What would you do if 95% of your income were taxed?

What would you do if the government taxed away 95% of your income and decided it knew how to spend your money better than you?

You could get some of your money back, for approved purchases. So long as you followed certain rules.
And the government could deny a payment approval for any variety of different reasons.

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

"If the power of Congress to tax and spend be construed without restraint then the power of the federal government shall be without limit."

 

I'd cease working and live off someone else's dime.

 

What's your point?
It is that all taxation is bad, or only excess taxation?

 

I'd move. I wouldn't accept a 70% tax either. 50% federal/state/local is my threshold of saying enough of this and fleeing for greener pastures. What France is doing is a huge mistake.

 

I would quit my job and travel the world, hitchhiking and doing odd jobs as I go.

 

From the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s the top marginal tax rate in the US was around 90%. People did fine.

Also the corporate tax rate during that era was about twice as high as it is currently. Corporations did fine.


Lower taxes = higher income disparity. Which is ALWAYS a bad thing for a society.

 

Depends on what happens to my standard of living. If it goes up, I'd approve. If it goes down, I'd disapprove.

 

I don't let them take even 20%, and neither should you. all they do with it is find other ways to tax and coerce you more, while abusing innocents everywhere. Don't enable them. 1/2 to 3/4 of the cost of everything you buy is because of taxation. you are taxed MUCH more than you realize.

 

I don't know what is too much, or too little, or what is just right. If higher taxation improves my standard of living, why shouldn't I let the government take 95%? 95% is a little unrealistic (it has been done), but 20% or 30% is not scary in the least if it pays for the services I want.

 

Work harder!

 

My point is that a government can exercise a tremendous level of control over its population through taxation.
And for those living in the U.S., if you thought the Constitution creates concrete limits on the power of the federal government, the U.S. Congress could craft virtually any kind of law, and then constitutionally legitimise it as a means to collect taxes.

 

Hogwash. The top tax bracket was 90% (or higher) but the EFFECTIVE tax rate is what was actually paid, and it was much lower than 90% - the top 1% paid right at 30%.

The top tax rate is meaningless propaganda unless you address the loopholes, deductions, credits. When you look at the entire system nobody was paying 90%.

Below is a plot of the effective tax rate vs the top tax rate for the top 1% income group.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/what-top-1-really-paid-when-top-tax.html



The idea that "it was 90% back then and it was fine so we should make it 90% today" is nothing but political propaganda from devious politicians and their cronys.

 

The top tax rate is still very relative to my discussion. Because once the government sets a top tax rate and then starts making deductions, it is effectively coercing people to make decisions. It's almost like a fine if they don't do what the government wants.

I guess if you believe it's the government's job to make any laws they feel will be good, none of this matters.
But for those who believe in limited government, the power to tax is a big issue, because it opens up the doors to a government being able to do all sorts of things, really anything when it comes right down to it.

 

Except for the actual tax rate; how is that different from what we have now?

 

NOT based in reality. Shocking

Look at the TOP 1/10TH OF 1/100TH EFFECTIVE tax rates pre Reagan

 

Good thing the Founders chose to change the "limited Gov't" thing the Articles of Confederation gave US to a Constitutional republic right?



Why Thomas Jefferson Favored Profit Sharing
By David Cay Johnston

The founders, despite decades of rancorous disagreements about almost every other aspect of their grand experiment, agreed that America would survive and thrive only if there was widespread ownership of land and businesses.

George Washington, nine months before his inauguration as the first president, predicted that America "will be the most favorable country of any kind in the world for persons of industry and frugality, possessed of moderate capital, to inhabit." And, he continued, "it will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property."

The second president, John Adams, feared "monopolies of land" would destroy the nation and that a business aristocracy born of inequality would manipulate voters, creating "a system of subordination to all... The capricious will of one or a very few" dominating the rest. Unless constrained, Adams wrote, "the rich and the proud" would wield economic and political power that "will destroy all the equality and liberty, with the consent and acclamations of the people themselves."

James Madison, the Constitution's main author, described inequality as an evil, saying government should prevent "an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches." He favored "the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort."

Alexander Hamilton, who championed manufacturing and banking as the first Treasury secretary, also argued for widespread ownership of assets, warning in 1782 that, "whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of men over the property of their neighbors, they will abuse it."

Late in life, Adams, pessimistic about whether the republic would endure, wrote that the goal of the democratic government was not to help the wealthy and powerful but to achieve "the greatest happiness for the greatest number."



http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/07/why-thomas-jefferson-favored-profit-sharing-245454.html

 

Put up the link to the report that generated the graph or don't bother posting. You don't have the credibility to post without links.

 

David Leonhardt and the graphics team from the Times put together this fascinating chart of effective tax rates -- that includes income, payroll, and everything else you pay to the feds -- across households, dating back to 1960. What they found is that tax rates have declined dramatically in the last 50 years for the very rich. The U.S. tax code is still progressive, but it's not nearly as progressive as it used to be. One reason that center-liberal softies like me argue that the rich can bear a heavier tax burden is that, for each of the last four decades, they've paid more and the economy has grown healthily.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-we-pay-taxes-11-charts/255954/

The report

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/sunday-review/coming-soon-taxmageddon.html?_r=0



CRS STUDY

At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% (JUST THE TOP 1/10TH OF 1%) fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/congressional-research-service_n_2059156.html



Economists Say We Should Tax The Rich At 90 Percent

All Americans, including the rich, would be better off if top tax rates went back to Eisenhower-era levels when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent, according to a new working paper by Fabian Kindermann from the University of Bonn and Dirk Krueger from the University of Pennsylvania.

The top tax rate that makes all citizens, including the highest 1 percent of earners, the best off is “somewhere between 85 and 90 percent,” Krueger told The Huffington Post. Currently, the top rate of 39.6 percent is paid on income above $406,750 for individuals and $457,600 for couples.

Fewer than 1 percent of Americans, or about 1.3 million people, reach that top bracket.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/22/economists-tax-rich_n_6024430.html


YOUR ENTIRE PREMISE IS THE RIGHT WINGERS EXCLUDING THE HIGH EARNERS AND JUST INCLUDING THEM INTO THE 1% PILE.. LOL

 

Here is a good graph. Put in $10,000,000 income today, see what your effective rat (and inflation adjusted income was going back to 1913

http://qz.com/74271/income-tax-rates-since-1913/

 

THE TRUTH ABOUT TAXES: History Suggests High Tax Rates On Rich People Do Not Hurt The Economy


Contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, super-high tax rates on rich people do not appear to hurt the economy or make people lazy: During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%--and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed.







Super-low tax rates on rich people also appear to be correlated with unsustainable sugar highs in the economy--brief, enjoyable booms followed by protracted busts. They also appear to be correlated with very high inequality.

http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates-2012-5

 

We are not nor will we be taxed at 95%, nice try, let's us know when that happens or is even suggested.

 

On the first chart, it shows tax rates have come down for everyone. Great, starve the beast.

The last HuffPoo is based on a working paper by Fabian Kindermann from the University of Bonn and Dirk Krueger from the University of Pennsylvania. It makes some questionable assumptions, but the killer is that its based on a static analysis, not dynamic, which means it assumes people will not change their behavior based on changes in tax rates - so its totally unrealistic. To think a person and business will behave the same if the tax rate is 10% or 90% means the paper is a waste of time.

 

Yes, your inability to refute that the EFFECTIVE RATES were MUCH higher on the top 1/10th of 1% and 1/100th of 1% is noted Bubs

Everything else you posit, like most right wing crap, is nonsense


Btw, they did the dynamic scoring under CBO with Dubya's tax cuts for the rich, the best scenario was 6% more revenues, lol...

NO ECONOMIST SAYS TAX RATES DON'T CHANGE BIZ OR THE RICH'S BEHAVIOR BUBS, WHY DO YOU THINK LEFTIES PUSH HIGHER TAXES?

 

I'd write a song if I could.


Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.

didn't stop them did it?

 

Besides your own mind, where has this happened?