Do you have the right to say that a “rich” person isn’t paying enough taxes?

You don’t get it. These people are ALREADY paying a disproportionately HIGH amount of taxes compared to people making less money. My reference to those facing hardships is (obviously) to illustrate that a guy grossing $300,000 may be utilizing a substantial portion of the money to pay for his child’s chemotherapy, or his wife’s college debt, or his father’s nursing home bill, etc. Hence, just because you consider someone to be “rich” does not mean that they [the rich] are all smoking cigars on their $50 million yacht without a care in the world. Most “rich” people are merely employees working their butts off and dealing with life's many hardships, just like anyone else.

The point that I was making is there is no reason whatsoever for a “rich” person to being paying even more than they already are. They are getting the same federal services as everyone else, and hence it is the epitome of INEQUALITY for them to be paying more for the same service. Thus, if you believe in equality, you should clearly be against charging people substantially different prices for the same Federal services.

And she already does pay a substantially amount/rate less (if any tax at all). My point is that there is no reason for the “rich” guy to pay any more in his taxes. The same federal armed services protects them both, they both have equal benefits regarding use of federal interstate highways, they both have equal benefits from federal border control agents, etc. Hence, if the federal services for the single mother are the same as the “rich” retailer, then why do you want the retailer to pay a substantially different rate and amount of tax than the single mother who is getting exactly the same federal benefit?

First of all, you can’t deduct every expense. Second of all, your statement above is a myth and a distraction from the fact that the wealthy should be paying the same amount (or at least rate) of tax as everyone else. To advocate that one person pays a different amount than another for the same federal service is discrimination, plain and simple.

Do you think a “rich” person grossing $250,000 per year has an “army of accountants?” Not unless these accountants are working for pennies. Yet, these are the people who are defined to be “rich” by the POTUS, and they make up the largest percentage of “rich” people, rather than the guy making $10 million + per year living large on his yacht.

It sounds like the single mother then probably pays ZERO taxes and may even qualify for government assistance programs, like welfare and food stamps. What’s your point?

If she was truly as destitute as you make her out to be, why would she even consider having a cell phone?

This is a non sequitur. It seems obvious from your responses that my OP was way over your head. What I clearly said was that the poor and middle class have no justification to say that a “rich” person should be paying more taxes. The “rich” ALREADY pay the vast majority of all federal taxes and are taxed at a much higher rate. This is an example of INEQUALITY. Thus, your above statement makes no sense. It would be unfeasible for a poor person to pay more (in total amount) than a rich person, and it would be unfair (and unequal) for a poor person to pay a higher tax rate than a rich person. That’s why nobody is doing this. Hence, your statement above is nothing more than a strawman argument.

Advocating for equality of taxation, however, with ideas such as a Flat Tax or (better yet) a Fair Tax, should be something laudable.

 

The rich should pay more taxes. Everybody should pay more taxes.

 

As long as you include yourself with "everyone" and you believe that everyone's taxes should be increased equally, then you are advocating a fair viewpoint. Hence, although I personally strongly disagree with this viewpoint, it is certainly a legitimate viewpoint to have

On the other hand, if you exclude yourself from "everyone," and/or feel that the "rich" should pay an even MORE disproportionate portion of this tax increase that you are advocating, then such a viewpoint is illegitimate and flies in the face of equality and fairness.

 

I have no problem understanding others. I do have a problem understanding your sentences that make no sense whatsoever.

"We"? No, what YOU have is a failure to communicate.

Finally we agree on something. I'll take this, as well as your failure to respond to my points, as your acquiescence of defeat.

 

Everyone's should rise, but mine shouldn't only because I think my dad is counting me as a deduction. So I have to pay a higher tax rate than most people to begin with. When I can claim myself as a deduction, yes my taxes should rise along with everyone else.

 

You haven't got a mechanism capable of stressing marginal changes in equality and fairness. Even if you did you'd have no practical method to measure it, given diminishing marginal utility of income

 

Honesty is acknowledging that promoting the general welfare includes defending wealth from the barbarians want to rape, pillage, and plunder it, requires a higher tax rate for the rich if the equilibrium between Supply (wealth) and Demand (jobs) cannot be promoted by trickle down economics.

This is a quote of a usurer, in Luke 19:26: "For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him." That is the first real articulation of, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." The usurer who said it had a Golden Goose or maybe a "silver goose on red." http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Italian/MeditationInf15to21.htm#_Toc16156112

Demanding the same rate of taxation for all wealth or property (income being only a part), when some have a Golden Goose (including inherited wealth that can produce income from usury without a fair share of work) that others do not have, can only increase the likelyhood of an Obamanation responding to Jefferson's context (the aristocracy in France) for saying:

"The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise." (The Letters of Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826, Property and Natural Right)

The simple fact that the topic starter could not understand that is NOT Real Property taxes, is a problem to communications. We no longer have the free and open range of lands that made Jefferson's context a moot case.

Understanding others is important, and the Obamanation cannot be fought if people refuse to understand the truth, and how to read between the lines:

"They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share -- the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.
The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. (Applause.)" "President Obama’s State of the Union Address" http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...state-of-the-union-2012-video-transcript.html

That is communism; since some cannot read I shall teach:

1. "an economy where everyone gets a fair shot," no inheritance or advantage (college paid by daddy) more than another. Also a fair shot might include wealth redistributed so that those who cannot fairly compete have welfare substantially higher so they can all be a Paris Hilton, or get to play the evil queen when the hot babe in ABC's "Once Upon a Time" is infinately more believable in the roll than Julia Roberts would be, or a should say the ugly have affirmative action for that job in the front office or on the Foxy Blond Legs Channel.

2. "everyone does their fair share," from each according to their ability.

3. "and everyone plays by the same set of rules," no States Rights, or a One party State where all taxes (rules) in every State are the same.

From what I understand, that is NOT what Republicans want. I find it amusing though that the talking heads did not have a cow over it.

The phrase "Restore an economy," was a distractor; since when did the United States have an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules? In one State there is no income tax, and in another intangebles taxes, and usury in the last century and this one gave us laws after the other Great Depression and this one; Barry's "Holy" Koran has no usury, no unfair advantage from it or unfair share from "reaping where [they] did not sow, and gathering where [they] did not scatter" of work; no where have there ever been in our economy the same set of rules.

Come on, apply "everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules" and what do you have?

"It's the economy stupid" with regard to the real powers of the president is really saying, "It's Camelot stupid. [that Democrats want, a boy king, his way or the highway, can you say "Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A."]"

Without wealth accumulation, and some unfair advantage, some great things never happen, but that is no excuse to make things unbearable to the unfortunate; some simply must pay a higher rate and some wealth redistributed, otherwise with too much freedom of greater advantage comes the inevitable little green man of jealousy, class warfare, and a return of the Obamanator for a newer deal and reign of commie terror.

Compromise on some social programs, and progressive tax rates, or give the Obamanation what too little trickle down might give the rich: a congregation demanding ECONOMIC PARITY.

 

That "the rich do not pay enough taxes" is a political statement that cannot be restricted. If half of the labor force can be criticized for paying no Federal Income Tax at all, how can anyone be criticized for saying that anyone pays too little tax? When someone has difficulty earning a living and sees other people who seem to receive income that is so much that it is impossible to understand how the work of the rich was worth that much, of course the less fortunate are going to resent it. If the more fortunate complain about "class warfare" every time somebody says something about the "income gap," eventually they will inspire just that.

 

Because wealth, unlike race, is not an independent factor. Because your black that does not impact my ability to be white. However if you're rich, if you manipulate the working and middle classes for your own personal benefit then you damage my ability to live a comfortable life.

Furthermore there is not one person in the entire world making half a million dollars a year who has a legitimate financial gripe to make and if they try to make one they are rather definitively despicable and selfish.

 

??? I don't understand what this has to do with my original post. The point I was making is that since you have no intimate knowledge of another person's hardships in life, then you have no justification in stating that their life is easy (because you subjectively determine them to be "rich"), and therefore must pay an even further disproportionate amount more in taxes.

Can you please explain to me how an OB-GYN physician grossing $300,000 in New York can "manipulate" a coalminer making minimum wage in West Virginia?

This is exactly the ignorant "know-it-all" attitude that I was referring to in my OP. You have no idea what debt the person grossing $500,000 per year has. You have no idea how many children that he has or if these children have health problems. You have no idea if his parents require nursing home or other specialized (a.k.a. "costly") care.

You have no idea about ANY of the financial details of his life, and yet you are so presumptuous to the point that you are confident that such a person could never have a "financial gripe." You couldn't be more wrong, and there are actually MANY people who you probably consider "rich" with financial problems through no direct fault of their own.

 

Nobody is talking about restricting anything. Rather, in my OP, I was clearly stating that there is no "justification" for such a statement.

Precisely: Because half of the labor force pays ZERO income tax, how in the world are they justified to demand that the "rich" (who pay a disproportionate amount of the federal income tax) pay even more income taxes?

I understand that many people are immature and envious of others, but petty envy does not give one JUSTIFICATION to demand that the "rich" pay more in taxes.

What do you mean by this statement?

 

No more than anyone else in the middle class (and certainly no more than the lower class).

Are you kidding me? That pay a disproportionate amount (and percentage) more in taxes than everyone else. Hence, they contribute much more to society than they are taking out of it.

And what exactly do you base this on?

 

The most objective way is by looking at the value of social services that can be attributed to an individual. How would you measure aggregate benefit?

How do you define "soceital benefit?" How does a janitor who cleans a building that I never attend benefit me (if I were a "rich" person)? If a soldier dies in combat fighting a war for his country, how can you put a value on his life? Is the soldier's sacrifice worth more to a "rich" person than a "poor" person?

They pay more in than they get out. Thus, by looking objectively, they (the wealthy) contribute more money to the system than the system pays back to them.

If you look at the matter objectively, they (the rich) clearly do pay more in taxes than they benefit from society http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr151.pdf.

It depends on the individual. If the "rich" person is receiving $200,000 per year worth of medical care paid for by state and federal tax money, then he is benefiting much more than a "rich" person with no medical problems. This benefit is independent of wealth, inasmuch as a "poor" person can just as easily be receiving $200,000 per year worth of medical care paid for by our taxes.

LOL! Does this happen to you commonly? Serious, is this really the example that you are giving me? How about something that can possibly happen in MODERN TIMES?

Additionally, what does this ONE rich person (as an hypothetical example) who "shortchanged" you have to do with the vast majority of the rich people out there who work their butts off at an honest job?

Lately, a poor person can swindle you just as easily, so your example just doesn't hold water.

 

Those arguing against higher taxes on the 'rich' are simply guilty of low powered morality splurge. This is clearly a matter of efficiency. First, we should be should be motivated by work incentive effects. Given diminishing marginal utility of income, that ensures two pertinent issues:

a) With capitalism's tendency towards mass unemployment and economic rent creating inefficiencies such as underemployment and underpayment, the social wage (i.e. Interaction of tax and benefits and their effect on net wage) can be manipulated to ensure the elimination of poverty and unemployment traps

b) Labour supply effects are more important for the lower paid (e.g. A basic understanding of the labour supply schedule will inform us that it is backward bending, such that higher income for the rich is actually a work disincentive)

We then can factor in the consequences of the median voter for public good provision. As advertised by the retrenchment hypothesis, we can expect underprovison and therefore inefficiently low taxes on the higher income deciles. The higher tax would simply then be a creation for market failure

 

I don't like the way the OP phrases the question. Other have already addressed that you can "say what you like"

So, the better questions are

1. Does anyone "get paid too much"?
I don't think that's for us to decide. There's certainly a case to be made that some people are being paid far beyond what they produce, whether that is just or fair leads down a pretty messy road, so I'll leave it be for now.

2. Do the wealthy pay enough taxes?
I'm going to say no, but it's a result of the tax code that this is possible. Yes the marginal rate is somewhat high, but no one really pays that amount. The tax code should be radically simplified and rolled in with the entitlement programs in this country. Then if I had my druthers we'd enact a negative income tax, since it accomplishes the goals set forth in my previous sentence.

 

1. Why shouldn't it be for us to decide if someone gets paid too much? The market certainly shouldn't decide it. Just because you can make money off of something doesn't mean it is beneficial to society. One example is lawyers. Yes, they make a lot of money for one side, but they take money from another. This produces no benefit for society.

 

Because you will assuredly negatively impact on incentives and therefore destroy economic opportunities

 

I wouldn't.

 

That is a direct function of our society having a very high umemployment rate. Less taxes==less tax revenue.

What??? I don't know anybody who wants to strip anybody from "all their wealth". Paying a true 39% of their income when it exceeds 2 million dollars per annum does not equate "stripping one of all their wealth". SMFH. Let's not forget our history here, shall we? Between the end of WWII and the early sixties, the top marginal rate was 90/91%. When we come close to nudging above 40%, then give me a nudge...I might give a crap about the wealthy's unfair and crappy life.

Whether you like it or not, we live in a Republic whereby our democratically elected officials enact laws that are used to abide by our forefathers bill of rights and constitution. The electorate has a responsibility to look out for the general welfare of it's citizenry. (Look it up...it's in our constitution). That includes a graduated tax structure...a structure which is also used in every country internationally, sans 2 tiny ones, with the only differences yielding a higher graduation of marginal tax rates in said countries.

Stick it to the wealthy? Not in this country that's for sure. The top high enders slaughter their international colleagues regarding their retained earnings. Not even close.

 

What do you think?

 

OK that's fine....just don't complain about our national debt ever again.

 

The term "diminishing marginal utility" is an economic phrase that I would guess very few here would understand. In particular, those that are from the pro "flat tax crowd".

The very concept of "marginal utilty" is THE REASON why virtually all countries use a graduated tax system.

 

It certainly confuses them and their warped sense of fairness. However, it should be a concept that we all come to understand. We just need to see income growth after all and that typically happens with age