Flat Tax, Criticism of a Low 10% Rate.

Flat Tax, Criticism of a Low 10% Rate.

How can everyone who supports a flat tax says 10% is the rate to set taxes>? Why 10%? Why?

Is it because these people are looking for a tax break>?

I would say that a 30% flat tax rate is more of a practical minimum flat tax rate. And, I would jump that up to a 40% minimum rate if we want big government programs like Medicare for all, free college, and free or low-cost childcare. Free, free, free...

 

Well, people have it bass-ackwards.

Before shooting themselves in the head, we ought to move back to a federal republic.

Instead of paying 15% to 35% to the federal government and 1%-3% to their States (assuming the State has income tax) we ought to be paying 1%-3% to the federal government and 10%-15% to our State governments.

That can be done by simply abiding by the Constitution.

The Department of Agriculture? Not needed and not constitutional. There is an office that tracks agricultural and pastoral land usage. That office can be moved to the Department of the Interior. Another office tracks crop/herd production and the revenues it produces and it can be moved to the Commerce Department.

Food Stamps? States had food stamp programs in place decades before the federal government usurped the power of the States and took over the food stamp program. Lincoln -- in addition to his other constitutional violations -- unlawfully created the Department of Agriculture due to the rampant Monetary Inflation and Demand-pull Inflation that existed in the run up to the Civil War, during the Civil War, and for several decades after until a depression ended it.

Unlike the 1860s, farmers today have access to crop insurance and the agriculture industry is less prone to shocks due to global trade than it was in the 19th Century. States can do what the federal government does, only better.

Department of Education? Not needed and not constitutional. In fact, federal government interference with its myriad 1,000s of regulations that do not improve education but do hinder education and increase the costs of education have prevented the US from entering the 5th Level Economy, because you don't have a sufficiently educated work-force.

Department of Labor? Not needed and not constitutional. A federal minimum wage is logical only in a nation-State like Iceland with a population of 379,000 people, one economy and one uniform Cost-of-Living. In a country that has 330 Million people and 597 separately function economies and a Cost-of-Living that varies from $6.91/hour to $26.99/hour it is harmful and counter-productive.

All the goals sought by unions would have come to fruition without unions because of court cases wending their way through the legal system, not to mention the nature of both business and society has changed drastically. The Bureau of Labor Statistics existed for propaganda purposes only, to prove to the world that the US was better, and it did that by reporting nonsensical information like the unemployment rate, which is a weighted average of the 50 States and gives a deceptive and misleading picture of the economy. Claiming a rate of 3.8% hides the fact that some States have UE rates of 6% and you can see how stupid it is to implement polices based on 3.8% because those at 6% or higher get ignored and nothing is done to ameliorate the problem. The BLS should certainly collect the data, but only report it on a State-by-State basis and not a "national" basis (national is anathema to federal republic.) You can stick the BLS in the Commerce Department.

The Department of Transportation is unnecessary and unconstitutional, too. It's policies have harmed America, not helped it. Congress can rescind the federal excise tax on gasoline and the States can increase their gasoline by the amount of the federal excise tax -- no harm, no foul -- and use that money to build effective transportation systems instead of wasting money.

The Department of Housing & Urban Development in concert with DOT has really harmed America. Cities, counties and States had housing programs decades before the federal government interfered, and many still operate housing programs. The you-Harvards running DOT and HUD stupidly wasted money by dumping it into literally a handful of the 39,000 municipalities in the US, namely Chicago, St Louis, Philadelphia, New York, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Miami, etc.

I teach guitar to a disabled vet in HUD housing. 162 units nearly all occupied by one person. He pays $220/month, but the landlord charges you the tax-payer $756/month because HUD lets the landlord do that even though 1-bedroom apartments in that area rent for $350-$450/month.

In other words, instead of housing 300+ people, your tax-dollars house only 162 people.

By dumping money into literally a handful of cities, the cities with populations 100,000 to 300,000 got ignored, as did rural and semi-rural America.

Without interstates and US routes, rural and semi-rural don't have the infrastructure necessary to support economic development.

Those people have no jobs or no good paying jobs, so they flock into the cities which increases demand for housing and drives up the price of housing, since housing supply is finite, not infinite.

There are 120,000+ housing markets in the US. I can take you to a half-dozen around here where 90% of the land is totally saturated with row-houses, townhouses, one/two/three family houses and small apartment units (6-12 units). The other 10% is grocery, gas stations, convenient stores, doctor/dentist offices and other retail that people want/need close access to.

The only way to increase housing supply to meet demand is to displace families, tear down structures and build high-rise multi-family units, except whether it's the government, a group of investors or a private investor, it would take nearly 2 centuries to recoup their investment, which is why no one is doing it.

And the point is, if government did only constitutionally mandated functions, Departments of State, Defense, Interior, and Commerce, you wouldn't need to even debate a flat tax. Note that the Veteran's Administration was originally part of the DOD, but given this...

"VA adherence to the DOD "no exposures" doctrine, often in the face of compelling clinical evidence to the contrary, could be viewed as Department-wide medical malpractice. - the Honorable Jesse Brown, Secretary of Veteran's Affairs

....and the refusal to provide disability benefits for the "atomic veterans" and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the refusal of Congress to compensate New Jersey residents for the injuries suffered from radioactive fallout (but Eastman Kodak was given advance notice and compensated for the loss/damage to their film stock) and the illegal radiation experiments at Cincinnati General Hospital which murdered at least 83 Americans and possibly more than 360 Americans, it's probably best to have a separate administration lest the you-Harvards running government use veterans as guinea pigs.

 

a flat tax where everyone pays the same % for every dollar they earn over the poverty line is the only fair system

all income needs to be treated as income, no caps, everyone pays the same % across the board for every dollar earned over the poverty line

the percent of tax can be raised or lowered as needed

as well as the poverty line be raised or lowered

none of the dollars earned below the povery line are taxed for the rich or the poor....

so if you earn 1 million this year, and the poverty line is 20k, you will not be taxed on that first 20k

if you earn 40k, you would be taxed on 20k, ect.....

would have been better had we done this BEFORE we were 30 trillion in debt

 

Sales tax is the only fair tax. Income is too difficult to track and tax breaks are always abused and benefits the rich more. There are so many ways to earn income even to the value of your property going up. There is no way to ensure fairness with an income tax without digging into the privacy of Americans to the extreme.

Washington State tax is perfect. You don't need tax deductions because you just don't tax medical and food aka necessary living expenses. You only tax excess spending.

 

not hardly, that would benefit the rich, that make way more than they need need to spend

 

What's the point of having money you won't spend? If course they spend it. When they buy their six properties and sell them to make money, they will be paying taxes. When they buy and sell taxes, they will pay taxes.
More of their money is spent on non-necessary goods that will be taxed.

It's the poor that won't pay hardly any taxes because almost all their money is spent only on necessities which are not taxed.

 

they do not spend the majority of it, their money makes more money, and that would just be tax-free

it's a different world for the rich

how about we do not tax labored income, only investment income - the first 10k of investment income per year can be tax free

 

The rate would depend entirely on what you're actually looking to replace with a flat tax. If it's purely federal income tax, and all other federal and local taxation remains, 10% my well be valid. If you're looking to replace all income taxes, something closer to 20% would be more likely and if you're looking to replace other taxes (property, commercial etc.) you may well be going to 30% or more.

It should be relatively simple to get a ball-park rate for a flat income tax though. Just take the current overall tax taken and divide it by the median income of the taxable population.

Of course, there are other factors to consider, such as what level you'd set the tax free allowance and expected level of evasion and avoidance.

 

I made three years worth of hard labor wages on the buying and selling property. It took me eight hours to earn that three years of labor. Imagine if I paid tax on the purchase and sale of that property instead of just tax on the profits.

 

you are always only taxed on profits, that is the way taxes work

you did not think I meant if you bought 10k of stock and sold it for 15k, that I meant you pay tax on 15k did you, no, you would pay tax on the 5k (the profit)

or if the first 10k is tax free, you would pay nothing as you only made 5k

 

Garbage. What on earth is fair about taxing people according to what they contribute to the community by their labor, hmmmm? We should be taxing people according to what they TAKE FROM the community, not what they contribute. Duh.

< related nonsense snipped >

 

Garbage. There is nothing fair about taxing producers and consumers for the unearned profit of greedy, privileged parasites.

I oppose income tax; but a steeply progressive income tax that hits mainly very high incomes is at least not as bad as a sales tax, because it bears mainly on unearned rent income.

Who says spending on consumption is "excess"? The ultimate purpose of all economic activity is to enable consumption, so taxing it is anti-economic nonsense.

 

It gives you power over others, and enables you to buy up privileges: i.e., legal entitlements to steal.

No they don't. That's why they still have it. Duh.

But not if they don't sell them. See how that works?

Huh?

No, because they mostly just bid up the prices of each other's privileges.

Wrong. The poor will pay more than the rich through burden shifting: their labor will earn less, or they will be unemployed, because of the reduced production. Google "tax incidence" and start reading.

 

Ah. No wonder you want government to finance the subsidy to property owners by stealing from producers and consumers.

Imagine if the property was worth only 1/10 of what you sold it for because idle ownership of it was not so heavily subsidized.

 

The problem with a flat rate tax is that the more you make, the more you pay, but the less it hurts.

For example, if you make $50,000, how much are you hurt to have $15,000 (30%) taxed away from you, leaving you with $35,000?

If you make $1 million, how much does it hurt to have $300,000 taxed away from you, leaving you with $700,000?

 

income should be treated as income, regardless what type of income it is

and the tax should be the same for each dollar regardless where earned

 

if we have a flat tax for every dollar earned over the poverty limit

say the poverty limit is 20k a year, if you e
If you make $1 million, how much does it hurt to have $300,000 taxed away from you, leaving you with $700arn 50k you pay tax on 30k of that

as it is now, Trump paid less than you or I in taxes per dollar

 

You still haven't explained why income should be taxed AT ALL. Income tax does not conform to either of the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of taxation policy: ability to pay (which is measured by assets or net worth, not income or consumption) and beneficiary pay (which is measured by value of privileges owned, not income or consumption).

 

IDK but I doubt 10% would make a dent in our annual expenditures,

 

the reality is, if taxes were removed from income today, in a few years, you're buying power would be the same, society would be poorer for it

it's like when both men and women worked, at first that was a boom, now it's the norm and both parents need to work

 

No, because if we moved to a tax system that penalized parasitism instead of production, production would increase. So we would have a higher real standard of living, especially everyone but the parasites.

Both parents only need to work because workers are forced to give more to the parasites.

 

and if we had two bread earners we would be better off, heard it all before, but cost of living increases to match

the working class pay more taxes cause the right is all about tax cuts for the rich

 

No you haven't, because you have not read "Progress and Poverty," in which Henry George proved that the Law of Rent implies that cet. par., increasing the work force reduces real wages while increasing land rents. That can happen when population increases because births exceed deaths, when the labor supply increases because of immigration, or when women join the workforce.

No. You aren't paying attention. When production increases faster than population, people are better off on average. When it increases slower than population, they are worse off. But when the producers are forced to give an increasing fraction of production to rich, greedy, privileged parasites, the productive can be made worse off even while per capita production is increasing.

No, it has little to do with taxes, and everything to do with privilege.

 

not with excessive foreign outsourcing and excessive foreign imports

the right believes in trickle down, the left believes in trickle up, they both raise the debt just as much

the problem is, the money is going overseas either way in this day and age

 

Do you ever think there will be a point where economic productivity will increase enough that a 20% flat tax would be enough to pay for that all?

Don't you think it's a little strange and coincidental that an overall 40% tax just "happens" to be enough to pay for everything?
I mean, first of all that the entire economy even has enough money to pay for everything that's needed, and then that a much smaller percentage of the overall economy is not enough. Statistically, this is a strange coincidence, akin to the improbability of Earth happening to have all the parameters to sustain life.
Do you understand what I'm saying here?

If I came up with some random numerical amount of money, and then came up with some other smaller random numerical amount of money, it would be extremely unlikely that the smaller number would just happen to fall between 10 and 50% of the bigger number.

I suspect that even if the economy had twice the amount of wealth it has now, 20% would still be "not enough".