. In theory. In reality it doesn't work that way, for several reasons, just a few examples of which follow:

1) much of the income from the wealthy, especially the very wealthy, is derived from capital gains and dividends, which is actually taxed right now at 15%. Bottom line, if you have enough money to live off the investment gains you pay a lower rate on it. Most of the middle class get most of their income from ordinary income (e.g., wages), which for them gets them a tax rate around 30%.

2) much of the investment income is deductible. We encourage businesses to expand, so we give them breaks on money supposedly spent putting back into the business for growth, hiring, innovation, etc. Unfortunately, much of it goes into very complicated compensation packages for the top dogs that take advantage of the complex loopholes inserted in the bills Congress passes, loopholes not surprisingly developed by those who would benefit most from them

3) business income gets a whole set of special rules, some of which allow companies to move money off-shore to "tax havens" (which means, "hiding money from the IRS"). Often businesses don't pay any taxes. So the wealthy shunt monies into businesses that are essentially just money laundering to keep from paying taxes.

4) the more money you make the more options there are for deductions, the previously mentioned tax havens, etc. That's because there is "excess" money, i.e., they make much more money than they can spend, and certainly much much more money than is needed to provide basic self-services such as food, clothing, shelter, etc. The lower the income the greater percentage goes to these basic necessities, which leaves much less available for investing (if any).

There's more of course, and no one is saying all wealthy people are scamming the system or not paying large amounts in taxes, but the bottom line is that they have advantages that are not available to most of the middle class and not even a fantasy for the lower income earners.

No value judgments here, just clarification as to the reality of taxes.

Most wealthy liberals inherited their money and live off of capital gains. They will NEVER go for a capital gains tax increase. They just want to tax people who work for it. Nice folks those liberals.....

Most wealthy liberals inherited their money and live off of capital gains.

Huh? Where on earth did you get that information? And are you suggesting that most wealthy conservatives didn't inherit their money and live off the capital gains?

They will NEVER go for a capital gains tax increase. They just want to tax people who work for it. Nice folks those liberals.....

Again, huh? Liberals will NEVER go for a capital gains tax increase? That's exactly what they want. And they "just want to tax people who work for it?" That's exactly what they are trying to avoid by focusing tax increases on the top 1% of the wealthy.

You seem to have your parties reversed, Jeff.

Look, let's be honest here.

The main principle of the Democrats is that the progressive tax is fair because it taxes most those people who have so much money they won't even notice some of it has been taxed. Versus those people who make less money and so the tax makes up a much higher percentage of their discretionary income. Also, that the tax loopholes available to the rich are not available to the less rich, so the effective tax rate for the rich is actually LOWER than that of the less rich. Diana Raabe's anecdote about Warren Buffet exemplifies this.

The main principle of the Republicans is that they think the rich should not be taxed at a progressive rate because it is the rich that create companies and thus jobs for the less rich. They focus on the nominal rates and ignore the effective rate that results from variable availability of havens.

The philosophies are fundamentally different, and cannot be reconciled.

So all we have to work with is an honest discussion. If the Republicans feel a flat tax is better, then they have to come up with real evidence supporting such a system would be beneficial for all Americans (not just the rich). If the Democrats feel that taxing the wealthiest 1 or 2% is something they can afford to absorb without significantly affecting their buying power and ability to create jobs, then they have to provide evidence to support that concept.

But instead the discussion is sidetracked onto false arguments created specifically to hide the reality and thus keep anything from happening to change the status quo.

A little integrity would be nice.

The only fair tax is a progressive tax.

As George W. Bush said, the wealthy know very well how NOT to pay taxes. The hidden truth is that those who make the most money actually use the most (and most expensive) government-provided services. Read "The Myth of Ownership" by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel.

I would be interested in reading that book. Never know - I might find out one day that I am wealthy. :)

I apologize for coming into this conversation so late; I wish I would have seen it sooner.
One of my core principles is that those who don’t pay don’t value what they get. I believe everyone should have to pay for what they get whether it be though taxes so they gain some appreciation that what they are getting from the government isn’t free. Hopefully with that appreciation they use the services more judiciously.
I don’t think that people should be punished for their success. Simply because someone is wealthy doesn’t mean they should have to pay a disproportionate part of their wealth because they can.
I accept we have a graduated tax system, it is so distorted that people are paid by the government to work low paying jobs (EITC) and at the Federal level (independent of FICA and Federal other taxes, and all state and local taxes) people simply want to take the tax rate on the wealthy to near 40%.
If we need to raise taxes I would prefer to see ALL tax write offs eliminated and let the programs such as the oil depletion allowance and ethanol subsidies disappear, they distort the market and create more problems than they are worth.
Before I would support tax increases (from current levels including continuing the EITC) on anyone I would want every new spending bill require a description of the expectations for the legislation to achieve, metric for measuring the effectiveness of achieving those performance expectations, and a sun setting of the funding for those programs that don’t meet the expectations. Before we get preoccupied with raising more we need to get control of what we are spending otherwise in a few years we will be asked to raise taxes again.
As for a petition by the wealthy to raise the taxes on the wealthy is pure hypocrisy. A glowing example of that is Warren Buffet. He claims that the wealthy should be taxed more and yet when he decides to give away his wealth he turns to the Gates Foundation and not the Federal or even State governments to spend these Billions. If the those signing the petition truly believe they should be giving more (in taxes) then they should first simply donate the money their money (at the level of added tax the want). It would take no legislation, rather then putting their signature oin a petition they could put it on a check to Uncle Sam.

"As for a petition by the wealthy to raise the taxes on the wealthy is pure hypocrisy. A glowing example of that is Warren Buffet. He claims that the wealthy should be taxed more and yet when he decides to give away his wealth he turns to the Gates Foundation and not the Federal or even State governments to spend these Billions. If the those signing the petition truly believe they should be giving more (in taxes) then they should first simply donate the money their money (at the level of added tax the want). It would take no legislation, rather then putting their signature oin a petition they could put it on a check to Uncle Sam." - Duane B.

First, Duane B. I'm sorry I'm so late in writing back to you. Next, your point that I just quoted may be interesting in that... I don't believe there's a tax write off in paying more taxes.