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No and something needs to be done about it.
No: We do not tax high-earners nearly enough, and tax middle- and low-income people far too much.
The tax system needs to be MORE progressive, and take into account ability to pay versus how much harm will be done by taking money away; instead of a flat, or nearly-flat, tax, it needs to look a lot more like a mountain.
Here's an example:
Picture three people: Jim makes $20,000 per year. Tom makes $200,000 per year. Bill makes $2,000,000 per year.
Our current tax system (more or less) imposes this on each:
Jim pays about $2500 (in federal taxes, 2008).
Tom pays about $51,000.
Bill pays about $678,000.
Which seems unfair to Bill — but look at what's left:
Jim has only $18,000 left to live on.
Tom has $149,000 left.
Bill has $1,322,000.
In other words: Bill still has SEVENTY-THREE times the amount of money Jim has. And eight times the amount of money Tom has.
If you took another 322,000 from Bill — taxed him at 50%, he'd still be well over the amount of money any person needs to live, and you'd have $322,000 more in funding for the military, or health care, or roads. That's more than you can get even if you took all of Tom's and Jim's money away.
Taxing Bill higher would not take away his (or anyone's) incentive to work, either, unless they're a complete idiot. If you raise my taxes, then if I want to keep up my current standard of living, I will have to earn MORE, or lose ground. And higher taxes are not going to keep Tom and Jim from wanting to earn more, even if they pay higher taxes in the process.
When the top 1% of wage earners pay 95% of the taxes I would say no, that is not fair.
Hey, why not just make it a flat percentage for all taxpayers? much simpler and you would not be punishing people for working hard and becoming successful.
A flat 10% on all wage earners and business incomes without any shelters, deductions, or non-profit gimmics seems like a very fair deal to me.
Ten cents on the dollar. Earn a dollar = pay a dime. No more "Non-profit" organizations – and that includes religions. No deductions. No tax shelters.
Now wouldn't that be fair for everyone?
Because we were founded on the freedom of religion, not the profiting off of it. Rather than tax non-profits why not drop wasteful spending and programs and cut taxes for all.
Lori, why did Regan and W drop all wasteful programs? And if they did, why wasn't our budget even close to being balanced? Talk is cheap, cuts are hard.
Turf, you are asking a question irrelevant to what I said. When I say cut wasteful spending I am saying stop wasteful spending, with no regard to party affiliation. Every administration should stop the wasteful spending, especially the current totally out of control one.
Cuts are hard, on those who take them, yes but not on those who profit from it. It simply isn't fair that some Americans are living off the backs of other harder working Americans. If you want to make it fair, make it fair to all and stop using taxes to redistribute the wealth of those who work to those don't.
JC, Lori, everyone pays some "taxes", whether it's state, sales, and or federal. But, many don't pay federal taxes, especially the many that have plenty of kids.
Why do I, one without children, have to pay excessive federal and state taxes (property taxes) to redistribute it to the ones with many kids?
They did increase revenues by restructuring the tax code. W could have done better to learn from Reagan's example and simplify it by removing deductions and tax shelters instead of adding more. There are reasons why one economic policy was good and the newer version of it was totally stupid.
They did not reign in spending at all, in fact expanded dramatically, hence massive deficit spending under their administrations.
No. It is not fair and it is very harmful to all.
Taxes are ridiculous.
ha, i’ll give you a quote from someone from Henry Ford
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
What am I saying, there is entire movies dedicated to exploring what your tax dollars go to. It may interest you to know that your personal income tax doesn’t go towards the services you expect.
Which leads to the discussion brought forth that there is no law that has been created in the U.S anywhere that requries you to pay a PERSONAL income tax return.
The taxing system is even more corrupt than you think.
That won't work.
Where on Earth did you hear that? They pay like only ten percent more than we do.
That would work it also would teach our PUBLIC servants to spend OUR money more wisely. As we the people see ever increasing tax hikes, we also see our national debt spiraling out of control. with taxation constantly being increased and our constant loans from communist countries were do you see our country in 50 years ? It is the responsability of those entrusted to handle our budget to be responsible for the money entrusted to them. In my opinion those that mishandle our money should see a tax increase instead of more benifits and pay raises