Posted on 04/16/2011 10:16:36 PM PDT by AmericanDave
Fortunately the stock traders are too stupid to recognize this tax and reduce their trading, companies are too stupid to do reverse stock splits so that a new share of a stock like Procter&Gamble would be $620, and brokers are too stupid to just move out of the United States to a country with a less parasitic government.
Day traders and speculators are NOT the producers.
I hear you could make alot of money taxing the air that people breath.
We all know that no amount of money will satisfy the spending habits of our corrupt politicians. They find a way to spend every new source of revenue no matter how big it is. Within two years they would be back again looking for more money.
Do you go so far as to consider them looters?
How dare you. I am a day trader. My income has helped buy cars, homes, clothes, groceries, and on and on. I also pay capital gains taxes on my income. I bet I pay more taxes every year than you do. I have many friends who are also day traders and they will tell you the same. How is that NOT being a producer?!?
There is another problem with this proposal. Alice sold 100 shares to Bob for $1 each and paid $1 in tax. Bob next day sold the same shares back to Alice for the same $100 ... and paid another $1 in tax. These two transactions generated no profit to anyone, but were taxed twice. What service did the government perform to Alice and Bob to justify these charges? None; it took the money only because it could.
If you want a car analogy, here is one. Imagine that your brand new sports car is now equipped with a boat anchor from Titanic. That anchor drags behind, increases your fuel consumption and reduces speed - all for no good reason. Do you want that anchor? This tax would be just like that anchor, a penalty for doing things.
You may not appreciate those things [market speculators,] but other people might. Nobody forces you or me to trade shares or to even own them. If you have some spare money you can always lend it to your local bond issuer; not only the money would be in no risk [sans inflation,] you would also know exactly what the money is spent on - usually on improvements of infrastructure, on new schools, libraries, and generally on stuff that is useful.
IMO, the beast of the government cannot be ever fed. It will be always hungry, always asking for more - until there is no more, literally. Before that many businesses will disappear, and other will move out of the country. This will only accelerate the crash. Pulling more and more money out of pockets of few remaining workers is not a solution; but reduction of spending is.
This idea stinks. Markets are all about the efficient allocation of capital and this is nothing but additional friction for those markets. Many of the stocks I purchase are less than $1 and this would be a dramatic tax on those type stocks.
If you want to further restrict small company access to the financial and credit markets this is a whiz bang idea. Sounds like something this administration might propose as it would further hamstring small business startups.
Your proposal would raise my trading cost 11% on a buy of 100 shares.
It would also remove 2 Trillion Dollars of capital from the private sector.
The resulting contraction in the economy would cause revenues from all tax sources to decrease, defeating the idea and sending the economy into recession.
Exciting, but I’ll pass.
Within a week, every public company would reverse split their shares and be trading $1,000+ per share. Dave, rather than wasting your time trying to steal my money, put your efforts towards having your representative cut spending.
Nothing is stopping you from sending more money to the IRS.
Keep your filthy hands out of my pockets, though.
I would charge you a penny per word you post. It would really stick it to the stupid posters.
Your math is wrong, snce you left out the Congressional Multiplier Factor from your equation.
This tax would not begin to replace the rest, because they would still collect and spend BOTH, while borrowing still more to cover "essentials" that there wouldn't be enough money coming in to pay for.
If you want proof of that, go back and see what happened to spending every time a new tax was added to the mix.
Spending ALWAYS increases by at least 110% of available revenue increases.
So the suggestion is to take a couple of trillion dollars out of the economy?
This idea, even if applied to short term investments becomes a transaction tax, thereby discouraging transactions.
It will promote stagnation in an economy which needs more transactions.
This still does nothing to increase efficiency and discourage flippant government spending.
dumb idea, take a trillion out of the private sector will shrink the economy. Your idea shrink the pie or kill the goose that lay the golden egg. Government DON’T PRODUCE THINGS, they only reallocate resources INEFFICIENTLY, which leads to huge waste of resources and man power.
Hear me out, now.
The first thing which needs to be done is control the spending. No amount of revenue will fill the coffers if we are spending at the rate we have been, in fact, it will only encourage more spending.
It's time to trim the herd (of government employees), to downsize government in both function and scope, to sell off some office space after the agencies clean out their desks.
The Government is even now looking to take over more industry and regulate other industries best regulated at the State level.
It is patently obvious we have a lot more government than we need, both in regulation and in sheer numbers of people looking for ways to justify their jobs so they can continue to live off the productivity of those who are producing in the US, whom the Government employees outnumber 2 to 1.
So cut some nuts, trim the herd, and get things back to a size we can afford, FIRST.
Then, if we need money to pay off our debts, we can look for solutions to that problem at a time when they will not merely lead to even more spending we can't afford.
Creatively exhausting all the ways to raise revenue without controlling spending is like trying to fill a bucket with the bottom busted out--no matter how hard you pump, it just isn't going to happen--the well will run dry first.
how bout the federal gov. lease there oil and gas federal properties(deep water and land) to oil companys (they are worth trillions)and collect 20% royalities from oil and gas produced. it will pay off the debt in record time, and lower the cost to consumers while creating jobs at the same time— just a thought-
It’s not being a producer in the same way that those who gamble on sporting events are not producers. Betting on the efforts of others doesn’t make one a producer. It can make you rich, but you are not a producer.
First, it will never bring in the revenue they expect from current activity, because increaing taxes on any activity decreases it because less people decide to do the activity, and those that still do the activity often do less of it.
Second, any money that would be generated would be lost because both side of the aisle in power would just spend it all on new (or propping up existing) government programs.
Basically when you see people say the solution is a tax, they have not learned that their unrestrained spending is the problem. If you don’t spend and borrow what you don’t have, you won’t run deficits and increase your debt.
Both sides leadership don’t care. One wants to brgin this country down by excessive spending, the other side has some that want to and the rest have no balls to stop the other side destroying the country.
“you would pay income tax on the capitol gains, and your broker a fee of 5 or 10 dollars; and only $1 to the gov’t for this tax. “
Capital gains, Income tax, Social security tax, gas tax, property tax, tanning bed tax.........
Dollar per share stock tax? How about just a 10 cent per day breathing tax. How about a tax on how may steps you take in public....something like one tenth of a cent for every step. How about a “time tax” where you simply pay a fraction of a cent for every second you are alive. These things sound silly but it’s no more silly than a penny for every share of stock that you trade. What would be the reason this activity needs to be taxed over say something like breathing or walking or whatever? The answer is there is NO REASON THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO TAX THESE ACTIVITIES. This is just and excuse to TAKE YOUR MONEY!
Stop Spending. Stop government employment. Stop government run schools. Stop spending money. stop it stop it stop it.
Sorry
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