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Originally Posted by Willravel
What about those who spend overseas or who don't spend at all? The last time I was out of the country, I spent thousands of dollars. Baring an emergency, I never plan to have my bank account dip below my yearly salary. If I ever get to the salary I desire (between $125k and $250k) that means a lot of untaxed money.
I can appreciate where you're coming from, but maybe I should ask you this: why just tax what we spend? Shouldn't everyone pay their fare share? Why not, then, just tax income?
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On the other side of the coin people who visit here will pay a tax on what they consume.
The money you save in a bank, in normal circumstances will be recirculated back into the economy. Given fractional reserves, a portion of your savings will be lent to others to buy homes, start business and grow the economy. The money spent will be taxed.
I think in some ways we already have systems to tax based on usage. For example people pay a fee to use national parks. People pay a federal gas tax for roads. Theoretically social security taxes are based on a return of that person's contributions. What I find unfair for example, is why should the guy who does not go to college have some of his tax money go to subsidize the education of people who do? I know the argument "every one benefits" but the reality is that not only is that subsidized college student getting the subsidy, they get a higher real life time income and will probably be a snob to the guy who gets his hand dirty for a living. What a deal.
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Originally Posted by Rekna
ace your examples are so extrem that they are irrelevant. No one is taxed at 100% and the gap in taxing of a single person between bush tax cuts and non-tax cuts is not $100 and $1,000,000.
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Sorry if you don't see the concepts. I don't think the examples are extreme. Just, this year. People qualified for stimulus checks, however many of these people were at an income level where they did not need to ordinarily file a income tax return, however for the stimulus check they needed to for 2007. These people normally put no effort into tax planning, but this year they had to. I helped my 90 year old aunt fill out a tax form for this very purpose.
In 2004 President Bush paid about $227,000 in taxes. I think it safe to say that there are people who could face a $1,000,000 tax burden. What do you think Alex Rodriguez's potential tax burden is?
Also, if you have access to tax prep software, run some examples. You will find that there are points in our current tax code where an additional dollar earned could result in a addition dollar in taxes, especially through the loss of tax credits and factoring in FICA/state/local taxes.
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Your argument seems to be don't tax the rich because they will just avoid the tax anyway.... which is very bad logic.
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You miss the point. I say the best way to tax the rich is to do it based on what they spend. Our current system certainly taxes people with high incomes, but there are people with large amounts of wealth that go untaxed relatively speaking. I simply don't think that is fair. The question I ask is why do super wealthy people support such a convoluted tax system? Have you ever given that any thought, if so, why do you think they do?
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Should we do the same about drugs? prostitution? election tampering? Terrorism?
How does this sound, don't make terrorism illegal because the terrorists will do terrorism anyway.....
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Drug usage for adults should not be illegal. And taxed.
Prostitution involving consenting adults should not be illegal. And taxed
Election tampering should be a felony.
Terrorism should be in a special class of criminal offenses. When a person commits a crime with the intent to terrorize a community or a nation they should never see another free day - in my opinion.
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I just looked it up - Tiger Woods made $127,902,706 in income last year. $1,000,000 would be 0.78% of his income.