Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Phory
I have a small software and electronics business.
For example the year my partners and myself payed ourselves 20k we all had over 100k dollars worth of income and payed taxes as if we were in that tax bracket (since technically we did make that money.) even though like I said that isn't money we got to spend on ourselves.
|
No offense, but you're doing something wrong. Possibly you need a new accountant.
Owning a business absolutely should not create a situation where you are using your personal, taxable income for business expenses. In fact, one of the primary reasons for setting up an S-Corp or LLC or similar is to limit your personal tax liability.
The primary problem with our tax laws is the ability to manipulate loopholes. Of the two candidates, only Kerry recognizes this as the problem and only Kerry has proposed some solutions. In fact, Bush not only doesn't recognize the problem, he uses this manipulation of loopholes as the
incentive to lower taxes on the wealthy.
Over the past few weeks of Bush's campaign stops he has described the situation as:
Quote:
Bush told voters in Sioux City that Kerry's answer to paying for additional spending is, "Oh, don't worry, we'll tax the rich."
But the president said the rich have accountants who can help them avoid taxes and that the answer to the question of who is going to pay for Kerry's programs is obvious.
"You are!" the president told the crowd.
Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
|
What Bush is stating is that Kerry's plan on increasing the tax rate for the wealthy is unfeasable because the wealthy don't really pay taxes anyway because they hire accountants and lawyers to find loopholes. Bush's "solution" is to lower the taxes on the wealthy.
How is that a solution? It's a gift to people who are avoiding their responsibilities.
This is the first reason that the conservative opinion that a progressive tax system is "unfair" has no merit.
The second reason is that we live in a classist culture. The upper class has a massively disproportionate amount of power, financial and political, in this country. Laws that require them to contribute greater proportional amounts of their income are one solution, a significantly imperfect solution, to that problem. To claim there is a "fairness" in equally proportionate tax burdens is to ignore the reality that with an increase in wealth comes an increase in power - any flat tax system, even if there were no loopholes, would be inherently unfair by virtue of disproportionate balance in power. The U.S. power structure directly follows class:
1- The Upper Class have, by definition, the lionshare of the financial power. Financial power allows for political power. As such, the Upper Class has the lionshare of the political power. Money buys elections (look at the financial status of politicians, almost invariably, the more powerful the position, the wealthier the candidate).
2- The Middle Class have group-financial power. Unfortunately, there are far too many of them to effectively use this power. Boycotts are rarely effective in anything but the most minor of issues. The Middlle Class have a modicum of political power in that their larger groups are the ones that have the largest say in who, from the Upper Class, is elected to positions of political power. But even this political power is subverted by their larger numbers - with larger numbers comes larger numbers of stupid people believing the Upper Class candidates self-serving promises.
3- The Lower Class has almost zero financial and political power. Their primary means of power is affecting pity within the Middle Class and Upper Class.
As you can see, a flat tax system (assuming the idealistic non-existence of loopholes) would not create a "fair" society by any means. A progressive tax system does not perfectly balance the power control, but it is assuredly
more fair than a flat tax system.