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When a Flat Tax Is Still a Progressive Tax
The New American ^ | Today | Laurence M. Vance

Posted on 09/18/2012 3:52:46 PM PDT by Paddy Irish

Edited on 09/18/2012 4:08:10 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]

The U.S. tax code is a complex and burdensome maze of rates, exemptions, exclusions, credits, deductions, phase-out levels, and exceptions. People may not agree on anything else, but the nature of the tax code is certainly something that anyone of any political persuasion would agree on.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: money; romney; taxes
Recently I overheard a coworker talk about how the flat tax is regressive. I argued with him that most rich people have a talent or ability that most of the rest of us don't have. I understand that Al Gore was born rich and has no talent and is not enterprising, but for the most part those that earn great wealth are special. I've never created a job in my life, and I doubt the guy making $30,000 at Jiffy Lube ever has either. But guys like Romney do all the time. If anything we should tax them less because we need their genius. Let me also say that many rich people work incredibly hard.
1 posted on 09/18/2012 3:52:53 PM PDT by Paddy Irish
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To: Paddy Irish

Please do not change titles.


2 posted on 09/18/2012 4:10:51 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
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To: Paddy Irish

It is a mistake to argue whether Wealthy people should pay more or less. They shouldn’t be rewarded nor punished.
They are in this just as much as everyone else and should pay as much as anyone else.

Analysis by the Chairman of the Economics Department at Harvard University:
Quote:
Because transfer payments are, in effect, the opposite of taxes, it makes sense to look not just at taxes paid, but at taxes paid minus transfers received. For 2009, the most recent year available, here are taxes less transfers as a percentage of market income (income that households earned from their work and savings):

Bottom quintile: -301 percent
Second quintile: -42 percent
Middle quintile: -5 percent
Fourth quintile: 10 percent
Highest quintile: 22 percent
Top one percent: 28 percent

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. (That goes for the Welfare Queen like Warren Buffett. I wish someone had given me $38B to buy a railroad. singing ‘Brother, can you spare a dime?’)


3 posted on 09/18/2012 4:11:21 PM PDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)
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To: Paddy Irish
Flat tax my @$$! The 16th Amendment Income tax is actually supposed to be a flat tax on corporate profit (see Peter Schiff's father's book, The Great Income Tax Hoax by Irwin Schiff).

With apportionment for direct taxes and excise taxes for indirect taxes, we had the best system of taxation in the world before the abuse of the 16th amendment.

4 posted on 09/18/2012 4:11:30 PM PDT by Stepan12
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To: griswold3

We need to eliminate the taxes on manufacturing altogether. They are effectively a VAT tax and have been a disaster for manufacturing from day one.

Things are being taxed multiple times before a corporate dollar is made or a consumer touches a product.


5 posted on 09/18/2012 4:25:44 PM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: Stepan12

If only the progressives of a hundred years ago could see what they wrought, the destruction of our republic.


6 posted on 09/18/2012 4:37:03 PM PDT by Jacquerie (Exterminate rats.)
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To: Paddy Irish

Flat taxes are not regressive. Certainly not in the more popular flat rate version (same percentage of income no matter hiw much you make, which is progressive) and not even when they’re truly flat (same end dollar amount no matter how much you make, which is neutral). Many taxes are regressive, usually libs’ favorites. These include consumption taxes, especially of the “sin” variety (gas, cigarettes, soda pop), not including “luxury” taxes, various fees, tariffs, etc.


7 posted on 09/18/2012 4:44:12 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: Stepan12

We have two taxes on corporate profit in addition to the income tax. These are out VAT tax, called the “corporate tax,” and the capital gains tax, which Warren Buffet has been tricking people into thinking is the same as the income tax. Of course, there are countless little taxes that eat into profits, but those are the out in the open ones. Then there’s the death tax, which was deliberately designed to get another bite at it.


8 posted on 09/18/2012 4:50:51 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: Paddy Irish

Like the bank robber said ‘that’s where the money is’.


9 posted on 09/18/2012 5:00:01 PM PDT by ex-snook (without forgiveness there is no Christianity)
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To: cripplecreek

I’ve long maintained that the manner of taxation matters less than how much is being spent. The VAT is pernicious for being hidden, but stores print sales taxes on receipts right there for customers to see, but does it sink in? No. Back when it was as plain as day that Northern merchants and manufacturers were bleeding the agrarian South through tariffs and “internal improvements,” do you think the people rose against it? No, that took rabnle-rousing about more John Browns sicking the slaves on them.

Whatever they can’t hoodwink straight out of the public’s pocket, which is gaining on most of what there spend, they just get by borrowing or “monetizing the debt,” ie counterfeiting. Not that certain taxes like the VAT are worse than others. But debt is the thing; ask Greece.


10 posted on 09/18/2012 5:03:00 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: cripplecreek

We used to manufacture specialty ag trailers. We had to pay a Federal Excise Tax of 12%. We paid that FET on our profit margin also. Which meant that the government, our silent partner, made more money than we did.
We changed our MO. Now, we ‘remanufacture’ ag trailers. Same product, less costs.


11 posted on 09/18/2012 6:07:13 PM PDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)
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To: griswold3

That’s what those quarterly inventories are for. To figure the government’s cut.

2 full shifts 3 times a year were all about shoving everything out the door and counting what’s left. Those taxes have led to the practice of hiding truckloads of parts off site and technically in transit.

Rick Santorum was the only one I heard talk about the manufacturing taxes and I’d feel a lot better about Romney if I felt like he understood the the need to eliminate them. Cutting the taxes for the guys at the top is fine but they’ll just invest outside the country and I can’t fault them for it with the way we assault manufacturing in this country.


12 posted on 09/18/2012 6:23:54 PM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: cripplecreek
We need to eliminate the taxes on manufacturing altogether. So you want the Federal government to pick and choose what sectors of the economy to subsidize?
13 posted on 09/18/2012 8:56:29 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
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To: JerseyanExile

No let’s them at 110%.

When did everyone adopt this childish debate standard?


14 posted on 09/19/2012 4:10:44 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: JerseyanExile

That’s what you get when eggheads like obama and cripplecreek, who know nothing about economics or taxes, get a chance at running the country.


15 posted on 09/21/2012 10:32:33 PM PDT by tdscpa
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To: cripplecreek
You need an award of some kind.

That is the stupidest post I have ever read on all sites I have read since I first started exploring algore’s wonderful invention in 1995.

16 posted on 09/22/2012 12:11:55 AM PDT by tdscpa
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To: cripplecreek

When did illiterate idiots start using the internet?


17 posted on 09/22/2012 12:16:00 AM PDT by tdscpa
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