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+--- Thread: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 (/showthread.php?tid=121612)
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Lux Interior - 08-10-2011
SDGuy wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
Here's the FreedomWorks "flat tax" calculator. I ran my numbers and got a tax amount about 40% higher than what I pay now.
I'll take the deductions and spend a few hours with the 1040, thanks anyway.
http://www.freedomworks.org/flattax/index.php
:agree:
At least triple for me...
Mine were slightly lower. About 14% after deductions.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - RgrF - 08-10-2011
cbelt3 wrote:
Ted, no offense. I have NOT done the math. I simply believe that anything is better than the horrifyingly complex 'system' that we have now.
...
Isn't that the sort of thought process that elected Tea Party members to Congress who then held the debt ceiling process hostage, I can't believe that's the sort of government you favor.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - RgrF - 08-10-2011
Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=SDGuy]
[quote=Grace62]
Here's the FreedomWorks "flat tax" calculator. I ran my numbers and got a tax amount about 40% higher than what I pay now.
I'll take the deductions and spend a few hours with the 1040, thanks anyway.
http://www.freedomworks.org/flattax/index.php
:agree:
At least triple for me...
Mine were slightly lower. About 14% after deductions.
See now, if only you'd stayed home you too could pay more taxes, health care cost and cable TV. Not to mention the side benefit of having your internet speed capped.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - john dough - 08-10-2011
Dakota wrote:
(paraphrasing)
I don't provide links or facts or respond to questions yet I want you to do this for me.
You are amongst those in life who do flat out do not get it. Over and over and over again, facts are provided for you here, yet you choose to ignore them. Why is that?
Yes, I have tax deductions (gas to drive to clients, computer equipment to run my business, office equipment, etc.) but I ALSO have to pay for things that a W2 workers does not (health insurance, for example). The groups that you do NOT hold accountable are engaging in evasion, but I guess that does not bother you much, as you are told that this is ok from them to do, from your choice of media.
I would imagine that no matter what proof is presented you to the contrary of what you believe, you will come up with some excuse to ignore it. How well is that working for you outside the forum?
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Ted King - 08-10-2011
cbelt3 wrote:
Ted, no offense. I have NOT done the math. I simply believe that anything is better than the horrifyingly complex 'system' that we have now.
I understand that there are a number of theories out there. I also understand that, in order to make some of them politically acceptable, they include 'deductions', 'progressive' scales, and so forth. Such compromises can and will be necessary. But they're a slippery slope.
I am for simplifying the tax code by reducing the number of deductions that is politically feasible to do. That you included 'progressive scales' in with deductions seems to me to show that you still consider that simplification = flat tax and that a stepped system is just another complication like deductions. But I think I've showed that a stepped system is essentially no more complicated than a flat tax when they both involve the same deductions allowed or taken away.
I think it is inherent in any flat tax system that it would shift more of the tax burden away from highest incomes toward lower incomes compared to the current system. Because of that, it concerns me greatly that a flat tax is equated with being "the simple tax" when a progressive stepped system is functionally as simple AND wouldn't result in a shift of taxes from higher to lower.
If we want to simplify the tax system, we can do it by getting rid of deductions. After getting rid of as many deductions as possible, then we can decide on a flat tax that I think inherently favors the wealthier or we can decide on a progressive stepped tax that favors the less wealthy - either system will be functionally as simple as the other. We could mitigate the effect of a flat tax raising taxes on the less wealthy by putting back/keeping some deductions aimed at them, but then you just unsimplify the thing. Why not just go with a progressive stepped tax.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Mac1337 - 08-10-2011
It is funny people pooh pooh the fact that this country is being financed on the back of the rich. Bring out the flat tax and they have to admit that it is true because the middle class alone can't possibly pay the bills.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Ted King - 08-10-2011
Grace62 wrote:
[quote=Ted King]
[quote=Grace62]
Even the great acolytes of the flat tax: Steve Forbes, FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, etc., include standard deductions, marital status, and deductions for children. The rate they use is 17%. Some also consider a minimum income amount below which you are not taxed at all, or taxed at a lower rate.
So even among its most ardent and true fans, the realities set in.
I think it's the "flat" part of the flat tax structures that people like Forbes are mostly interested in. The "less deduction" part they throw in with it (you could have flat rates even with all the deductions we have now) is just to get people to associate "flat tax" with "simplified tax structure". But since there is essentially no difference between the complexity of a progressively stepped tax structure and a flat tax structure if both allow and/or disallow the same deductions, the association between flat tax structure and simplification is just a ruse. Either that or they are being made so stupid by their ideology that they can't see that there isn't any connection between flat and simple tax structures that couldn't be essentially the same with a progressive stepped structure and simplification.
Well, looking directly at what FreedomWorks says on their site, it's simplification that they are after. "Flat tax" is part of that because it results in lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans, which is the foundational reason for FW's existence.
From your link:
Switching to a flat tax would make it simple to pay taxes, saving everyone time and money. Under a flat tax, filing taxes would take mere minutes, and decreasing compliance costs would improve the economy; all of those billions of hours we spend filing taxes could be put to productive use. Go ahead and compute your flat tax below, keeping in mind the time that you save in filling out a simple form, and that economic growth will improve your income situation immensely.
It's true that it doesn't explicitly say that only that the only simple taxes are flat taxes, but in total it is expressed in a way that gives the impression that simple tax = flat tax. But, if you are going to call a tax that contains deductions for children a flat tax, then that means that taxes that have deductions can be called flat taxes and that means that even a tax system that has all the deductions we do now but where the rates are not more or less for any income group would still be a flat tax. IOW, there is nothing inherent in a flat tax that makes it simpler. And yet, that is what that paragraph implies. It is very misleading.
The reason this concerns me is that I am sure that fiscal conservatives are going to make every effort to reinforce as much as possible the misconception that flat taxes are inherently simpler AND the misconception that the only simple tax is a flat tax. Republicans are experts at making sure such misconceptions become the narrative/conventional wisdom and Democrats will be left standing like deer in the headlights.... again (like the union workers in Wisconsin who voted for Walker).
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Mac1337 - 08-10-2011
I agree with you on this, Ted. The complexity of today's tax code is not finding out how much you owe. It is just a table look up. The complexity is arriving at Line 43 on Form 1040, your taxable income. I am for the flat tax if it makes all people pay some income tax(and I am supposed to be against all taxation, am I not?). Although most flat tax proposals still have deductions of various sorts.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Ted King - 08-10-2011
Dakota wrote:
I agree with you on this, Ted. The complexity of today's tax code is not finding out how much you owe. It is just a table look up. The complexity is arriving at Line 43 on Form 1040, your taxable income. I am for the flat tax if it makes all people pay some income tax(and I am supposed to be against all taxation, am I not?). Although most flat tax proposals still have deductions of various sorts.
I understand people being for a flat tax for reasons other than simplification - I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. I just don't want people in general fixing in their minds that if they want a simple tax system that the only alternative is a flat tax, but I'm afraid that is the direction the political narrative/conventional wisdom will go.
Re: IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 - OWC Jamie - 08-10-2011
The yacht example is wrong in that you don't pay no taxes unless you live on the West coast and can provide a resindency requirement in Oregon ( no sales tax) , otherwise you're paying a sales tax, somewhere.
Unless it's a big enough yacht to get it documented in Panama or the Cayman Islands and you don't pay NO tax, the taxes there are usually very little.
How many blue collar workers lost their jobs when the 10% luxury tax was instituted in 1990 ?
How many boat builders either went out of business or moved to New Zealand or somewhere in Indonesia ?
More lost jobs - and taxes.
Many of those loopholes and exemptions were created for reasons, many of them to save jobs and prop up the economy. Good luck removing them.
Be carefull not to remove your nose to spite your face.