Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
As to the rest of your BS - How can a group that pays ZERO fed income tax due to Bush's tax-cuts have a worse benefit? That's right - they didn't. They benefited the most as their incometax liability when from some - to NONE. Now I know you libs tend to not understand this but when the top 1% pays 40% of Fed income taxes so obviously their amount will be higher. And also if you libs actually looked, the top 1% have increased their share of fed income taxes under Bush.
Meh, I'm sure you won't admit any of this...but so be it...
Even if they've increased their share, 35% is far from an optimal rate. 40% wouldn't be a huge increase, but it would increase government revenue considerably.
Better yet, we could eliminate the countless loopholes in the system that allow so many in the top bracket to evade taxes. The share would definitely jump then, even though the people currently paying taxes in that bracket wouldn't see any change
Here is a mental exercise for you: Say I charge the only rich man in the country a 5% tax rate on his $10,000,000 income. I then charge the rest of the country (say 1,000 people) a 5% tax rate as well, but they all make only $10,000 each.
Rich guy's tax = $500,000
Everyone else = $500,000
Total tax revenue = $1 million
You might say, "Hey, the rich are paying over 50% of the taxes for all of those freeloading peasants! That's unfair!" However, that is a deceptive and illogical claim; the rich man might not directly use services like public transportation, and perhaps he even hires his own security force so he doesn't use the police. However, without the rest of the population he would have no income. Indirectly, he is receiving more benefit from those public services than any individual in the group because so many people are responsible for his elevated income. The public police and fire services keep his city and workers safe. The public transportation system allows his workers to get to work (and with the money saved, they can buy more of whatever product Rich Guy produces).
This is a simple example, but it helps to illustrate the fallacy of the "40% of taxes are paid by x people" claim. While it's true, it's also meaningless. They directly might use none of the public services, but they indirectly benefit from them much more than any individual in the population.
In other words, even if income tax were flat across the board the rich would still probably pay a larger percentage of total tax revenue because they make that much more money than everyone else.
Edit: And it has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. If you earn more money, you'll pay more taxes to the government (even if the percentage is the same for all income levels).
Also, the "flat tax" that Ron Paul people love to squawk, ie a national sales tax, is nothing but regressive taxation, giving the poor a larger (effective) income tax rate than the rich.