Posts by botchtowersociety

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

James_Woods ....

You've been inhaling too much smoke from the right wing loons.

I am not going to hijack this thread but will start another. However, a quick computation for a couple earning $50,000 total ($25,000 each, about $12 per hour) pays 21% combined federal taxes. Forget the "rates" or whatever, just add the two federal taxes on earning together (income and payroll) and divide it by the gross income ... THAT IS HOW TO PROPERLY CALCULATE THE TAX PERCENTAGE.

In other words, a couple working at McDonalds earning $12 per hour each will pay $21 of every $100 they earn taken in federal tax.

Please don't say the "poor" don't pay taxes.

Rub a Dub

False. Below a certain income, there is no net Federal income tax. When wage income is low enough, there is even a credit--a subsidy. That group accounts for nearly half of the country.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/46-percent-of-americans-e_n_886293.html

Actually, I am going by old data. That number is now over 50%:

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/Over-Half-Households-Paid-No-Income-Taxes-58240-1.html

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

Now see, you're even lying about that. I did no such editing.

Oh screw you, I saw it the first time on page 1, and saw no Adam Smith quotes.

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

A system in which the rich pay more taxes (than in simple percentage of wealth or income terms) is a progressive tax system.

"A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases."

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

Smith never advocated this.

Who is the liar here?

By the way, from that link, the OECD found the US to have the most progressive tax system out of any OECD country.

BTS

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

I have already demonstrated that Smith favored a proportional tax system, not a progressive one. It is in Smith's own words and SixOfNine does not have a leg to stand on.

HOWEVER.

I see SixOfNine went back and edited his first page post with quotes after he was called out for producing nothing.

Here is one of them:

"The rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion"<109>

Full context and notice how SixOfNines dishonest truncation changes the sense of it:

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion"

Notice how Smith thought that "perhaps" it would "not be unreasonable" to institute some sort of a luxury tax.

Unlike his other statements about proportional taxation, Smith is far more tentative here. This is not a positive assertion on Smith's part, in contrast to his other statements. And either way, it is not truly progressive, since it is proportional on the house-rent. This is essentially a luxury tax on housing, not an income tax.

Around here, with a homestead exemption sufficiently large, less wealthy owners of small homes may pay no property tax at all. Above the threshold, although the exemption still applies, a percentage based property tax rises proportionally with the value of the home. This is not a progressive tax, since everyone gets the exemption.

BTS

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

SixOfNine is full of shit, and can't back anything he says up. Adam Smith did not favor progressive taxation. Period. He favored proportional taxation. A flat tax is proportional (everybody pays the same proportion of that which is taxed), a progressive tax is not. Case closed.

Read it:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book05/ch02b.htm

The following chapter is linked downpage from my link. He covers rents, income, profit from investments, consumption, and land taxes.

Smith rejects income taxes on capital, wages, and professional income.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book05/ch02b-3.htm

Wages:

"If direct taxes upon the wages of labour have not always occasioned a proportionable rise in those wages, it is because they have generally occasioned a considerable fall in the demand for labour. The declension of industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, the diminution of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have generally been the effects of such taxes. In consequence of them, however, the price of labour must always be higher than it otherwise would have been in the actual state of the demand: and this enhancement of price, together with the profit of those who advance it, must always be finally paid by the landlords and consumers.

A tax upon the wages of country labour does not raise the price of the rude produce of land in proportion to the tax, for the same reason that a tax upon the farmer's profit does not raise that price in that proportion.

Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries."

He only favors taxing the income of officials in goverment.

He favors a tax system that is in proportion to income, but not a tax on income itself. He also argues against a hard to understand tax system, like our own, where you have to hire professionals to figure out what you owe and even then good luck.

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

How are things working out in the Scandinavian countries.

Do you mean the liberalizing Scandinavian countries? They are moving in a direction opposite to ours.

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

The fundamental reason this is promoted is the Marxist notion of redistribution of wealth - to the ultimate goal of eliminating the distinct economic classes.

#2 of Marx's 10 Planks in his Manifesto:

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

Oh look, BTS is lying again. Imagine that. This discussion centers around the nature and fairness or lack thereof of "progressive tax". You throwing the word "income" in between "progressive" and "tax", as if it were important to the argument, is a form of lying.

No lying here. A direct quote:

" The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book05/ch02b.htm

That isn't a progressive tax (hint, the word "proportional").

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

Just answer the question Lore. Why do you think Adam Smith disagreed with you? Surely you've thought about this, yes? Since you've done your homework and all ;)

Oh wait, you didn't know that the man known as the "father of capitalism" doesn't share your autistically motivated view of "fair" taxation?

SixOfNine needs to stop running its ignorant mouth until it does some homework and knows what it is talking about.

Did it ever occur to us that Smith could very well have been wrong?

Smith was wrong about a number of things, like his labor theory of value (he should have read more from the Salamanca School from the Late Middle Ages), but a progressive income tax is not among them.

98

Is it ethical to make rich pay more taxes?

by Lore in

jw
friends

i'm having trouble getting behind the idea of making rich people pay more taxes just because they have more.. aside from the obvious: "i'm not rich so lets tax them instead of me.

" the three reasons i hear most often are:.

1: they may have "earned" their wealth but they don't deserve it!.

botchtowersociety

I'm curious Lore, why do you think Adam Smith disagreed with you? Did he just not have a well developed sense of "fairness"?

Adam Smith never proposed progressive taxation on income.