Obama "Time for the richest to BEGIN paying their fair share"

Why? That was tried in several former Communist/Socialist countries and how did it work.

Why do you believe you have a claim to another person's earnings?

But in the meantime if the top 1% is paying 40% of income taxes and the top 25% is paying 80% of them and the bottom 50% is paying virtually nothing why don't you support that as being fair?

 

if you work and only earn $100 per year you are part of the reason this country is in bad shape because you arent getting off your ass to pay your fair share.

 

Go and look at what the argument is and then get back to me with a properly constructed argument. The argument was was rate they pay.

Originally Posted by JoeSixpack
Actually at $70,000 the average would be around 5.7% if he was taking advantage of all the tax breaks available within an average household, but like he says he doesn't get those loophole advantages, which means he pays way more than the average rich person percentage wise.

"Even at the standard deduction he should pay no where near the effective rate the top earners earn."

You need to understand the difference between effective rate which we were discussing and tax liability. If you care to know the top 1% carry 40% of the tax liability and the top 25% carries 80%. What is not fair about that?

You need to learn how to scroll down, go back to the link and either use the down arrows on your keyboard or if you have a wheel on your mouse use it.

Yes do you have a point to make about effective tax rates? If so then make it and spare us the lectures.

Do please tell that to those who believe the current tax system is not fair and that the middle class pay a higher tax rate than the highest earners. I don't care which rate you use however, the highest earner pay substantially more than the lower earners both in the marginal rate, what they pay on the next dollar earned and in their overall effective rate.

So the question remains unanswered. Do you support and agree with Obama's assertion that the highest earners are not paying their "fair share" and their tax rate needs to be increased. If so when will we know they are paying their "fair share", what percentage of taxes paid is their "fair share"?

 

So if you make $10,000 pay $1000, if you make $50,000 you pay $5,000, if you make a $1,000,000 pay $100,000, if you make $100,000,000 pay $10,000,000 in proportion with your income, 10%.

Or let's have standard deduction of $10,000 and then apply it. No deductions, no credits all income.

 

Everyone has the opportunity to make of themselves what their own initiative their own talents ane their own willingness to work and willingness to engage in risk with afford them.

My experience is those who get a good education and are willing to make the most of their labor and abilities and the ones who succeed. I've seen lots of people who were born of wealthy parents and failed to do so and ended up without any wealth.

And either he owns it or the person who does pays him LOTS of money to run it because he knows how to run a company that makes millions of widgets not because he knows how to run the widget making machine.

Of course not which is why we are not a third world country, the wealthy don't own everything and lots, most people who own a lot earned it through their own labor and talents and did so because in this country you can. We have one of the strongest middle classes in the world because even if you don't get wealthy relative to the highest earners here, compared to the rest of the world you are.

No it doesn't , that is equalizing wealth.

 

Uh huh, right. Horatio Alger lives! Being born in the right place has nothing to do with it. Neither does luck. And I suppose the reason you're not CEO of Three Initial Corporation is because you were just too lazy to bother trying.

Yes, good point. And there are also plenty of people who busted their butts, got excellent educations, and still struggled to eke out a lower middle class living. What you are talking about is a general trend with nearly as many exceptions as examples, for nearly as many different reasons as there are people. You make it sound like a guarantee.

Or because his father or grandfather built it. Or because he hasn't run it into the ground yet. Can you guess how many companies last year paid their CEOs >$1million in salaries even though the companies lost money?

Ah, Santayana would love it! Armed with your economic misconceptions, the US government allowed companies to grow unrestrained, during the days of the robber barons. Company towns? Good for the country! Private police forces? Any union organizer vanishing? WHAT police, WHAT organizers? Let this country GROW! And what we got was a powerful oligarchy, and a vast pauper class. Finally, saner heads recognize that this was the wrong idea. You don't encourage people to succeed by keeping them under your boot heel. You give them incentives, so that effort and initiative are rewarded. You provide "free" high quality education. You provide an honest legal system, sensible laws and regulations. You distribute wealth to form a safety net (and 80% of "the poor" are in fact no longer poor in 5 years). You help those in need, because that could easily be you in a year or two.

But we did not, before egalitarian policies were enacted and enforced.

The goal isn't to equalize wealth. Doing that discourages anyone from trying to become wealthy. The goal is to use national wealth to maximize the quality of life, the standard of living, as much as possible for everyone. NOT just for the wealthy 1%.

Some tax structure can accomplish this. Too regressive, and average living standards drop. Too progressive, money starts talking so loudly nobody ends up paying it - the rich hire lobbyists and buy loopholes.

 

Sorry but I do not subscribe to the belief that there are only two types of people, the dirty poor and the filthy rich. That unless you are filthy rich you have been deprived and someone caused you not to be filthy rich and that those who are did so by stealing it from me.

But more often than not them make a nice upper middle class living or better.

Nothing is guaranteed but certainly the best system to offer to most opportunity for the most people resulting in best standard of living for a strong middle class has been the one I describe.

What does that have to do with my statement?

I could care less, how many companies losing money hire a better CEO and paid them millions to turn the company around and lessen the loses?

What misconception? Or do you just have a habit of dropping names? Or economic and social system evolved just like the rest of the world especially going into the industrial age. And public schools predated the founding.

What is "national wealth"? Do you really expect government to provide you your quality of life? If so I suggest you get a job with the government because it will only be the government workers had have an even satisfactory standard of living it we believe as you.

The tax system should serve one purpose, to raise the necessary revenues for government to provide only the things it is mandated to provide and to raise that money in the most efficient and least intrusive manner. Not for people to satisfy their jealousies and envy of more successful, wealthier people.

 

The top 1 percent control 43 percent of the wealth in the nation; the next 4 percent control an additional 29 percent. That's 72% of the wealth in the top 5%. So they should pay 72% of the taxes to be fair. Tax wealth, not income. As to the fallacy of hard work, Americans are working their asses off. Americans have increased productivity by 80 percent since 1979; unfortunately, their income hasn’t risen accordingly, if at all. If the average person’s wages had kept pace with the economy since the 70s, most people would be making $92,000 per year. The rich do pay a higher tax than any other group of people. The top 1 percent of Americans pay approximately 35 percent of their incomes in taxes. Inside of the 1 percent, however, the people who make the most money actually pay the least taxes. At the top of the 1 percent, people make around $5.2 million to $7.5 million each year on average, with some people making closer to a billion. This one-in-a-thousandth of the country pay closer to 23 percent in taxes. In fact, the top 400 highest earners in the country pay only 18 percent personal income tax. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that 57 members of Congress, or roughly 11 percent, are members of the financial elite. Overall, 250 members of Congress are millionaires. It’s also important to remember that politicians are supported financially by the wealthy. Asking politicians to enact changes that would reduce the wealth of the upper classes is a conflict of interests. Government by the rich, of the rich, for the rich. This post is sourced and largely copy/pasted from:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneywisewomen/2012/03/21/average-america-vs-the-one-percent/

 

If Republicans cooperate with Obombo in raising taxes again they are through.

 

Well, I think it's about time for EVERYONE to begin "paying their fair share." And that would be, in my estimation, a flat rate on consumption, the rate determined by budget needs. Of course, this means all the moochers who don't pay their fair share now would have to start kicking down. These are the poor mostly, who get all those nice tax credits and then suck public benefits and social services down at rate that vastly exceeds their "fair share" of taxes.

 

The snivelling little punks have not paid their fair share in about 30 years. That would mean that at least 70% 0f today's gazillionaires have been sponging off the rest of us for most of their careers.

 

Meh. Those poor people are just being maintsained in a condition in which they can be put to work cheaply if the investor class ever decides to start working again. The investor class should pay us to help maintain that resource for them.

 

You can't spunge off someone who has nothing .

 

Specious, we are talking INCOME TAXES, we don't tax wealth.

They make 20% of income and pay 40% of the income taxes, why is that not fair?

How? Who is going to assess the entire wealth of every citizen every year? Who is to say what all my guitars and amps are worth every year?

It's not just "hard" work, it is smart work, it is consistent good work, it is being a loyal and responsible employee, it is bettering yourself to make yourself one and willing to take risk.

Anyone who thinks they will be filthy rich or even live a nice middle class lifestyle because the government is going to satisfy your envy of the rich engages in folly.

The "rich", which we should really be saying the "highest earners" for one can earn a LOT this year and not so much next year depending on your circumstances pay the highest marginal and effective tax rates on earned income and the highest rates on capital gains. In total they pay 3-4 times the percentage taxes as the middle earners.

Interesting trivia but of not importance to the discussion.

 

Who? Well, my guess would be the IRS. And your guitars are not that important in the larger scheme of things. The IRS can easily determine the value of your land (already known, due to state property tax), the approximate value of vehicles, and business assets. The big, important stuff.

Productivity IS a combination of hard work, smart work, and consistency. Productivity has risen 80% since 1979. Why have wages not kept up? Corporate bonuses and incomes for CEOs sure have.

Congress being full of rich people and dependent upon same is of the utmost importance if anything is ever going to be done in any legal sense. The people who make the laws have to be trusted to make laws that benefit the entire country, not just the country club.

 

Do you have any idea how big the IRS would have to be to assess the wealth of every taxpayer in the country every year?

They are VERY valuable assets and would have to assessed every year in order to determine how much tax I'd have to pay on them.

And watch states stop tax real estate to get their citizens out of paying it.

No no no no no, if you are going to tax me on you will tax me on the EXACT value of it, my 2009 Sante Fe could be worth a LOT more than the next guys who has wrecked it and not kept it up.

Like jewelry, who is going to assess that value every year? Art works? Clothing? Furniture? People will hide assets how is the IRS going to find them?

Why should it keep up? If you are depending on productivity increases in the economy to improve you wages you are engaged in folly.