Angery people.

The 2% tax idea is the ultimate regressive tax.  The lower income people are the more they need to spend to survive.  It's easy for the middle class to skip a triple Macchiato or the extra Ferrari if the 2% makes it too expensive for them, but the poor spend money that can't be skipped.  Already how often do we hear of people having to make the choose between food or paying bills.

I am impressed by the fact that this community has been been able to get through 12 pages of talking about what displeases them in society without it turning into a shouting match.  Thank you everyone for thoughtful posts, thoughtful reading of others posts, and measured responses. Thanks also to the moderators for setting the tone. 

This place is a truly special corner of the internet and it is because of how you all choose to show up.

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I know you've been talkin in the bigger picture view of our tax system. And knowing your age I'm sure that your bus driving gig isn't your only source of income. Plus I know you're something of an entrepreneur with your auto restoration talents. Just curious. What portion of your income do you feel comfortable paying compared to what you're paying under the present system? Not trying to get into your private business but just curious of the inequity you see.

First the tax should be based on consumption not earnings. That will encourage work and savings. 

Second any tax should be easy to explain and without exception. 

Third the myth of progression solving society’s ills is simply wrong. The wealthy will pay their politicians to help them evade or reduce their tax. ( ps,I’m a screaming liberal) 

Fourth those with the most must pay the most.  If the military protects the wino’s bottle the wino should pay a small cost while the billionaires yachts and jets should cost a great deal more. 

I know I didn’t answer your question because I’m the last person you should pattern a tax system on. 

You know what I paid for my house, you know what it’s worth. Under the current system I’ve done very well and I know there are those who greatly exceed me.  In short,  please come up with a better system. 

Duke said:

Enyar said:

Duke said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

They pay 2% 

That hasn’t ever happened before has it?  So this is fresh new income. 2% 

that hasn’t happened before 2%. 

That hasnt happened before. 2%. 

That hasnt happened before. 

And so on and so on. 

People will pay 2 cents on the dollar because it’s trivial  and the punishment for not paying it is severe

This is called Value Added Tax and it has been around for maybe 100 years. It’s really really super not a good idea. If you’re taxing every transaction that makes up a car at 2%, you just raised the price of that car by at least 100%.

Not quite a VAT tax.  It's similar to a sales tax but it shifts the burden from the end user to everyone along the supply chain. It lets governments collect as the process moves along and prevents people from avoiding sales taxes if the product gets exported. 

How on earth does it shift the burden from the end user to the everyone on the supply chain?  Because you know, I know, and undiscovered tribes in the blackest depths of the Amazon jungle know that each step is just going to increase their prices as required to offset the tax.  Which all flows downhill to the consumer.  ALL taxes are eventually paid by the consumer.  Always.

Absolutely, and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise. The difference is where and when the tax is collected.  The most notable difference is where the consumer comes into play. In a VAT system, if the end user is out of the country the local government is still getting their share. In a sales tax situation GM could build a car in the US, sell it in Mexico and the end user will not pay sales tax.

In reply to frenchyd :

Far be it from me to be able to come up with something workable. You obviously given a lot of thought to the Dilemma. Sometimes I picture you're a grumpy old curmudgeon and not the closet liberal. LOL

Off topic. What did you decide to do about the Jaguar race car? And did your friend ever decide what he wanted to race or is he still sailing off into the sunset?

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, can someone tell me the difference between Angery people and Angry people?  

Adrian_Thompson said:

The 2% tax idea is the ultimate regressive tax.  The lower income people are the more they need to spend to survive.  It's easy for the middle class to skip a triple Macchiato or the extra Ferrari if the 2% makes it too expensive for them, but the poor spend money that can't be skipped.  Already how often do we hear of people having to make the choose between food or paying bills.

I hope I addressed the regressive part of the tax with the no income tax until you get past the point of survival , I picked $50,000 but if another number is more valid then  please make your case. 

The 2% tax on consumption is avoidable. Simply choose not to consume.  Grow your own food, use solar, wind, water, etc power.  Make do or do without

the 2% tax will also motivate corporations to build American factories rather than foreign factories.  America doesn’t have higher material costs, social costs, or labor costs than Finland or Japan or Germany.  Yet a lot of what we buy comes from places like that. 

So avoid taxes. And create jobs  should help a lot of the poor much better than our current tax code. 

pinchvalve said:

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, can someone tell me the difference between Angery people and Angry people?  

My poor spelling.  I’m sorry. 

pinchvalve said:

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, can someone tell me the difference between Angery people and Angry people?  

I think we've narrowed it down to taxes and beejers.

frenchyd said:

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I know you've been talkin in the bigger picture view of our tax system. And knowing your age I'm sure that your bus driving gig isn't your only source of income. Plus I know you're something of an entrepreneur with your auto restoration talents. Just curious. What portion of your income do you feel comfortable paying compared to what you're paying under the present system? Not trying to get into your private business but just curious of the inequity you see.

First the tax should be based on consumption not earnings. That will encourage work and savings. 

Second any tax should be easy to explain and without exception. 

Third the myth of progression solving society’s ills is simply wrong. The wealthy will pay their politicians to help them evade or reduce their tax. ( ps,I’m a screaming liberal) 

Fourth those with the most must pay the most.  If the military protects the wino’s bottle the wino should pay a small cost while the billionaires yachts and jets should cost a great deal more. 

I know I didn’t answer your question because I’m the last person you should pattern a tax system on. 

You know what I paid for my house, you know what it’s worth. Under the current system I’ve done very well and I know there are those who greatly exceed me.  In short,  please come up with a better system. 

1, The environmentalist / super saver in me loves a tax on consumption but I don't think it will work. We need to remember that taxes are simply the rules we setup to fund the system we agreed to partake. If we can't fund the system we end up with a deficit which everyone keeps saying is bad. With a consumption tax the revenue streams are going to be too unpredictable as the economy changes and it's going to shift the burden to the people that actually stimulate the economy. The capitalist treadmill has to keep turning. 

2. Disagree. The tax code is complex because life is complex. We want to incentivize certain good behaviors and penalize poor behavior. 

3. So the fact that the rich minimize their taxes by playing the rules means we should just change the rules so they get an easier way to pay less taxes? The rich certainly pay their fair share in taxes but that's the only way it works. 

4. Doesn't this contradict your statement on progressive taxes?

pinchvalve said:

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, can someone tell me the difference between Angery people and Angry people?  

Same difference between "hungry" and "hungary" people.

frenchyd said:

Adrian_Thompson said:

The 2% tax idea is the ultimate regressive tax.  The lower income people are the more they need to spend to survive.  It's easy for the middle class to skip a triple Macchiato or the extra Ferrari if the 2% makes it too expensive for them, but the poor spend money that can't be skipped.  Already how often do we hear of people having to make the choose between food or paying bills.

I hope I addressed the regressive part of the tax with the no income tax until you get past the point of survival , I picked $50,000 but if another number is more valid then  please make your case. 

The 2% tax on consumption is avoidable. Simply choose not to consume.  Grow your own food, use solar, wind, water, etc power.  Make do or do without

the 2% tax will also motivate corporations to build American factories rather than foreign factories.  America doesn’t have higher material costs, social costs, or labor costs than Finland or Japan or Germany.  Yet a lot of what we buy comes from places like that. 

So avoid taxes. And create jobs  should help a lot of the poor much better than our current tax code. 

You're a interesting guy to pin down that's for sure! Lots of interesting theories brewing in that mind of yours.  The problem with your theory is right now the poor pay no or negative taxes. Even with a $50k exemption on INCOME taxes, they will pay more in taxes with the sales taxes. 2% of anything is more than nothing. And if you're poor you're not sitting on land with solar and wind power. I think you're grossly underestimating what it means to be poor, even in the US. Everyone thinks they are middle class when in reality they are in the top 20%.

I still don't understand the US factories. We buy from Finland and Germany because they are technological and skilled worker powerhouses. I will agree that lowering taxes DOES incentivize building/selling in the US. Unfortunately because of automation I don't think it will be the job creator you think it will be.

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Far be it from me to be able to come up with something workable. You obviously given a lot of thought to the Dilemma. Sometimes I picture you're a grumpy old curmudgeon and not the closet liberal. LOL

Off topic. What did you decide to do about the Jaguar race car? And did your friend ever decide what he wanted to race or is he still sailing off into the sunset?

Yeh, a grumpy old curmudgeon that happens to be a screaming liberal at heart.  

My friend is sailing. I’m going to “restore” the Jag and sell it to go racing on my own. Sure was a lot easier back when I was making six figures a year but life happens. I figure the banking industries folly cost me about a million 500,000.  Maybe more because I’m not sure I’d retire at 70 as I planned. 

How does it go? Man plans and the gods laugh?  

Enyar said:

frenchyd said:

Adrian_Thompson said:

The 2% tax idea is the ultimate regressive tax.  The lower income people are the more they need to spend to survive.  It's easy for the middle class to skip a triple Macchiato or the extra Ferrari if the 2% makes it too expensive for them, but the poor spend money that can't be skipped.  Already how often do we hear of people having to make the choose between food or paying bills.

I hope I addressed the regressive part of the tax with the no income tax until you get past the point of survival , I picked $50,000 but if another number is more valid then  please make your case. 

The 2% tax on consumption is avoidable. Simply choose not to consume.  Grow your own food, use solar, wind, water, etc power.  Make do or do without

the 2% tax will also motivate corporations to build American factories rather than foreign factories.  America doesn’t have higher material costs, social costs, or labor costs than Finland or Japan or Germany.  Yet a lot of what we buy comes from places like that. 

So avoid taxes. And create jobs  should help a lot of the poor much better than our current tax code. 

You're a interesting guy to pin down that's for sure! Lots of interesting theories brewing in that mind of yours.  The problem with your theory is right now the poor pay no or negative taxes. Even with a $50k exemption on INCOME taxes, they will pay more in taxes with the sales taxes. 2% of anything is more than nothing. And if you're poor you're not sitting on land with solar and wind power. I think you're grossly underestimating what it means to be poor, even in the US. Everyone thinks they are middle class when in reality they are in the top 20%.

 

I still don't understand the US factories. We buy from Finland and Germany because they are technological and skilled worker powerhouses. I will agree that lowering taxes DOES incentivize building/selling in the US. Unfortunately because of automation I don't think it will be the job creator you think it will be.

You could be right.  I just know that unless America wants to become the third world power we are headed for things have to change.  I saw what investment tax credits did to the economy in the 1990’s 

i look at what economic powerhouses  Like Germany China and Japan are doing and ask why can’t we do that or things like that?  

Look at Japan,  with their focus on ethnic purity they are losing their edge.  Their population is actually shrinking since few Japanese women see any real great advantage to getting married .  Growth requires an increase in population. countries reluctant to accept that increase will soon lose out.  ( yes I understand we are approaching 8 billion)  right now it’s Japan, soon it will be China. 

Oh and as regard automation,  that could be our shining beacon.  Those robots need to be built someplace, it might as well be here and they will need maintenance, a whole new career. Yes at some point robots will maintain robots but that will require AI and a whole “nuther” bunch of money. Still smaller plants will make do with humans for a very long time. 

Finally with regard the poor.  Right now the rural poor are really struggling. Yet because factory farms dominate the landscape there are millions of plots of land lying fallow. All that is needed is an Amazon style cottage and industry.   If not some sort of farming ....

I remember seeing paintings done on a sort of assembly line. One guy stamped the trees another did the land still another the sky etc. High art it wasn’t but it filled hotel walls and sold cheaply. 

I’m  not suggesting that as a cottage industry but that approach of deconstructing the assembly process.  Heck Germany did it during WW2 and England to a much smaller scale as well. Until recently that was Japans whole approach to the auto industry. 

My. girlfriend works upstairs in an office as an IT  project manager.  And with modern conferencing etc. a lot of office work can more productively be done at home. 

frenchyd said:

i look at what economic powerhouses  Like Germany China and Japan are doing and ask why can’t we do that or things like that?  

Look at Japan,  with their focus on ethnic purity they are losing their edge. 

Germany will almost single handedly be supporting the entire EU soon.

China is booming because they have a gigantic population that is less than a decade into a semi free market for the first time ever.

Japan's GDP has been flat since 1995. Nobody is having kids, and workers are highly stressed.

Theyre not exactly the idyllic places that you paint them to be. We might be able to learn some things from them, but their situations are pretty different from the US too.

In reply to STM317 :

We do t have to copy them, but can’t we learn? I mean Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe.  They are taking nearly every refugee that can get there and making use of them.   Look at how German factories work. Massive higher social costs than America yet their auto industry didn’t go crying to the government for a bailout, they showed s profit while we showed losses.  

Why can Japan make a profit on small cheap cars when we can’t? Is the Prius a better car than the Chevy Volt?  Yet the Volt is on the chopping block while Toyota is selling everyone they can get.  

frenchyd said:

In reply to STM317 :

 

1. Why can Japan make a profit on small cheap cars when we can’t?

2. Is the Prius a better car than the Chevy Volt?  Yet the Volt is on the chopping block while Toyota is selling everyone they can get.  

Literal answer:

1. Because they build better cars, better. They don't generally downsize components until they are on the very edge of destruction, then seek lower bids.

2. Yes.  Well, maybe, but if you ask me, a 57 year old auto mechanic who has owned his own shop for 32 years, whether you should buy a small Toyota or a small Chev, it's Japanese all day long.  Same reason as the justification in answer 1.

Philosophical answer:

We are no longer ashamed of poor quality work, design, and fabrication techniques.  We can blame it on unions, or corporate overlords looking for short term share prices, or anti bullying rules that mean we can't tell someone they are being useless, or any one of a hundred dozen reasons.  The Japanese still hate to lose face, and having a product fail causes personal anguish for those responsible.  I bet Takata has had some people falling on swords over the last while...

I'm not smart enough to come up with a new tax code in the reply box of a forum.

I don't think the basic premise of our tax system is wrong though.  It may be too complex, but a progressive tax with legitimate exceptions seems the right way for me.  Should it be a few hundred pages of tax law not thousands?  Sure, but I don't think it needs throwing out all together.  As I said a few pages ago though, the biggest issue is that we've spent years cutting and cutting taxes with promises that these cuts will grow the economy faster which just hasn't been the case.  The tax rates for the wealthy are just too low, unnecessarily so.  Our Deficit could and should be sinking, but we keep cutting tax revenue too fast to do that.  Should I pay more?  Sure I should, but I'll take every deduction I can to minimizes my tax burden legally.  I've litterer just met with our accountant to do that this afternoon.  The problem now is I and everyone else has grown accustomed to the tax cuts and it would be hard to go back.  We should never have had them in the first place.  I don't know what to do at this point.  

The other side is we need a real minimum wage and absolutely stop corporations pushing the burden of supporting families onto the tax payer so they can save money, which while it save money for the short term for consumers it drives small businesses out of business and leave more people struggling. 

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I haven't caught up with this thread in the last couple days so I don't know if it's been mentioned but several years ago I got sucked in to doing a bunch of research on the Fair Tax. I believe that system, if used in it's entirety, is the answer. I will vote for anyone that is running on a Fair Tax ticket. Herman Cain has been there only one even talking about it on a national stage that I'm aware of but even he was trying to do something different.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

With regard to a reasonable minimum wage I hear you. But under our corporate capitalist system corporations have a duty to their shareholders to be as profitable as possible. As such they're going to quite often seek out the cheapest available labor. And people will take those jobs.

My brother runs a small Veterinary Clinic as a sole proprietor in a small southern town. He employs three full-time people 2 of whom are Young single mothers.  There is no shortage of young people who enjoy working in a Veterinary Clinic. He could easily slide by paying close to the minimum wage and have competent employees. But he feels a personal obligation to his employees where they make a living wage. He wants his employees to not have to worry about making ends meet on 8 or $10 an hour. He chooses to pay employees at least $20 an hour.. He has luxury to treat is employees well. . He could easily be personally making $60,000 a year more for himself if he were to pay what the market will bear. He further rationalizes it that they will at least have some discretionary income to spend in the community ultimately benefiting him if those business owners are generating income to use his services. Suffice to say there's a waiting list of people who want to work for him. He probably Nets $120,000 a year. Which he feels is plenty for him to live on even though he could easily cut wages and bump his personal income close to $200,000 a year. Corporate America can't and won't do that.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

While you may be right about a lot of what you are saying. ( and certainly about the tax too low)  with the deep divided country improvements will never happen. 

That is  why we have to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Start fresh. Something both sides will love enough to give a little to the other side. 

In reply to ddavidv :

Canadian perhaps?

I've seen a lot of discussion about taxes, much about raising them. Can anyone tell me why we need to raise them? Why the government needs more money? Where is the discussion about spending to go along with it? The elephant in the room is that pretty much every program at every level of government is poorly run, manages it's budget poorly, produces poor results, or any or all of the above. And it seems like the worse they do, the more money we give them, without a return for our investment. And by our, I mean the 51% that still pay taxes. Good luck to us all when that number drops to 49% and the non tax paying majority vote the tax payers into oblivion. 

My plan- fix the spending first. Any department head that can't run within their budget gets replaced. Cut redundant programs. Cut programs that fail to deliver the promised results. Then fix the taxes. Maybe a flat consumption tax. The crazy complex tax code gives more power to the government who can pick the winners and losers, and more power to those who can afford to influence the code ($$$) so that they are one of the winners. Strip the code, and you strip the power. The flat tax would also ensure that everyone has some skin in the game. 

Can we get back to the pick from a few pages ago. 34% of tax revenue from payroll taxes... (Social security and Medicare are the payroll taxes)

Anyone else totally bamboozeled by that? You mean to tell me that an entire third of our government is just functioning as simple insurance? I haven't really paid much attention before but that is staggering.

Quick math:

3 trillion in tax revenue, 1 trillion is therefore payroll. Payroll is about 15% of income, capped at 118k salary or so.

More math: say 200 million wage earners for round numbers. So that's $5k from each earner (I think - going sans math machine here).

So one third of our taxes comes from $5k each earner?