I think its interesting.  Personally, I’m all for taxing the super rich more, but 2.6 million seems a little low to begin the real raping.  I think tax ‘percentages’ should be ammoritzed over a period of time.  Its not hard to imagine a family who owns a business that make almost nothing for 10 years, sells for 2.6 million, pays 50%, then goes back to making a much smaller amount. 

Oh well, I’m not going to vote for either of them, as Obama betrayed his supporters on the FISA vote and McCaine should stand trial for treason because of his P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act vote.

I just thought it might help those on the fence on who to vote for decide.

25w100k+ - 30 July 2008 01:13 PM

I think its interesting.  Personally, I’m all for taxing the super rich more, but 2.6 million seems a little low to begin the real raping.  I think tax ‘percentages’ should be ammoritzed over a period of time.  Its not hard to imagine a family who owns a business that make almost nothing for 10 years, sells for 2.6 million, pays 50%, then goes back to making a much smaller amount. 

Oh well, I’m not going to vote for either of them, as Obama betrayed his supporters on the FISA vote and McCaine should stand trial for treason because of his P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act vote.

I just thought it might help those on the fence on who to vote for decide.

You shouldn’t give up on voting because there are flaws in both candidates. In a two party system you are bound to having to compromise for one or the other. That’s just the reality - or at least you can try to support a 3rd party candidate. Your views surely must align more with one candidate over the other one - take 10min out of your day in November and check the corresponding box. Isn’t that your “civic duty” anyways?

The plan is inherently flawed.  Taxes on the bottom 60% need to be increased.

They need to be increased so that they pay a porportionate share of the expense of the government.  If they do not, we further replicate the problem of people getting something for nothing and have a spiraling out of control expense situation similar to healthcare or California’s state budget.

Obama’s plan, IMHO is particularly dangerous as it creates a majority that is not paying taxes or paying negligible taxes.

Reference:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html
http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/109/ResearchReport_109-20.pdf

No_Such_Reality - 30 July 2008 01:51 PM

The plan is inherently flawed.  Taxes on the bottom 60% need to be increased.

They need to be increased so that they pay a porportionate share of the expense of the government.  If they do not, we further replicate the problem of people getting something for nothing and have a spiraling out of control expense situation similar to healthcare or California’s state budget.

Obama’s plan, IMHO is particularly dangerous as it creates a majority that is not paying taxes or paying negligible taxes.

Reference:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html
http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/109/ResearchReport_109-20.pdf

How do you propose we equalize the tax burden by increasing taxes on the poor? For easy math let’s look at top and bottom halves only. The top 50% (income split point at $32K) make an AGI of about $7.1tri whereas the bottom make about $1.0tri. Keeping the average tax rate of 14% on the top half, what average tax rate should apply to the bottom half for an equal share of the tax burden? 99.4%.

Your head would end up underneath a guillotine in no time if you propose this kind of solution.

Currently, the top 10% of wage earners make 48% of the income in the country, but pay nearly 70% of the income taxes.  The top 1% of wage earners make 21.8% of the income and pay 38.4% of the income taxes.  The average tax rate is also steeply progressive.  The problem is not on the tax side, the problem is on the spend side.

The word was porportionate.

The bottom 50% make 12.8% of the income, they’ll need to pay 12.8% of the tax (as opposed to 3%)

That would be an outrageous 4X increase in their taxes.

My position is simple, present the choice of paying taxes and their demand for services will likewise fall.

The wealthy have wealth, if you want to tax wealth you need to tax assets.  That’s property taxes.  Vehicle license taxes.  We alrady know how the general public feels about those.

I’m game for dumping the income tax and replacing it with an asset and sales tax of 3%.  Are you?

Will you pay 3% national property tax on your house?  Your car? Boat?  Stocks?  Bonds?

That 3% would more than balance the budget and start paying the debt.  Ironic how close it is to the ancient 10% every three years of the biblical kings isn’t it.  Maybe they in their rudimentary wisdom knew something.

green_cactus - 30 July 2008 02:07 PM

No_Such_Reality - 30 July 2008 01:51 PM

The plan is inherently flawed.  Taxes on the bottom 60% need to be increased.

They need to be increased so that they pay a porportionate share of the expense of the government.  If they do not, we further replicate the problem of people getting something for nothing and have a spiraling out of control expense situation similar to healthcare or California’s state budget.

Obama’s plan, IMHO is particularly dangerous as it creates a majority that is not paying taxes or paying negligible taxes.

Reference:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html
http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/109/ResearchReport_109-20.pdf

How do you propose we equalize the tax burden by increasing taxes on the poor? For easy math let’s look at top and bottom halves only. The top 50% (income split point at $32K) make an AGI of about $7.1tri whereas the bottom make about $1.0tri. Keeping the average tax rate of 14% on the top half, what average tax rate should apply to the bottom half for an equal share of the tax burden? 99.4%.

Your head would end up underneath a guillotine in no time if you propose this kind of solution.

Shrinking the size of government is an ideal way to equalize the tax burden.  If the bottom half of income earners (who pay 3% of taxes) are consuming more government services than they are paying for, it’s well past time to have less government services.  Limiting the role of Federal government to things they are authorized to do in the Constitution is a wonderful way to make that change.

No_Such_Reality - 30 July 2008 06:34 PM

The word was porportionate.

The bottom 50% make 12.8% of the income, they’ll need to pay 12.8% of the tax (as opposed to 3%)

That would be an outrageous 4X increase in their taxes.

My position is simple, present the choice of paying taxes and their demand for services will likewise fall.

The wealthy have wealth, if you want to tax wealth you need to tax assets.  That’s property taxes.  Vehicle license taxes.  We alrady know how the general public feels about those.

I’m game for dumping the income tax and replacing it with an asset and sales tax of 3%.  Are you?

Will you pay 3% national property tax on your house?  Your car? Boat?  Stocks?  Bonds?

That 3% would more than balance the budget and start paying the debt.  Ironic how close it is to the ancient 10% every three years of the biblical kings isn’t it.  Maybe they in their rudimentary wisdom knew something.

My bad. Proportionate was not the problem. It’s what it was proportionate to that I misunderstood.

25w100k+ - 30 July 2008 01:13 PM

I think its interesting.  Personally, I’m all for taxing the super rich more, but 2.6 million seems a little low to begin the real raping.  I think tax ‘percentages’ should be ammoritzed over a period of time.  Its not hard to imagine a family who owns a business that make almost nothing for 10 years, sells for 2.6 million, pays 50%, then goes back to making a much smaller amount. 

Oh well, I’m not going to vote for either of them, as Obama betrayed his supporters on the FISA vote and McCaine should stand trial for treason because of his P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act vote.

I just thought it might help those on the fence on who to vote for decide.

The numbers you listed are highly suspect.  For example, the Social Security tax is only applied to the first $97,500 of income (for the 2007 tax year). You pay 7.65% of your income (if you are a W2 employee) or 15.3% of your income if you are self employed.

At current time, Obama is saying that he wants to tax all income above about $250k (expect that number to be lowered if he is elected)  In addition to that, Obama wants to raise income taxes to what they were before the Bush tax cuts.  These tax cuts applied to every income level.  For people making about $250k, the rate will go from 35% to 39.6%.

When you take the facts into consideration, there is simply no way that people earning between $226k and $603k will not experience a tax increase under Obama.

My favorite college econ professor had an interesting take on income taxes. His perspective was that looking at income taxes as a percentage of income shows only part of the ‘fairness’ picture. He asked us to also consider how much families were paying as a percentage of net worth as well. The very rich, he would say, pay a small or even trivial percentage of their net worth in income taxes every year, while poorest paid 100% of their net worth or more in taxes. He’d then ask the question, “Does this seem fair?“

WINEX - 30 July 2008 08:12 PM

The numbers you listed are highly suspect.  For example, the Social Security tax is only applied to the first $97,500 of income (for the 2007 tax year). You pay 7.65% of your income (if you are a W2 employee) or 15.3% of your income if you are self employed.

At current time, Obama is saying that he wants to tax all income above about $250k (expect that number to be lowered if he is elected)  In addition to that, Obama wants to raise income taxes to what they were before the Bush tax cuts.  These tax cuts applied to every income level.  For people making about $250k, the rate will go from 35% to 39.6%.

When you take the facts into consideration, there is simply no way that people earning between $226k and $603k will not experience a tax increase under Obama.

I believe this chart summarizes the findings by the Tax Policy Center. This is by all measures a fairly objective look at the tax plans presented by both Obama and McCain. More info at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/.

Great, so we have Dems wanting to tax more and spend less and Republicans who want to tax less and spend more.  F*ck them both.

What makes you think Democrats want to spend less?  Universal health care doesn’t grow on trees.

green_cactus - 30 July 2008 09:18 PM

WINEX - 30 July 2008 08:12 PM

The numbers you listed are highly suspect.  For example, the Social Security tax is only applied to the first $97,500 of income (for the 2007 tax year). You pay 7.65% of your income (if you are a W2 employee) or 15.3% of your income if you are self employed.

At current time, Obama is saying that he wants to tax all income above about $250k (expect that number to be lowered if he is elected)  In addition to that, Obama wants to raise income taxes to what they were before the Bush tax cuts.  These tax cuts applied to every income level.  For people making about $250k, the rate will go from 35% to 39.6%.

When you take the facts into consideration, there is simply no way that people earning between $226k and $603k will not experience a tax increase under Obama.

I believe this chart summarizes the findings by the Tax Policy Center. This is by all measures a fairly objective look at the tax plans presented by both Obama and McCain. More info at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/.

What makes you believe that?  The following statement alone tells you that people earning between 111k and 603k aren’t in for either tax cuts or no increases under Obambi.

From http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411741_updated_candidates.pdf

The impact of the tax code on economic activity under each candidate’s policies would differ in several important ways. Under Senator McCain’s proposed policies, the top marginal rates (35 percent on individual income and 25 percent on corporate income) would be significantly lower than under Senator Obama’s plan (39.6 and 35 percent, respectively).

HB Bear, Too - 30 July 2008 08:38 PM

My favorite college econ professor had an interesting take on income taxes. His perspective was that looking at income taxes as a percentage of income shows only part of the ‘fairness’ picture. He asked us to also consider how much families were paying as a percentage of net worth as well. The very rich, he would say, pay a small or even trivial percentage of their net worth in income taxes every year, while poorest paid 100% of their net worth or more in taxes. He’d then ask the question, “Does this seem fair?“

First of all, as pointed out earlier, net worth is not a factor in determining taxable income. It is, after all, an “income” tax.  Second, the assertion that the poor pay 100% of their net worth in taxes is patently wrong.  While, the poor may pay a higher percentage of their net worth in sales tax, FICA and social security tax, most “poor” wage earners receive a substantial payment from the income tax system in the form of the earned income credit.  The effect is that many poor wage earners pay little to no income tax and receive a substantial cash payment well beyond what they contributed to the system.

All this stupid arguing over What is or isn’t fair is such a waste of time.  Bythe time inflation catches up, 2million will be nothing. 

When we try to measure FAIRNESS, we just set ourselves up for failure.

Lets just make a FLAT TAX and abolish all write off’s (or as I call them artificial rebates)  and be done with all this B.S.!

Doesn’t get much more “fair” or balanced than that.

WINEX - 31 July 2008 03:09 AM

green_cactus - 30 July 2008 09:18 PM

WINEX - 30 July 2008 08:12 PM

The numbers you listed are highly suspect.  For example, the Social Security tax is only applied to the first $97,500 of income (for the 2007 tax year). You pay 7.65% of your income (if you are a W2 employee) or 15.3% of your income if you are self employed.

At current time, Obama is saying that he wants to tax all income above about $250k (expect that number to be lowered if he is elected)  In addition to that, Obama wants to raise income taxes to what they were before the Bush tax cuts.  These tax cuts applied to every income level.  For people making about $250k, the rate will go from 35% to 39.6%.

When you take the facts into consideration, there is simply no way that people earning between $226k and $603k will not experience a tax increase under Obama.

I believe this chart summarizes the findings by the Tax Policy Center. This is by all measures a fairly objective look at the tax plans presented by both Obama and McCain. More info at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/.

What makes you believe that?  The following statement alone tells you that people earning between 111k and 603k aren’t in for either tax cuts or no increases under Obambi.

From http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411741_updated_candidates.pdf

The impact of the tax code on economic activity under each candidate’s policies would differ in several important ways. Under Senator McCain’s proposed policies, the top marginal rates (35 percent on individual income and 25 percent on corporate income) would be significantly lower than under Senator Obama’s plan (39.6 and 35 percent, respectively).

Bush’s tax cut don’t expire until the end of 2010 (remember, they were based on the projected 10 year surplus that we were going to have). So the “pre-Bush” rates are not effective yet for the chart above since it is for 2009. The analysis done by the Tax Policy Center is pretty exhaustive and more accurate then whatever you or I can speculate. It’s definitely a good read. Of course, the chart presented above is only part of the picture. The report does go into detail on what 2012 looks like - definitely a good read.

WINEX - 31 July 2008 03:04 AM

What makes you think Democrats want to spend less?  Universal health care doesn’t grow on trees.

So you think we have republicans who want to spend more and tax less and dems who want to spend more and tax more?  I’m just trying to clarify your perception of the parties.

idrnkurmlkshk - 31 July 2008 06:39 AM

All this stupid arguing over What is or isn’t fair is such a waste of time.  Bythe time inflation catches up, 2million will be nothing. 

When we try to measure FAIRNESS, we just set ourselves up for failure.

Lets just make a FLAT TAX and abolish all write off’s (or as I call them artificial rebates)  and be done with all this B.S.!

Doesn’t get much more “fair” or balanced than that.

Does that include all investment income/dividends/capgains too?

and how is it fair to have a family who brings home $25k pay say 10% ($2500) while another bringing home $2.5M pay the same 10% (250k)?  The reason the poor pay a lower rate is that they need it all to eat/live, while i’m sure that the $2.5M family can struggle by on $2M just as well as $2.25M

And both of those graphics are clearly republican propaganda.

look at total tax rate, including payroll taxes and sales taxes.

poor ($25k): 16%!   3% income tax + ~9% payroll + 4% sales (since they spend every dollar, less housing and other non-taxables, say 50%), so 16%

rich ($25M:  6%    4% (40% on 2.5M, rest is options/etc)  + 1% payroll (only first $90k) + 1% sales (only spend 1M/yr, rest is invested), so 6%

I don’t know where you are getting your numbers Freedom.  http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=1818

yes, those number pretty much correspond to my estimates, for cash income, which is what they are for.

25w100k+, first of all, please forgive the slow response.  Though your question was simple, a proper answer is complex.  I simply didn’t have the time last night to respond adequately.

First of all, you are mis-characterizing the Republican platform.  If you read the platform to see what Republicans are SUPPOSED to be about, you will find that the party believes in free markets, small government, and low taxes.  Of course a simple look at what happened between 2003 and 2007 reveals that anything but small government wasn’t in force.  Good things and bad things happen in any administration, but without a doubt one of the worst things that happened during the Bush administration was the growth in Federal spending.

Has the party policy changed?  Absolutely not.  But unfortunately as parties gain power, people more interested riding the coat tails of the party than in the policies that led to the gains in power begin to join the party.  This dilutes the purity of the political belief system that creates parties.  It should be noted that a complete change in beliefs isn’t required to change the outcome of a party.  The majority in the House and Senate that the Republicans had between 2003 and 2007 was narrow.  It doesn’t take many Republicans to cross the philosophical line and join the tax and spend liberals for government spending to grow.  And while President Bush has the right vision on national security and taxes, he never was a believer in small government.  Not only did he pass spending bills that should have been vetoed, but he even committed sins such as lobbying Congress for the prescription drug bill.

The official position of the Republican Party is small government.  If that fits your belief system, then you need to be active in supporting candidates at local and Federal levels in both the primaries and the general election that share your belief system.  If you believe in large government and high taxes, then maybe you should consider moving to Europe.   (Just kidding, but not really!)

But since we are on the subject of taxes, it’s probably worth sharing something that I read a few months back.  I could probably find the original article with some searching, or you could easily take this factoid, run it against numbers that are very public, and see for yourself.  Since the end of World War II, the highest Federal tax rate in this country was 70%, the lowest top tax rate in this country was 28%.  During that time we have had robust expansions, recessions and flat economies.  But despite a wide range in tax rates and economic activities, Federal income tax collections during that time have always been with a couple of tenths of a percent of 19%. 

Higher tax rates don’t increase Federal revenues.  Even though the Federal government is taking a larger share of your income, the reduction in economic activity offsets the higher rates.

If our government needs more tax money, the only effective way to get it is to grow the economy.

Lower taxes are the best way to do that.

freedomCM - 31 July 2008 02:27 PM

yes, those number pretty much correspond to my estimates, for cash income, which is what they are for.

You’re making your own numbers up?!?!?

freedomCM - 31 July 2008 11:29 AM