Posted on 09/29/2010 4:44:29 PM PDT by Sneakyuser
Snip...
Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill tells me, "Those who have more should pay more."
But is there a point where they stop producing wealth or leave altogether?
"The rich have always cried wolf like that," Hill says.
But the wolf is here. Maryland created a special tax on rich people that was supposed to bring in $106 million. Instead, the state lost $257 million"
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
You're right. I hadn't considered similarities to slavery right away. A modern day slavery. Coming to more of us soon.
The only difference is today the government doesn’t want them to work because they just might become too independent.
Too independent. Ironic, isn't it, in our nation built on freedoms. Independent - and unwilling to keep from biting the hand that fed them. The trick will be transitioning more of those accustomed to working into a dependent, non-working, waiting for the check state of mind.
The end of all the hidden taxes on merchandise will offset the 23% (calculated the same way the Federales calculate income tax as a percentage of your earnings) sales tax, so there will be little or no increase in price.
And, with the end of corporate income tax and capital gains tax, the US will become THE place to invest and build. I suspect most of the money will stay home.
If you still think the money will run away from such a salubrious environment, we can always look at imposing excises and tariffs.
Columbia professor Marc Hill should lead the way.
Hey bud, send in 100% of your income.
How’s that going to work for you, ya doofus.
Some goofball thinktank did a study back in the 90’s.
They figured out just how much money the feds would take in if everyone was on a 100% tax rate.
Then they projected what that income would be going out for the next 10 years.
What they didn’t consider was that NO ONE would go to work in year number 2.
These idiots are educated WAY beyond their intelligence.
True as well.
It is actually a strange thing. One would think that the Federal government would want that money and power back.
Tax-free Municipal Model: Municipality issues $10,000,000 in tax-free bonds at 3%. Rich people buy them and receive $300,000/year in interest, tax-free. No payment to the Feds.
Non-tax-free Model: Municipality issues $10,000,000 in bonds at 5%. Rich people buy them and receive $500,000/year in interest, taxable. Rich people pay $200,000 of it to the Feds in income taxes (resulting in the same $300,000 they netted in the other model. Feds use the $200,000 they receive in taxes to reward the municipalities that support them. (Typical politics.)
Upside for the Fed Gov't - more control of the country. Downside for the Fed Gov't - Rich people seem to make more income and pay more taxes than under the current tax-free system.
More and more are becoming dependent on the government each and every day as the wealth is spread.
Like the 105% tariff China just placed on US poultry ? No, that just puts the government in the position of social engineering — deciding what imports should be taxed would be just as bad as letting them decide what income should be taxed, and what deductions should be allowed.
My bottom line is that the Federal Income Tax brings in revenues roughly equal to 10% of all personal income. If the government were NOT engineering the income tax code to exclude, exempt, deduct, and credit certain activities and sources of income, a simple 10% income tax would bring in the same revenue and eliminate any involvement with the IRS for 90% of the people. I’d replace the Corporate Income Tax and the FICA taxes with a 10% payroll tax paid by employers (subject to the same $110K cap) and a 5% NRST on all goods and services. These three taxes would raise $2.7T vs. the current revenues of $2.2T while preventing the government from social engineering.
I vote for cloning Mellon as Treasury Sec.
You know how subsidies work, right?
I’ve often wondered why some enterprising economics student would set up a game in which the poor would get taxed.
Imagine you set a minimum income threshold, say $15,000. Below that amount you’d be taxed at 50%. Above that amount you’d be taxed at a normal rate.
Would we cure poverty and end welfare abuse all in one stroke?
Why not implement an experiment at Columbia University?
Tax all professorial income that is over $70K at 100%.
That mini-lab of brilliant people will teach us a lot about how socialism works without putting the entire nation at risk.
The amount collected can be distributed evenly across all the TAs who do the real teaching anyway.
Leftists aren’t stupid. Taxing wealth generally leads to sudden death for them.
And try to find a municipal government that has a fund to replace streets every 10-20 years?
Bump to the top.
Do you have a link or reference for the 10% of all personal income figure? Are you using NI less corporate income?
You could go here:
http://yale1962.org/speakout/?p=41
“Laffer: I think we go the route of tax reform. I mean, there was a great article in The Wall Street Journal today, by the way, that went on tax reform, and it was really terrific. I think we go tax reform. We get a low-rate flat tax. I like the one that Jerry Brown did in 1992 when he ran against Clinton in the primary. You get rid of all federal taxes except for sin taxes and put two low-rate flat taxes, one on businesses–net sales or value added–and one on personal unadjusted gross income. No deductions, no exemptions. Just bang, that’s it. And you could match all federal revenues today with a tax rate of about 11.5%. That’s pretty amazing. We could really have this economy booming.”
But I’ve confirmed that by using the IRS website tax statistics: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08db01co.xls
Where you can see that the Net Collections (Gross minus Refunds) of Corporate Income Tax was $301B for 2008 while the Net Collections of Personal Income Taxes was $1,060B for a total Income Tax collected of $1.36T for 2008.
Total Income is tougher because the IRS doesn’t even require filing of so many types, sources and levels of income. But using the BEA.gov figures for 2008 Personal Income, I got $12.4T which is slightly less than 11%. That doesn’t allow for the economic growth that would follow eliminating corporate income tax and lowering the capital gains, dividend, and marginal income tax rates. So 10% seems likely to me.
I think you’re spot on. This word needs to spread. A 10% flat tax would explode the US growth rate.
Great idea and good analysis.
I think you’re spot on. This word needs to spread. A 10% flat tax would explode the US growth rate.
Great idea and good analysis.
PSS likes this kind of good thinking, maybe he’ll help spread the word.
But is there a point where they stop producing wealth or leave altogether?
"The rich have always cried wolf like that," Hill says.
This is the logic of the bully who beats up the kid with glasses on the way to school for his lunch money. If the kid with glasses takes a different way to school or moves to a different school, the bully considers himself victimized.
Absolutely! We should abolish Corporate and Capital Gains taxes altogether - they bring in a small share of the total Federal receipts.
There’s a reason Singapore and Hong Kong are financial powerhouses, centers of business with extremely high GDPs - they have effectively zero corporate taxes on any income earned outside of their territory (which is not hard to do, given the tiny size of those cities). Eliminate all the corporate and capital gains taxes and you’d have an economic explosion the likes of which have never been seen or even dreamed of.
PSS, I don’t know if Kellis has ever seen your graph of Republican control of Congress, but that might be worth sharing. But, you absolutely have to share your idea on permanently shrinking the debt.
Couple this idea - that you only get 10% of income anyway, with shrinking the debt would put conservatives in power for generations.
Imagine a red hot US economy and a falling national debt (& shrinking government)!
Where the deficits truly come from. Democrats. No surprise there!
The rich already pay the majority of the load. The top 25% prove 60% of all Federal revenues, via Income Tax and Social Security alone. That's not including Capital Gains, corporate taxes, or fees or duties. Just income-based taxation.
It's pretty clear - we have a spending problem, and just stopping the increases would eventually allow us to grow out of it. Pegging a flat Income Tax at 10%, and eliminating capital and corporate taxation would grow the economy even faster, thus shortening the time required to not just eliminate the deficit, but eliminate the debt.
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