What's the counter argument for why we shouldn't tax the rich?

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

This chart has the answer to your loaded 'question'. Look at the 25 yard line, and the 1 foot line.

 

[Capitalizt]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Capitalizt

Originally posted by: Vic
Their money IS the market. And in the meantime, their wealth controls the fates of millions. That's alarming to many, and rightly so.

I find it more alarming when a large chunk of the population starts considering "their wealth" to be "our wealth" and has no moral problem with electing others to confiscate it at the point of a gun.

I don't want it to be confiscated at the point of the gun. Far from it. I expect them to pay fee for service commiserate to their station in society. They want more from govt, and get more, so they should pay more in too. Should the guy who ordered the hamburger pay the same price as the guy who got the filet? Remember, these ultra rich we speak of do not share your lofty libertarian ideals. Their money wields power in our halls of government, including the power to break the law, and that's the way they like it and maintain it. Even better for them is when they get the rest of us to pay for it, which they do as well.

Believe it or not I agree with you here. The rich who try to buy themselves favors at the expense of taxpayers are scum. But the politicans who allow themselves to be bought are even worse. They are the ones truly to blame. If our government were bound by the Constitution and its tentacles didn't reach into every area of the economy, it would be much more difficult for legislators to sell their loyalty to corporate lobbyists. When there's nothing to buy, money doesn't exchange hands.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Capitalizt

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Capitalizt

Originally posted by: Vic
Their money IS the market. And in the meantime, their wealth controls the fates of millions. That's alarming to many, and rightly so.

I find it more alarming when a large chunk of the population starts considering "their wealth" to be "our wealth" and has no moral problem with electing others to confiscate it at the point of a gun.

I don't want it to be confiscated at the point of the gun. Far from it. I expect them to pay fee for service commiserate to their station in society. They want more from govt, and get more, so they should pay more in too. Should the guy who ordered the hamburger pay the same price as the guy who got the filet? Remember, these ultra rich we speak of do not share your lofty libertarian ideals. Their money wields power in our halls of government, including the power to break the law, and that's the way they like it and maintain it. Even better for them is when they get the rest of us to pay for it, which they do as well.

Believe it or not I agree with you here. The rich who try to buy themselves favors at the expense of taxpayers are scum. But the politicans who allow themselves to be bought are even worse. They are the ones truly to blame. If our government were bound by the Constitution and its tentacles didn't reach into every area of the economy, it would be much more difficult for legislators to sell their loyalty to corporate lobbyists. When there's nothing to buy, money doesn't exchange hands.

Preachin' to the choir here, pal.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

It would be counter-productive to discourage incentive. There should be rewards for success. But there comes a point where money is no longer that which pays the bills and becomes power. The Top 25% might be retiring comfortably, but the Top 1% couldn't lose the family fortune if they tried. Their money IS the market. And in the meantime, their wealth controls the fates of millions. That's alarming to many, and rightly so.

I once said that the biggest thing wrong with the trickle down theory is its name. Economies should not merely "trickle" in any direction, much less down.

So I hope you're not arguing we should take that money and give it to the uber low class. Someone wrote in to NYT once and said the ftimulus pahkage should be given to the uber low class, because they will turn right around and spend it. Which only makes sense superficially, because what you're basically doing is giving poor people free goods and services like food, which do little to increase GDP. They would just go spend it largely on entertainment/beer/cable TV/etc. Better would be to distribute it to an educated middle class, who would do things besides simply entertain themselves with it (well, perhaps they would go on more vacations?), like invest in technologies they understand and think have a chance in the market. This would spread the risk from the top 1% controlling the market, to the educated of America.

I think the goal in any tax structure should be to reward the hard/smart workers who are innovating. One argument for how to do this is what I initially presented, that you don't tax the rich, so that they have more money to invest in those hard/smart workers who are innovating. However, if in doing this they end up with more control over the (by making co-ownership a requirement for receiving the venture capital funds), then we risk removing incentive/reward for those innovating. So if we instead redistribute some of the top 1% of the wealth to middle-class citizens who can do the investing in innovation themselves, but who do not have the individual power to make receiving of venture capital contingent upon ceding ownership of your ideas/company, then we might be better off than we are now? Is that how the idea goes? I can see that.

So another benefit to a higher corporate tax would be companies would have less wiggle room to be inefficient. I'd rather this shrinkage come from market pressures though, rather than tax, because the money would go to the government, who would create more jobs (good), except that it's a lot harder to fire someone from the government for sucking at their job/being lazy/not getting work done, than it is to fire someone from a corporation for the same. My mother worked for the government, and some of the stories she would tell me as a kid were absurd-- people who should have been fired for laziness but instead got promoted. This happens in the corporate world too, but there is at least pressure there because of shareholders, to increase efficiency, and remove dead weight. Only pressure on the government comes when it gets bad enough (and it has to get pretty bad) to get enough people, of which a majority (certainly larger percentage than when we're talking about investors, because wealth doesn't tend to stay with stupid people) are less educated, get riled up to do something about it.

So in this light, I can see now how Obama's economic plans might make sense, if he delivers on redistributing to the middle class, and doesn't just handout to welfare recipients. Need more information/stats/studies on how money at the top benefits society/spurs investment/increases incentives and rewards to inventors, vs. how having that money in the control of the middle to middle-upper class would do the same. Anybody know of any studies on how such an economic plan would affect the top 1%? If they simply take their money and leave, which is what I was originally arguing, then we'd be better off not doing anything until the current problems get worse. Or, perhaps it would be a short term necessary pain, which would eventually lure investors back (because of the continued middle class strength) in the long run.

 

[blackangst1]

Im not sure why the idea of equating money with power is such a bad thing. As another poster said, they didnt get wealthy by accident. 1st generation money now exceeds old money so the excuse Sally happened to get lucky no longer works. If these people have the wherewithal to create millions or even billions in wealth for themselves, what makes YOU think YOU could do any better than them, when you cant even fucking balance your checkbook or save a month's salary?

Please. Power is where it belongs. If "middle income" earners feel so blighted maybe they get off their lazy fat asses and VOTE. THEN we would have the power. They have it because we let them.

Enjoy.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

It would be counter-productive to discourage incentive. There should be rewards for success. But there comes a point where money is no longer that which pays the bills and becomes power. The Top 25% might be retiring comfortably, but the Top 1% couldn't lose the family fortune if they tried. Their money IS the market. And in the meantime, their wealth controls the fates of millions. That's alarming to many, and rightly so.

I once said that the biggest thing wrong with the trickle down theory is its name. Economies should not merely "trickle" in any direction, much less down.

The top 1% don't necessarily have family fortunes. A very small percentage of that top 1% do. So where is the cut-off? What's the dividing line between "us" and "them?" Because I bet you'd get an argument from many in that top 1 percentile that they are us and not them.

And what's the alternative to trickle down? Forced redistribution of wealth instead?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

This chart has the answer to your loaded 'question'. Look at the 25 yard line, and the 1 foot line.

That chart doesn't answer my question at all. I asked how much do we tax the top percentages already; not for a picture of how much they earn.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

This chart has the answer to your loaded 'question'. Look at the 25 yard line, and the 1 foot line.

That chart doesn't answer my question at all. I asked how much do we tax the top percentages already; not for a picture of how much they earn.

Most of their income would be taxed at cap. gains tax level which is 15%.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

What a crock of shit and intellectually dishonest question.

You seem to think that the burden on the uber rich is greater than the burden on the bottom 95% because the dollar amount is bigger.

I'll tell you what, when you can HONESTLY show (and I know that the honesty part will be hard for you and the proof impossible because it doesn't exist) that the effective tax rate/burden on ALL INCOME and not just payroll is larger or even equal to what the bottom 95% pay....I will come over to your "trickle down is good" side.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Capitalizt

Originally posted by: Vic
Their money IS the market. And in the meantime, their wealth controls the fates of millions. That's alarming to many, and rightly so.

I find it more alarming when a large chunk of the population starts considering "their wealth" to be "our wealth" and has no moral problem with electing others to confiscate it at the point of a gun.

I don't want it to be confiscated at the point of the gun. Far from it. I expect them to pay fee for service commiserate to their station in society. They want more from govt, and get more, so they should pay more in too. Should the guy who ordered the hamburger pay the same price as the guy who got the filet? Remember, these ultra rich we speak of do not share your lofty libertarian ideals. Their money wields power in our halls of government, including the power to break the law, and that's the way they like it and maintain it. Even better for them is when they get the rest of us to pay for it, which they do as well.

You may not have gunmental against their temple, but saying they should pay more cause they have more is stealing just the same.

What ever happened to good ole consupmtion taxation as enacted by the representatives of the people.

Haven't checked the numbers recently, but wasn't it the top ten percent paying over 60 percent while the bottom fifty are paying nothing?

 

[Capitalizt]

The bottom 50% don't pay nothing. They pay 5%

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Dari
The same reason why people rob the bank: that's where the money is.

BTW, corporate tax is already lower than individual tax. WTF would you want to make it lower and have the poorer people pay more? Don't you realize that's how revolutions start?

BTW we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world...
link

The % may be the highest, but we don't know what the effective tax rate is. Our tax code is much different than any of the other countries. So you are comparing apples to oranges. Unless that % is normalized and we can get data saying 'on average this is how much revenue goes to tax as a % of total revenue for all these countries' the percentages themselves mean squat.

Just like for individuals who are 'rich' they really never pay 35% in taxes or people who are in the 20-28% bracket never really pay that much.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How much do we tax the rich already? What percentage of taxes overall do the top 1% pay? How about the top 5% or top 10%?

What about the top 25%? Why should we target just the uber-rich? Clearly anyone in the top 25% is making more than their due and more than their fair share. So why don't we take that tax stick to them too and shove it right up theirs too?

This chart has the answer to your loaded 'question'. Look at the 25 yard line, and the 1 foot line.

That chart doesn't answer my question at all. I asked how much do we tax the top percentages already; not for a picture of how much they earn.

Most wealthy individuals that pay taxes pay effective rates in the 20-30% range or less. If everyone paid 10% flat, the top 1% would still pay most of the taxes.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im not sure why the idea of equating money with power is such a bad thing. As another poster said, they didnt get wealthy by accident. 1st generation money now exceeds old money so the excuse Sally happened to get lucky no longer works. If these people have the wherewithal to create millions or even billions in wealth for themselves, what makes YOU think YOU could do any better than them, when you cant even fucking balance your checkbook or save a month's salary?

Please. Power is where it belongs. If "middle income" earners feel so blighted maybe they get off their lazy fat asses and VOTE. THEN we would have the power. They have it because we let them.

Enjoy.

A lot of 1st generation money was inherited from old money. I think you should read Buffets opinion on dynastical wealth and what it means.

Is GWB old money? The businesses he had, failed, yet he still has a lot of money. Why? Because the Bush family has a lot of money and GWB gets to inherit it and his daughters will have plenty of it as well. He never earned his share and I seriously doubt he could balance his own checkbook. If he was a regular joe he might still be constantly drunk and doing cocaine every day.

Same with Kerry, he and his family will have a lot of money because of the ketchup fortune.

My point is, there is a huge difference between an entrepreneur who ends up making a lot of money and works hard at it, vs the benefactors of that work. You seem to be supporting wealthy people in general regardless of how they ended up with the money because your take is if they have money, they must have worked really hard for it.

 

[herm0016]

http://www.heritage.org/Resear.../images/bg1415cht1.gif

the top 10% pay nearly 2/3 of all income taxes collected.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im not sure why the idea of equating money with power is such a bad thing. As another poster said, they didnt get wealthy by accident. 1st generation money now exceeds old money so the excuse Sally happened to get lucky no longer works. If these people have the wherewithal to create millions or even billions in wealth for themselves, what makes YOU think YOU could do any better than them, when you cant even fucking balance your checkbook or save a month's salary?

Please. Power is where it belongs. If "middle income" earners feel so blighted maybe they get off their lazy fat asses and VOTE. THEN we would have the power. They have it because we let them.

Enjoy.

My point is, there is a huge difference between an entrepreneur who ends up making a lot of money and works hard at it, vs the benefactors of that work. You seem to be supporting wealthy people in general regardless of how they ended up with the money because your take is if they have money, they must have worked really hard for it.

We want to reward entrepreneurs and savers. Perhaps not so much the people who accumulate wealth faster than they can spend it.

I just can't see a way to have both.

What does Buffet have to say on this?

I think the greatest problem in our society is not being able to get a student loan for college if your family has bad credit. But what is the solution? Guaranteed loans backed by the government? That would flood colleges with students and the prices would just escalate like they did with the introduction of Pell Grants.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: herm0016
http://www.heritage.org/Resear.../images/bg1415cht1.gif

the top 10% pay nearly 2/3 of all income taxes collected.

Yes Yes Yes, we know this, same old same old argument.

Do you realize that if the tax rate was flat like I just stated above, say 10% the top 10% would still pay the vast majority of taxes? Do you undestand the concept here? Its like saying the sky is blue, its obvious, everyone knows that.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Im not sure why the idea of equating money with power is such a bad thing. As another poster said, they didnt get wealthy by accident. 1st generation money now exceeds old money so the excuse Sally happened to get lucky no longer works. If these people have the wherewithal to create millions or even billions in wealth for themselves, what makes YOU think YOU could do any better than them, when you cant even fucking balance your checkbook or save a month's salary?

Please. Power is where it belongs. If "middle income" earners feel so blighted maybe they get off their lazy fat asses and VOTE. THEN we would have the power. They have it because we let them.

Enjoy.

My point is, there is a huge difference between an entrepreneur who ends up making a lot of money and works hard at it, vs the benefactors of that work. You seem to be supporting wealthy people in general regardless of how they ended up with the money because your take is if they have money, they must have worked really hard for it.

We want to reward entrepreneurs and savers. Perhaps not so much the people who accumulate wealth faster than they can spend it.

I just can't see a way to have both.

What does Buffet have to say on this?

I think the greatest problem in our society is not being able to get a student loan for college if your family has bad credit. But what is the solution? Guaranteed loans backed by the government? That would flood colleges with students and the prices would just escalate like they did with the introduction of Pell Grants.

Yes, we do want to reward Entrpreneurs, I think they are the innovators, economy stimulators of our society. They are important.

Buffet thinks inheritence money should be taxed, and taxed heavily. He doesn't see the benefit of his kids getting 50 billion from him and only giving 30% back to the gov't. He sees it as a 'reset' switch so that people don't become complacent and actually have to earn a living. But its not like giving away even 50% or 80% of a multi million dollar fortune leaves the inheritors penniless.


Now, its intersting that you bring up college tuition. The solution to college tuition is simple, lower it. For college/universities if they could be guaranteed the same level of students at all tuition levels and business as usual they would be all for it. The lenders obviously would be against it

Right now Harvard for example (and this is not a universal example here) spends about 1% of its endownment money every year for EVERYTHING it spends money on. It would only need to spend 1.5% of it to pay all of its students' tuition. They earn a hell of a lot more on that money than 1.5% a year. Their endownment and cash reservers are several billion dollars. Any major university or college does NOT rely on tuition to fund anything significant within its walls. I went to Georgia Tech and their endownment last time I read was 2.1 billion, yet out of state tuition was raised a lot to limit the number of applications that had to be processed. Kind of screwy if you ask me.

 

[herm0016]

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: herm0016
http://www.heritage.org/Resear.../images/bg1415cht1.gif

the top 10% pay nearly 2/3 of all income taxes collected.

Yes Yes Yes, we know this, same old same old argument.

Do you realize that if the tax rate was flat like I just stated above, say 10% the top 10% would still pay the vast majority of taxes? Do you undestand the concept here? Its like saying the sky is blue, its obvious, everyone knows that.

i made no commentary! yes, i understand basic math. I was simply posting this to answer a previous question in the thread.

taxes are not our problem. spending is our problem. reduce spending and then reduce taxes for everyone, including to rich so they can invest in the economy, and the poor so they can save/spend more in the economy. increase interest rates a bit, and have a stable, sustainable growth. the growth in the past has been very unstable and unsustainable.

 

[Journer]

solution: fair tax. every person a corp pays the same amount as everyone else. how much fairer can you get?

 

[rchiu]

hey I would love to be in a country with no tax. but the government, both local and federal need money to operate. I have no problem if the government find reasonable areas to cut spending and reduce tax for everyone, including the rich. But as it is, we have 3 choice. 1. run a huge deficit, 2. tax the rich, 3. tax the middle/poor.

Let's assume we don't wanna run a huge deficit, we are left with choice 2 and 3. Choice 2. we increase a tax for rich a little, get lots more money because the rich have more money to start with, and their life style isn't affected much cause as a percentage, the tax doesn't affect their disposable income as much. Choice 3. We would have to increase tax for middle/poor lot more to get the same amount of tax revenue because they have much less income to start with. Those people's life style would be affected much more, and the number of people impacted would be much more.

So as a country, which is the better approach, assume we need the same amount of money to run the country?

I suggest people to read some history outside of US to see why communist and other form of socialist government and revolutions take place. It is always because one class had too much more then the other and the inequality is too great. Unless you want America to follow the foot step of all those countries that went through bloody revolutions, socialist/communist form of government, we better not have tax policy that will create a super rich class and huge gap between the have and have not

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
And what's the alternative to trickle down? Forced redistribution of wealth instead?

We should know, Karl Marx wrote a book on it.

 

[herm0016]

Originally posted by: rchiu
hey I would love to be in a country with no tax. but the government, both local and federal need money to operate. I have no problem if the government find reasonable areas to cut spending and reduce tax for everyone, including the rich. But as it is, we have 3 choice. 1. run a huge deficit, 2. tax the rich, 3. tax the middle/poor.

Let's assume we don't wanna run a huge deficit, we are left with choice 2 and 3. Choice 2. we increase a tax for rich a little, get lots more money because the rich have more money to start with, and their life style isn't affected much cause as a percentage, the tax doesn't affect their disposable income as much. Choice 3. We would have to increase tax for middle/poor lot more to get the same amount of tax revenue because they have much less income to start with. Those people's life style would be affected much more, and the number of people impacted would be much more.

So as a country, which is the better approach, assume we need the same amount of money to run the country?

I suggest people to read some history outside of US to see why communist and other form of socialist government and revolutions take place. It is always because one class had too much more then the other and the inequality is too great. Unless you want America to follow the foot step of all those countries that went through bloody revolutions, socialist/communist form of government, we better not have tax policy that will create a super rich class and huge gap between the have and have not

option 4: reduce spending.. why is this not an option?
and we can increase taxes on everyone too. you are missing some basic options.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: herm0016

Originally posted by: rchiu
hey I would love to be in a country with no tax. but the government, both local and federal need money to operate. I have no problem if the government find reasonable areas to cut spending and reduce tax for everyone, including the rich. But as it is, we have 3 choice. 1. run a huge deficit, 2. tax the rich, 3. tax the middle/poor.

Let's assume we don't wanna run a huge deficit, we are left with choice 2 and 3. Choice 2. we increase a tax for rich a little, get lots more money because the rich have more money to start with, and their life style isn't affected much cause as a percentage, the tax doesn't affect their disposable income as much. Choice 3. We would have to increase tax for middle/poor lot more to get the same amount of tax revenue because they have much less income to start with. Those people's life style would be affected much more, and the number of people impacted would be much more.

So as a country, which is the better approach, assume we need the same amount of money to run the country?

I suggest people to read some history outside of US to see why communist and other form of socialist government and revolutions take place. It is always because one class had too much more then the other and the inequality is too great. Unless you want America to follow the foot step of all those countries that went through bloody revolutions, socialist/communist form of government, we better not have tax policy that will create a super rich class and huge gap between the have and have not

option 4: reduce spending.. why is this not an option?
and we can increase taxes on everyone too. you are missing some basic options.

Here is what happens:

If you ask the generic question, should the gov't reduce spending. The answer from 90% of Americans will be YES!

Ask the question again and say 'Which things should America spend less money on' and you have gridlock.

Of course reducing spending is an option, its just nearly impossible to implement.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: herm0016

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: herm0016
http://www.heritage.org/Resear.../images/bg1415cht1.gif

the top 10% pay nearly 2/3 of all income taxes collected.

Yes Yes Yes, we know this, same old same old argument.

Do you realize that if the tax rate was flat like I just stated above, say 10% the top 10% would still pay the vast majority of taxes? Do you undestand the concept here? Its like saying the sky is blue, its obvious, everyone knows that.

i made no commentary! yes, i understand basic math. I was simply posting this to answer a previous question in the thread.

taxes are not our problem. spending is our problem. reduce spending and then reduce taxes for everyone, including to rich so they can invest in the economy, and the poor so they can save/spend more in the economy. increase interest rates a bit, and have a stable, sustainable growth. the growth in the past has been very unstable and unsustainable.

Odd how a few want to tap-dance around that simple math and refuse to answer the question. Instead they'd rather seethe about those damn rich bastards.

At least you and GTKeeper were honest enough to provide an answer as opposed to a couple of the fist pounding, jumping up and down responses I got. I agree with you as well. The answer is to reduce spending, not keep bleeding the rich by taxing them until they reach the point that they pass out.