Originally Posted by Hard-Driver";p=&quot

You do realize that you are only refering to the income taxes. Not all federal taxes. Even the poorest pay 7.65% social security and medicare. And you do know that the social security tax revenue is not used for social security, but for the general spending of the government. So in reality the poor still pay 7.65% federal taxes for general spending.

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

conservatives are very selective in their analysis of taxes, because if they are not it would be pretty obvious just how narrowly class based their policies are. I will give a few of the obvious examples below.

First when they talk about taxes they are very careful to not draw attention to how much of the total income in the US upper income groups earn and they restrict their analysis exclusively to one and only one tax, the federal income tax and no others. Thus they will argue that the percent of total income taxes paid by upper income groups went up after 1980 entirely ignoring that this occured in large, or entirely, because the percent of income earned by top income groups went way up after 1980.

For example say in 1980 the top two percent earned 40 percent of US income and paid 50 percent tax rates (which they did not but its for ease of example). Thus they would pay 20 percent of the GDP in taxes. The rest of the public earned 60 percent and pay 16 percent rates, they pay 10 percent of GDP in taxes. Then in 2005 at 50 percent tax rate the elites earned 60 percent of total US income. They would pay now 30 percent of gdp in taxes. The public at the same 1/6 would pay about 7 percent. The ratio of money paid by the two groups would be much higher but it would be exclusively because of changes in the percent of the economy earned by elites.

Similarly, consider a 40 percent tax rate for elites at the later period. Now they would pay 24 percent, the rest 7 percent still. The ratio paid by elites is still higher than the earlier ratio but its because their percent of the economy went up again. Not the tax rate changes.

Second income taxes are one of only many taxes paid by the public - they simply are one of the few that are progressive which is why conservatives exclusively focus on them. Federal exise taxes and most state taxes are highly regressive, that is you pay a higher percent of your income as your income goes down. This is one example from the conservative darling, the consumption tax.

I am Joe Rich guy. I earn a million a year (not that much these days for many of the super wealthy). I spend 10 percent of my income on consumption (which is likely high for required consumption expenses). 10 percent of that is taxes. I pay 1 percent of my total income in taxes.

I am Joe Doe. I earn 30 thousand a year. I spend 20 thousand of that on required consumption expenses (things like housing, clothes, food etc that are not discretionary). This is a very low number of what actually would be spent by such an income earner but I do it to give the consumption tax types a decent break. I pay ten percent of that 20k in consumption taxes 2000 dollars. I pay 6.6 percent roughly of my total income in taxes far more than Joe Rich guy.

But the reality is even worse. The real bit from taxes is not on total income but on discretionary income that which you dont need to survive. Joe Rich guy has 900,000 he does not have to spend (even with very generous definitions of that term which assumes he "needs" to have very fancy digs, cars etc compared to others). Only about 1 percent of that is touched by taxes. Joe Doe has 10k in discretionary spending (which is way high for real Americans who need to spend most of their income to get by these days). He pays 20 percent of his discretionary income in taxes. Many state and federal exise taxes are done exactly this way now (as are local taxes).

Somehow conservatives never get around to that type of analysis. Its fasinating how they focus nearly exclusively on taxes that hit high income groups such as income or estate taxes and never get around to discuss the other taxes (which are equally if not more prevalent than income taxes) which have the opposite effect.

Quite a concidence n'est ce pas mes amis?

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

which includes fiscal and tax policy. I know quite a bit about them thank you very much as well as the underlying economics behind them.

How about showing why my examples were not correct, why its not true that conservatives focus nearly exclusively on taxes that are progressive and never talk about the others deliberately presenting a distorted picture of the overall tax situation in the process, or why we should not focus tax cuts in things like sales taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, raising the standard deduction and the like rather than on estate taxes, dividend taxes, and capital gains taxes?

Why in other words is it important to focus so much on taxes of elites and why its not important to focus on the rest instead. For that matter how addressing any of my substantive points as compared to just dismissing them.

Debates between conservatives and liberals are in the end a wast of time on such issues. Conservatives will always focus on initiatives to benefit elites and big business, liberals on the rest of the bunch. The US public will make up its mind, as the link I posted denotes they are getting a bit tired on the on the near exclusive conservative emphasis on taxes that upper income groups pay and their ignoring of all the rest.

Originally Posted by BroncoBilly";p=&quot

...depreciation on items bought for your business, or business related improvements, not personal items.

Originally Posted by noetsi";p=&quot

This is an example not actual numbers of why a flat tax is not very good for most Americans. Its particularly true today when income disparity is so high and its the middle and lower income groups not elites who really are struggling.

I earn 100,000. I have to have 30,000 of that to pay my neccessities (things like food, clothing, housing, power etc you need to survive). I have 70,000 left which is not required essentially this is fat. I pay a 20 percent flat tax (the last estimate I saw said that to generate the same revenue as the income tax the flat tax rate would be about 23 percent but this is easier to do the math on for my example). SO I pay 20,000 in taxes have 50,000 in discretionary spending left.

Now I earn 25,000 which is close to the median. In reality virtually everything there is non-discretionary for most families but for sake of observation we will say they have 2,000 in discretionary income after the absolute neccessities are taken care of. I have 2,000 in discretionary income. I pay 5,000 in a flat tax. Not only is all my discretionary income gone, part of my income for neccessities is gone as well.

A flat tax would flatten many Americans and signficantly shift the tax burden from those most able to pay it, to those that are least able to pay it. This would occur even as disparity is at the highest point since the early 1900's and when much of the US public (but not elites) are just hanging on by their fingertips.

If they want to make the system fairer they can simple get rid of the deductions and stll have a progressive system.

Originally Posted by LoSconosciuto";p=&quot

I wasn't suggesting that personal items could be depreciated... though you'd be surprised what still falls within the realm of "business related". Joe and Jane Schmoe may get a break for their kids, but do they get a big screen plasma TV set (for the office, of course) partially paid for by Uncle Sam? But accelerated depreciation is the reason that I was able to form so many real estate partnerships with dentists and doctors in the 80's. Most of the ones I did for them barely kicked out any positive cashflow, but it was depreciation and interest expenses they were after anyway. It was great for me and I took advantage of it... so I'm not complaining. But was it "real" or needed? No! They've since done away with that method for real estate, but 1031's are still there for those that know how to play the game. Unless you do an Angelina Jolie and adopt about half of some nation's kids, even a bad 1031 Exchange will beat the heck out of whatever the average wage earning parent gets.

They've cracked down on them a bit, but tax shelters are every bit as prevalent now as they ever were.

Something else I thought about as I was logging out last time... this notion that a certain income level makes you "rich". Where did that concept come from? For individuals, net income tells me nothing because it doesn't normally include day-to-day expenses. Net worth tells me a lot more, though if a large portion of it is illiquid (real estate as opposed to stocks, bonds and cash), you still may be rather "poor" if a rough spot hits you at the wrong time.