"End The IRS Before It Ends Us..." -- Grover Norquist

If you stack up a persons earned, income-taxable earnings in the order of each dollar earned, under a graduated ,i.e., progressive, income tax, everyone who pays any income tax at all pays exactly the same tax rate on the same taxable dollar earned. That is to say, you and I pay exactly the same rate on the first taxable dollar we earn, and though we pay a different rate on the millionth dollar we each earn, we each pay exactly the same rate on that dollar. Seen in this light, a progressive tax structure on earned income is fair.

This simple observation, however, leaves out the major component of many wealthy person's income, i.e., unearned income. How unearned income is treated may be having a major affect on income inequality, in as much as the poor and middles classes have very little to no unearned income on average, whereas top earners may derive most of their income as unearned.

I would point out that their was a brief time during the Reagan Presidency when nearly all of the progressiveness in earned income tax was taken out of the U.S. tax structure. The marginal rate in the lower brackets, including the lowest bracket, was raised slightly and the rate in the upper brackets drastically compressed and drastically lowered. This has been partly undone by subsequent tax legislation, but the structure for earned income today is still significantly less progressive than it was pre-Reagan.

I, and some others, have attributed the non-linear drift toward greater income inequality since Reagan partly to compression in marginal tax rates. Marginal rate compression may be only a minor contributor however. One also has to also consider the gap between rates on earned versus unearned income, and the compounding over time of the effect of this gap. This would seem to be the more important factor with regard to income inequality, and the data seems to support this.

Warren Buffett proposed some time ago that the tax structure be altered so upper bracket earners not pay any less percent tax on their income than the middle class. The effect, directly or indirectly, of putting this so-called Buffett rule into action would have been to raise the tax rate on unearned income. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule

Currently, of all the industrialized nations, the U.S. compares itself to, the U.S. has by far the greatest income inequality. In terms of income inequality, the U.S. is on par with Cameroon, Madagascar, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ecuador.
 
please explain to us how you compare income inequality.
in the most rational approaches income inequality in the U.S. comes about because the top .5 percent or less are gathering in all the assets.

1. If income inequality is the issue you wish to address via taxes..
the solution is obvious.
Drop the income tax and the death taxes on everyone but the .05 or .01 etc.

Causes of income inequality =

a. The reason why the top group is gathering in all the assets is because they are able to structure their finances into tax avoiding entities.

see:

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-05-02/the-super-richs-offshore-tax-avoidance-strategies

and https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40623.pdf

b. also the cronies now own congress so MSNBC types and Clintons and GE's of the world laugh while the IRS targets Conservatives.


The real issue:
Why the hell does the govt need to steal our income anyway.
Let them set up tariffs which if done properly also creates jobs the way the founders intended.

Income and death taxes were set up at about the same time the private central bank called the Federal Reserve was. its purpose was to steal income from people to eliminate the competition for resources and Politicians.

It has been highly successful... as few families can gain or maintain generational wealth.

The govt does not need income taxes... when the dollar is the world currency.
The govt can just print more dollars and tell the Fed to print fewer for itself.
.
 
Cause of income inequality: no family structure in inner cities. Democrats answer: expand welfare, which is paid to women in the inner cities as long as there is no working man in the house..
 
income inequality is not a problem. If it was we could simply take all the money from the rich and give it to the poor...problem solved. The only fair tax is an income tax, and all income should be taxed at the same rate, including dividends and cap gains. Mortgages and charitable contributions should not be exempt.
 
LOL "progressive" taxation. The fair tax is sales tax. Every pimp and drug dealer would be paying their taxes under that system. People that don't spend much wouldn't pay much tax. You could protest by not buying anything.

I appeal every year to the ACLU to do something about invasion of privacy we experience by filling out our income tax forms but for some reason they are more concerned with other privacy matters LOL
 
Fractals 'R Us said:
LOL "progressive" taxation. The fair tax is sales tax. Every pimp and drug dealer would be paying their taxes under that system. People that don't spend much wouldn't pay much tax. You could protest by not buying anything.

I appeal every year to the ACLU to do something about invasion of privacy we experience by filling out our income tax forms but for some reason they are more concerned with other privacy matters LOL
More...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
NOT likely any pimp or drug dealer would pay any tax
 
The US taxes long term cap gains at a relatively high rate already compared to many countries with more robust economic growth. In Hong Kong the rate is zero I believe. The money used to generate cap gains and pay death taxes has generally alreadd been taxed at least once. Dividends are a classic example of double taxation.

Calls to tax so-called unearned income more heavily are basically appeals to envy and class hatred, which of course are now core values of the democrats.

The causes of income or wealth disparity are complex. Some, like the stubborn refusal of inner city underclass members to live responsibly, are seemingly immune to government intervention. In any event. inner city poverty has increased under enlightened liberal policies, so obviously the solution is to double down on a failed approach.

The biggest problem I see is the somewhat interrealated issues of excessive, obscene levels of CEO compensation, often unrelated to actual results, and the hollowing out of the country's manufacturing base. There is a reason countries pursue merchantilistic policies designed to benefit their own industries: it increases the country's wealth. One need only look at China, Japan and Germany. We follow the opposite approach of so-called free trade, which in practice means unilateral disarmament in global trade warfare.

I would support a return to a tax structure based largely on tariffs, and a trade policy based on strict bilateral reciprocity.
 
now that is my nomination for post of the year. Although I would argue that the inner city is just responding in a very predictable and expected manner to the structures of the give aways.

AAAintheBeltway said:
The US taxes long term cap gains at a relatively high rate already compared to many countries with more robust economic growth. In Hong Kong the rate is zero I believe. The money used to generate cap gains and pay death taxes has generally alreadd been taxed at least once. Dividends are a classic example of double taxation.

Calls to tax so-called unearned income more heavily are basically appeals to envy and class hatred, which of course are now core values of the democrats.

The causes of income or wealth disparity are complex. Some, like the stubborn refusal of inner city underclass members to live responsibly, are seemingly immune to government intervention. In any event. inner city poverty has increased under enlightened liberal policies, so obviously the solution is to double down on a failed approach.

The biggest problem I see is the somewhat interrealated issues of excessive, obscene levels of CEO compensation, often unrelated to actual results, and the hollowing out of the country's manufacturing base. There is a reason countries pursue merchantilistic policies designed to benefit their own industries: it increases the country's wealth. One need only look at China, Japan and Germany. We follow the opposite approach of so-called free trade, which in practice means unilateral disarmament in global trade warfare.

I would support a return to a tax structure based largely on tariffs, and a trade policy based on strict bilateral reciprocity.
More...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top