Why people get so upset about the Wealthy/15% tax

[Mr Nice Guy]

Because it just seems wrong that someone who gets up at 6 am in the morning, rain or shine, and commutes 2 hours to his job, away from his kids, should be taxed, pretty much all his life higher than the priviledged who never had to work and rely on capital gains (money making money) from their family's trust.

An airess with a chuwawa should be taxed 15% (probably less with the help of savy tax attorneys), but a working middle class guy living in NYC will be taxed over 40% (federal, state, city)?

Richer people have other ways of evading more taxes (company paid car, expense accounts) while we have to pay for our transportation and modest meals with money already taxed.

Middle Class New Yorker Blog

Maybe they should change their job, work harder, and sell their bigscreen tv....just a thought

[thekid]

I agree with you. The Left always wants to tax productivity by having a high corporate tax rate. The USA actually has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/bu...y/03rates.html

"Topping out at 35 percent, America’s official corporate income tax rate trails that of only Japan, at 39.5 percent, which has said it plans to lower its rate. It is nearly triple Ireland’s and 10 percentage points higher than in Denmark, Austria or China."

Yet the amount paid in corporate tax in the US represents roughly 1.3% of GDP, about half the average for OECD countries. It's telling that the reduction is presented as a tax neutral measure (cut loopholes, lower rate). US tax code is riddled with pork and bribery, as was mentionned in this thread.

Lowering the rate is just "marketing".

[maat55]

I'm not suggesting an alternative. I'm just trying to explain to the OP why many people are unhappy about the cap gains rate. It's a primary contributor to the disparity of wealth in the US.

Actually, the primary reason for wealth disparity is the SS/medicare tax on incomes under 106k. Most people cannot afford to invest due to a forced ponzi-scheme.

[Nika]

Because it just seems wrong that someone who gets up at 6 am in the morning, rain or shine, and commutes 2 hours to his job, away from his kids, should be taxed, pretty much all his life higher than the priviledged who never had to work and rely on capital gains (money making money) from their family's trust.

An airess with a chuwawa should be taxed 15% (probably less with the help of savy tax attorneys), but a working middle class guy living in NYC will be taxed over 40% (federal, state, city)?

Richer people have other ways of evading more taxes (company paid car, expense accounts) while we have to pay for our transportation and modest meals with money already taxed.

Maybe they should change their job, work harder, and sell their bigscreen tv....just a thought

And how exactly would that make his tax rate close to Mitt Romney's 13.9%? Quite the opposite, if he does not work hard he can pay 0-15%. If he "works hard" (which, I take it, in your definition means he gets paid more) he will enjoy the 30%-40% tax rate. Working hard means more ordinary income. That gets taxed. Not working for a living (long term capital gains tax we discussing here) get taxed in a much more preferential way. And what does a big screen TV have to do with his tax rate, pray tell?

Actually, the primary reason for wealth disparity is the SS/medicare tax on incomes under 106k. Most people cannot afford to invest due to a forced ponzi-scheme.

Yeah, that's why. Otherwise, everybody in this country would be able to invest enough to cover their medical cost and their retirement for the rest of their lives. Look around you, at all of your co-workers, friends and neighbors, your grocery store employees, etc... and tell me that you are convinced every single one of them have the discipline, financial saavy, investment knowledge and planning abilities to do that better than SS does.

SS is social insurance, set up to benefit the society as a whole. Not everything in life supposed to be 100% about you.

[KTP]

So what program gives me back my 30s and 40s when I am young enough to have a carefree attitude toward life and saving toward retirement and spend all my money instead on partying, smoking, drinking, drugs, whatever?

We are working hard and saving during these years...why should we have to support those who did not do these things? Are they going to give us a time machine so we can go back and enjoy the same carefree lifestyle they did? Let them suffer...a 25lb bag of rice, and a case of beans will feed for a month, and there are several abandoned military bases they could convert into some sort of town.

If you choose to spend age 20 to 60 living it up, then you get what you paid for in retirement.

[Mjenn]

So what program gives me back my 30s and 40s when I am young enough to have a carefree attitude toward life and saving toward retirement and spend all my money instead on partying, smoking, drinking, drugs, whatever?

We are working hard and saving during these years...why should we have to support those who did not do these things? Are they going to give us a time machine so we can go back and enjoy the same carefree lifestyle they did? Let them suffer...a 25lb bag of rice, and a case of beans will feed for a month, and there are several abandoned military bases they could convert into some sort of town.

If you choose to spend age 20 to 60 living it up, then you get what you paid for in retirement.

Maybe I am wrong here, but isn't SS based on what you have earned during your lifetime? I live abroad, and every year I get a statement from SS basically telling me I have no money - that's OK because where I live has an agreement with the US so my national retirement money from here will be paid to me even if I go back to the US - but still, I don't qualify for much SS because I don't pay into it.

That said, it is a bit off the topic, capital gains tax is on profits made from invested money, and I don't really see what the problem with that is, at all. You earn money, you pay tax on it, that is how the system is structured to work. And if you are a high-income earner, yes you should be paying a higher percentage on that income - because that is what all of the other middle class money earners are doing. You don't get a free pass - or a 15% one.

But then again, I have never really understood how people really feel like the US would be a great place to live if they were comfortable in their castle with their stuff while a bunch of elderly folks were starving in the street. I know I would not want to live that way, even if I am a responsible planner.

[thekid]

You earn money, you pay tax on it, that is how the system is structured to work.

Sure. The question is whether the system should be structured in a way in which work income is taxed significantly higher than investment income. Who profits mostly from that? That's a good question to ask when you want to figure out why something is structured a certain way.

[Scanner]

I agree with you. The Left always wants to tax productivity by having a high corporate tax rate. The USA actually has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/bu...y/03rates.html

"Topping out at 35 percent, America’s official corporate income tax rate trails that of only Japan, at 39.5 percent, which has said it plans to lower its rate. It is nearly triple Ireland’s and 10 percentage points higher than in Denmark, Austria or China."

Every entity should pay the same tax rate. . .let's say 25% to be round:

Earned Income: 25%
Unearned Income: 25%
Corporate Income 25%
VAT/Sales Tax: 10%

Only deduction: Charity.

I call it Scanner's 25-25-25-10 Plan. You get a free pizza with it.

YOu don't give corporations special treatment just because they are "Job Creators." In that, Elizabeth Warren was absolutely correct on this rant:

VIDEO: The Elizabeth Warren Quote Every American Needs To Hear | MoveOn.Org

"There is no one who got rich in this country on their own. They moved goods to market using our roads.'" etc.

The Liberals have won the moral argument on this.

I say this an Independent.

Look at our own forum leader, DisneySteve here. . .he got to his point by using a student loan system that is tax payor supported. That's not to take away from his hard work he did in studying. He also takes a lot of Medicaid where he works. I am glad he is there to provide at least some basic healthcare to the indigent.

I would be horrified if all of the suddent he started espousing Conservative views that he shouldn't have to pay taxes, much like Michelle Bachmann, who ranted against socialism, yet fully participates.

I am all for reducing public welfare. But corporate welfare has to end too.

[bjl584]

I'm all for a flat tax across the board.

But, a multi billion dollar industry has risen as a result of the complexity of the US tax code. A lot of the CPA's may be out of work if things were simplified too much.

[yugugelizer]

As others have similarly suggested, capital gains rates should increase as the percentage it is of a person's income increases i.e. 10% of total income 15%, 50% of income 25%.

It is interesting that people (and the government) complain about jobs going overseas, while people are incentivized to earn income through investing rather than good old fashioned work.

[maat55]

Every entity should pay the same tax rate. . .let's say 25% to be round:

Earned Income: 25%
Unearned Income: 25%
Corporate Income 25%
VAT/Sales Tax: 10%

Only deduction: Charity.

I call it Scanner's 25-25-25-10 Plan. You get a free pizza with it.

YOu don't give corporations special treatment just because they are "Job Creators." In that, Elizabeth Warren was absolutely correct on this rant:

VIDEO: The Elizabeth Warren Quote Every American Needs To Hear | MoveOn.Org

"There is no one who got rich in this country on their own. They moved goods to market using our roads.'" etc.

The Liberals have won the moral argument on this.

I say this an Independent.

Look at our own forum leader, DisneySteve here. . .he got to his point by using a student loan system that is tax payor supported. That's not to take away from his hard work he did in studying. He also takes a lot of Medicaid where he works. I am glad he is there to provide at least some basic healthcare to the indigent.

I would be horrified if all of the suddent he started espousing Conservative views that he shouldn't have to pay taxes, much like Michelle Bachmann, who ranted against socialism, yet fully participates.

I am all for reducing public welfare. But corporate welfare has to end too.

Who is corporation?

Asking for corporations to pay tax is only asking yourself to be taxed in another form. Only people pay taxes. Corporate taxes do cost us jobs though.

[thekid]

Who is corporation?

Asking for corporations to pay tax is only asking yourself to be taxed in another form. Only people pay taxes. Corporate taxes do cost us jobs though.

Without corporate tax, shareholders would be sheltered from taxation on income until they withdraw. Sound reasonable?

[Scanner]

Corporations add cost to America. They need roads, they need an educated workforce, they pollute, they demand oil. . .therefore, they should pay their share.

I have never bought the moral argument that because they create jobs (of which employees provide a fair exchange for productivity), that we, as a nation, have to pander to them.

Bill Clinton was right on this issue. Corporations used to be involved in their communities, they used often be a central part of neighborhoods. . .now. . .it's all about globalization.

And that's fine. . .but if they provide no social good, then they ahve to be offset in the form of taxes.

Now more than ever.

[Scanner]

LOok at it this way.

Let's say I'm a businessman. Call me Mitt Scanner. Someday I want to run for President.

So, I invent a company called Bane of Existence Capital. And my company aquires companies and consolidates them. As I consolidate and merge companies (let's say Domino's Pizza and Little Ceasar's Pizza), I cut jobs or ship them overseas.

So, I am a net job exporter.

Why should I deserve special tax consideration?

Today's Conservative (actually more accurately, they are Reaganesque Neoliberals) remind me of the old Fiddler on the Roof song "If I Were A Rich Man."

In that song, Reb Tevye sings, "And it won't make one bit of difference, if I answer right or answer wrong, when you're rich they think you really know. . ."

It's honestly the philosophy that exists today.. . .Idol Golden Cow worship of rich people. . .people think if we sacrifice for them, they'll make our lives easier.

Thank God the 99%/1% Occupy Movement finally challenged this "Cultish" beleif system.

[maat55]

Without corporate tax, shareholders would be sheltered from taxation on income until they withdraw. Sound reasonable?

If the money is staying in the market, why tax it? Like with jobs, the corporate tax is running off capital. IMO, we should have a simple consumption tax only.