If we are the 99%...

[hardcore_gamer]

...then why do we still get to pay higher taxes as we make more money? I hear this all the time when listening to some people. "The 1% should pay higher taxes". "The 1% isn't paying enough". The 1% this, the 1% that. Well ok, but then why don't these people just demand some special tax that targets ONLY the 1% and then allows everybody else to pay the same tax? I can't stand the hypocrisy of trying to rally the 99% against the 1% if these people just want to tax the 99% more anyway and not just the 1%.

I suggest a simple income tax (no tax discounts for anyone) with 2 brackets. The first for the 99% and the second one for the 1%. Simple and fair no? Surely better than having 5 million different tax brackets?

Unless you have a more fair way to deal with the 99% Vs 1% situation?

[Quasar]

[hardcore_gamer]

Quasar said:

video

So wealthier people take a bigger slice of the wealth pie? So what? This still doesn't change the fact that the anti-rich people try to sell their ideas by talking about how the rich "minority" should pay higher, only to create a large number of tax brackets which goal is to not only tax the richest portion but just most people in general if they make more than the minimum wage.

[Quasar]

Well I'm not saying I agree with tons of tax brackets, but given the hyper-exponential scale at the end of that curve, I can still see room for more than two tax brackets. Somebody making $500k a year can certainly afford a larger share of responsibility than anybody classified as middle class or lower. That was my point.

[geo]

A. Because there are more people, which will make more money.
B. The rich can move. Companies leave states if not the entire country. The poor cannot.
C. The poor are too busy surviving to make it an issue they want to fight. The rich can just hire someone to fix it for them.

[hardcore_gamer]

geo said:

A. Because there are more people, which will make more money.
B. The rich can move. Companies leave states if not the entire country. The poor cannot.
C. The poor are too busy surviving to make it an issue they want to fight. The rich can just hire someone to fix it for them.

While legit reasons if you just want to torture more money of people, they aren't legit excuses if you had already proudly boosted about how only the rich would get hit by the tax sledgehammer.

[Kontra Kommando]

In order for someone to live in a shoe, over here in the tri-state area, they pay could pay up to 7-8k in property taxes, on top of a mortgage. And if you don't want to live in a slum, you'd probably have to get a 300k loan from the bank. Not to mention the high cost of living in this area. But NJ is a terrible example, considering the extremely corrupt political machine that controls the northern half of the state. NJ is a victim of poor long term planning, and incompetent leadership as a result of nepotism. Therefore, you have uneducated street thugs getting 80k positions, because their uncle, knows a guy, who knows the congress person.

And if you want to rent around here, its pretty much the same, or even more monthly, than financing a mortgage.

I do think its outrageous that the rich don't pay an equal percentage. But at the same time, I also think its outrageous that so much money is being wasted due to corruption, in the guise of progressive causes. For example, the town I work in has a street sweeper service, accompanied by a parking official. Everyone and their mother knows that this massive machine does absolutely nothing to clean the streets, and its true purpose is to dole out parking violations, for cars in its path. Same thing with the red-light cameras; supposedly there was a huge scandal, that it was giving people tickets that were still trying to go through yellow lights.

[geo]

hardcore_gamer said:

While legit reasons if you just want to torture more money of people, they aren't legit excuses if you had already proudly boosted about how only the rich would get hit by the tax sledgehammer.

Chicago raised its tax to film a TV show or movie. Chicago needs to make ends meet...

Oprah, Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer and Batman 3 decided to not film there in Chicago anymore. Batman 3 filmed in NYC and the talk shows just stopped filming. TV shows like the Loop just canceled. Several movies opted to film elsewhere, like suddenly a Vince Vaughn movie was filmed in NYC.

Then Chicago lowered its taxes and suddenly we have all sorts of movies and TV shows again. Go figure.

The rich will move and find ways around things.

[hardcore_gamer]

geo said:

Chicago raised its tax to film a TV show or movie. Chicago needs to make ends meet...

Oprah, Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer and Batman 3 decided to not film there in Chicago anymore. Batman 3 filmed in NYC and the talk shows just stopped filming. TV shows like the Loop just canceled. Several movies opted to film elsewhere, like suddenly a Vince Vaughn movie was filmed in NYC.

Then Chicago lowered its taxes and suddenly we have all sorts of movies and TV shows again. Go figure.

The rich will move and find ways around things.

Then why try to put draconian taxes on the rich in the first place? Thus make the tax system fair and simple so that it's hard to avoid the taxes.

[Quast]

hardcore_gamer said:

Then why try to put draconian taxes on the rich in the first place? Thus make the tax system fair and simple so that it's hard to avoid the taxes.

Tax codes are a complicated mess precisely because the wealthy have used every loophole to avoid paying taxes for a very long time and legislation is passed to close them one by one.

[geo]

hardcore_gamer said:

Then why try to put draconian taxes on the rich in the first place? Thus make the tax system fair and simple so that it's hard to avoid the taxes.

I wrote another explanation, but no I think I need to back out of this one.

[Doomkid]

Having two tax brackets is simply not enough. Trying to live on minimal income in a somewhat strained job market while being taxed equally to your wealthier peers is difficult. There's a massive gap even between a $30,000 income and a $60,000 income.

With a flat tax, the poorer people are left choosing between paying their water bills or having food to eat. Thankfully it's not that thinly stretched here in AUS, I've never met a poor person who at least didn't have enough money to eat/pay bills, unless they're a frivolous spender, in which case it's kinda their own fault. Those cases seem to be relatively few and far between, though.

About 1/5th of my measly income is taxed, but I'm okay with this because flaws with public transport are dealt with almost instantly, very few places are left to turn into shitholes because public property is always kept clean/maintained, which in turn leads to a major reduction in ghettos, a reduction in crime, and so on. The environment we live in greatly effects us psychologically and so I'm okay with a high tax rate because it's keeping the city I live in safer, more functional, and frankly better to look at.

People who earn more than me also pay a higher tax percentage. This is the way it should work, as a few others have pointed out. We still have the corrupt as fuck ultra-richies, but even they rarely get away with tax evasion. The distribution of wealth in this country is so much more.. Human. Everyone gets what they need at the very, very least. Put yourself out there, apply for better jobs every day and you're likely to get one. If you can't the government gives you assistance income, which you still have to earn by actively proving you're looking for work and looking hard, making it dissimilar to welfare in the US. There's no free rides.

A flat tax looks good on paper, but in practice it creates major divides between classes, doesn't generate enough revenue to keep the cities livable and upkept, which in turn leads to more crime, more ghettos, etc.

Although, if Abbott gets his way, us lower class citizens will get rekt. He's proposing that employers will not have to give their employees as much work, meaning a massive strain on living.. He's also proposing a reduction in benefits for pregnant workes, which is just batshit. I don't want to get too deep into it but, the right wing's goal over here is to totally destory the middle class and put us down the same shitpipe the US is falling down. It's justified with jargon about "not lowering minimum wage", which doesn't mean diddly dick if we aren't legally entitled to work as many hours. The middle and lower class "peons" are the ones who keep the country afloat. When we have spare cash to support businesses, it keeps the economy stronger and keeps nearly everyone happy. It's a fucking no-brainer.

[Maes]

Ettore Petrolini said:
"Money should be taken from the poor. They don't have much of it, but there are many of them!"

[myk]

hardcore_gamer said:
...then why do we still get to pay higher taxes as we make more money? I hear this all the time when listening to some people. "The 1% should pay higher taxes". "The 1% isn't paying enough". The 1% this, the 1% that. Well ok, but then why don't these people just demand some special tax that targets ONLY the 1% and then allows everybody else to pay the same tax? I can't stand the hypocrisy of trying to rally the 99% against the 1% if these people just want to tax the 99% more anyway and not just the 1%.

Who said? Thomas Piketty wrote an interesting book about wealth inequality and taxing the rich more, which a lot of people are reading, but if you make a generalization like that and then draw your simplistic conclusions, you're just working on a "straw man". The 1% vs 99% idea does draw on some facts, but it's mainly a symbolic illustration to rally people against a growing income and capital inequality.

In any case, there are at least two things I think need be considered when thinking about higher taxes on the rich and less on the poor:

One is that the rich can more easily transfer the cost of taxes to the mass of society through the prices in their products and services because they have a lot of clout on the markets they participate in.

The other is that people making fiscal contributions are essentially financing the government. When the majority of taxation comes from the rich, what stops the Government from prioritizing them when it considers its policies? Eventually, that arguably leads to electoral and institutional laws that benefit the wealthy through subtle or overt exclusion and bias.

Not-so-rich people feel the financial burden of taxes and reject them, but then they risk handing over something that might be seen as a sacrifice but is also an instrument of power in more than one way. In this scenario, pushing for transparency and making public services work in an effective and extensive way tends to be a superior approach to shifting taxes, coupled with laws that encourage the rich to respect the poor or to support an inclusive local economy.

Kontra Kommando said:
But at the same time, I also think its outrageous that so much money is being wasted due to corruption, in the guise of progressive causes. For example, the town I work in has a street sweeper service, accompanied by a parking official. Everyone and their mother knows that this massive machine does absolutely nothing to clean the streets, and its true purpose is to dole out parking violations, for cars in its path. Same thing with the red-light cameras; supposedly there was a huge scandal, that it was giving people tickets that were still trying to go through yellow lights.

Not to say anything about those two cases in particular, which I'm not familiar with, and there are certainly ways to improve the applicability and measure of specific taxes and what they are for, yet I've noted that the the idea of their uselessness comes more often than not from those who don't benefit from them immediately or directly. As citizens we should be able to notice how taxes that benefit others benefit ourselves in the end, if we want society to ultimately work as such.

[Maes]

It'd be more honest to say that the 1%, concentrating 90% of the wealth, is a sort of "sacred cow". They cannot be touched by taxes in the same way as common mortals are.

Usually we hear that e.g. "Industrialist threatens to transfer production abroad if taxed too heavily", "If you raise taxes, I transfer all my capitals abroad and the economy will suffer etc.".

Simply put, after a certain amount of wealth, economical and political influence allows a player to change the rules in his favor. Those that are really fucked are those caught in the middle: those with high salaried incomes are unable to "cut" a similar deal with the State, and will be taxed with 40% or 60% or whatever.

Apparently, the States have already done the math. It's probably more beneficial to the economy to leave big players untouched and having them circulate money/stimulate the economy, than to tax them like they were little people. After all, Only Little People Pay Taxes (TM).

[Gez]

Recently the Air France boss told to journalists that he chatted with Qatar Airways boss about strikes. The Qatari boss told him, "it's not a problem for me because if employees go on strike, they go in jail". The message, here, was that what really hurts competitiveness is all this bunch of rights and protections that workers enjoy.


And this is true! You cannot undercut people who have less regulations to obey than you. If your factory has to be OSHA-compliant and have special filters to avoid rejecting toxic waste in the environment, that's a lot of cost for you that a competing factory in Bangladesh does not have. If you can use children workers that are paid 1/10th of the wage of an adult, that's a lot of money saved over the guy who only hires adults. There's no way around it. You can try to reclaim some competitiveness by using better trained workers who work faster, that will not be sufficient to fully compensate. You can invest in better machines to automate more steps of the production so that your workers have less to do, allowing you to use less workers, but so can they.

So what are your options? You can have an activity where high cost is part of the appeal: luxury goods. There you can say, "yes it's 1000 times more expensive than imported products, but imported products are for cheapskates and plebeians; if you buy something from my factories, you'll show the world that you are a man of wealth and taste." Or you can have an activity that is of strategic importance for your government, which basically translates to "you're part of the military-industrial complex". If your activity is neither perfumes nor jet fighters, you're out of luck.

What could be possible would be to have your government help offset the competitive advantage of the lawless third-world dictatorship by having tariffs on goods imported from there... But that's protectionism, which is evil. All the captains of industry who have outsourced their manufacture to China or Bangladesh are against protectionism. They explain it's very bad for the economy. What's good for the economy is less worker protections, less consumer protection, less environment protection, and more unemployment. Trust me, I know the world very well: I produce in China, sell in the USA, and pay my taxes in Switzerland, that's just how worldly I am!

[Maes]

Indeed. If low corporate taxes, zero state interventionism and welfare as well low wages were all that it's needed for a country to be competitive, then countries like Norway, Denmark etc. should be absolute shitholes, doomed into perpetual recession and eventually dissolution, bankruptcy and total failure, with their high taxation, high salaries, high cost of living, many petty environmental protection law and "socialist" welfare policies, while countries like Bulgaria, Bangladesh, India etc. should be on top, with their uncontrolled application of neoliberalism and deregulation, and without any red tape.

And yet, things are not exactly like that. Denmark, Norway etc. have flourishing economies and are the world's most stable states and also rank high on competitiveness indexes despite their high taxes, their "socialist" welfare programmes, etc. while countries like Bulgaria, despite looking great on paper (external debt in the low 10s, bulging economic growth, low salaries, flat taxation, low unemployment etc.) are not exactly big players on the world's economic scene, at most they are something like the Bangladesh of the Balkans, used by Greek investors to outsource production.

Bulgarians themselves are emigrating en-masse to the rest of the EU from this "neoliberalist paradise". Why is that, if they are doing so "well" by the book? No amount of hard work will ever get them to the level of even Greece and they know it, so there must be something else at play here.

[sheridan]

I don't mean this as a hand-wave really, but sometimes I get the feeling the Scandinavian model just wouldn't work if the world economy on the whole wasn't as thriving and healthy as it is. The same can be said of countries like Japan and South Korea. It doesn't matter if they have little in the way of natural resources and a local economy, they can just ride off the fortune of the rest of the free world.

Incidentally just because these countries are doing well at a glance doesn't mean their trajectory is strictly a positive one. Japan in fact was recorded with a negative rate of economic growth last year which doesn't bode too well for their future on the whole.

All that being said I just thought it was worth mentioning that I don't think it's entirely fair to draw a lot of comparisons between nations like the United States and, say, Norway, Switzerland, etc.

On a separate note: the whole wealth inequality issue in America is absolutely a real problem, but I'm doubtful that simply taxing the hell out of the 1% will solve the real problem (which isn't an attempt to call it a human issue). A lot of these multi-billionaires exist because they have entrenched monopolies on industries that really would benefit from a lot of open competition. I find it doubtful for example that giants like Comcast and Verizon (and consequently the fat cats sitting on top of them) would exist if that industry was managed the way it should be. The same is true of systems like health care, of which an oft-quoted but very relevant issue is pointless legislation to restrict healthcare providers from operating beyond state lines, among other things.

I mean it's easy to look at government as the obvious and convenient solution to "natural" problems in the economy but in general I think death by a thousand competitive cuts is a way more effective way to permanently dethrone corporate giants than to simply leave broken systems as they are and play whack-a-mole with the 1%.

[NoXion]

sheridan said:

I mean it's easy to look at government as the obvious and convenient solution to "natural" problems in the economy but in general I think death by a thousand competitive cuts is a way more effective way to permanently dethrone corporate giants than to simply leave broken systems as they are and play whack-a-mole with the 1%.

Which would be brilliant, if it weren't for the fact that the corporate giants are in the perfect position to smack down or buy out potential competitors, and they know it. Governments can do more than the markets in this respect, were it not for the fact that corporations often have governments and regulators wrapped around their little fingers as well.

The fact that the 1% don't pay their fair share of taxes is a symptom of that, along with labour and environmental regulations that give perpetrators a free pass while shitting on workers.

[fraggle]

Your posts are so confused and ignorant that it's difficult to understand what you're trying to argue for. But it seems that at the very least you're trying to argue for a flat level of income tax. This is a fantastically stupid idea - even the relatively right-wing US accepts that a graduated system of income tax is essential for a functioning society.

The effects of income inequality are pretty well documented at this stage: high income inequality leads to higher crime, reduced life expectancy, worse health, worse economic growth, etc. It's not hard to see why, if you put even the slightest amount of thought into it. Graduated income tax is the most basic first step that can be taken towards fighting income inequality, which is why every civilised western country has instituted such a system in some form or other.

Thus make the tax system fair and simple so that it's hard to avoid the taxes.

Wow, congratulations, I'm sure that nobody has ever thought of that before.

I think you have that backwards - part of the reason why tax systems tend to be so complicated is to deal with loopholes that rich people would otherwise be exploiting to avoid having to pay tax. Ultimately the tax system is a game that rich people can play better than poor people because they have the money to hire accountants who can do it for them.

My favourite example of this is that in the UK, money lost due to tax evasion dwarfs money lost due to benefits fraud. Yet it's no surprise which of these issues the right wing press chooses to concentrate on the most.

[Cupboard]

Shit, if taxing the rich at 75% of their income helped the US balance its budget and, furthermore, the graduated tax system helped the US maintain a strong spending and production force to help win WWII, I would have to think that a lot of conservative far right slogans like "anti-business" "job destroyers" "disincentivizing small business" is a bunch of shit. The graduated income tax rates are wayyyy too low on the rich. So many tax deductions are written for the sake of corporations, not average citizens. It is surprising how much of the tax code in the US is written for the sake of non-persons.

[sheridan]

NoXion said:

Which would be brilliant, if it weren't for the fact that the corporate giants are in the perfect position to smack down or buy out potential competitors, and they know it.

Except this isn't the case, because corporate mergers that result in monopolies are completely illegal and have been for like, a century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

[Sui Generis]

Maes said:

Indeed. If low corporate taxes, zero state interventionism and welfare as well low wages were all that it's needed for a country to be competitive, then countries like Norway, Denmark etc. should be absolute shitholes, doomed into perpetual recession and eventually dissolution, bankruptcy and total failure, with their high taxation, high salaries, high cost of living, many petty environmental protection law and "socialist" welfare policies, while countries like Bulgaria, Bangladesh, India etc. should be on top, with their uncontrolled application of neoliberalism and deregulation, and without any red tape.

True. But conversely, if there were nothing to free market economics then China would not have raised 600million people out of poverty between 1981 and 2008 with it's market reforms. I would agree it's bad in it's purest form, but would argue there is a spectrum and a compromise to be made.

Incidentally: India? "uncontrolled application of neoliberalism and deregulation"? I think this must be a contradiction in terms.

Sheridan said:

On a separate note: the whole wealth inequality issue in America is absolutely a real problem, but I'm doubtful that simply taxing the hell out of the 1% will solve the real problem (which isn't an attempt to call it a human issue). A lot of these multi-billionaires exist because they have entrenched monopolies on industries that really would benefit from a lot of open competition. I find it doubtful for example that giants like Comcast and Verizon (and consequently the fat cats sitting on top of them) would exist if that industry was managed the way it should be.

Reduced or non-existent competition does not automatically equal outsize profit. Apple is one of the world’s largest and successful companies (if not the largest) with a profit margin of something like 24%, but I don’t think anyone could call it a monopolist. Meanwhile Comcast and Verizon have profit margins of around 10 and 7.5%. I do still agree with the basic anti-monopoly sentiment though.

Fraggle said:

But it seems that at the very least you're trying to argue for a flat level of income tax. This is a fantastically stupid idea - even the relatively right-wing US accepts that a graduated system of income tax is essential for a functioning society.

Actually, it is possible to make a flat tax somewhat progressive if a big personal exemption is provided. Not taxing the first few thousand $/€/£ makes little difference to the rich, but is disproportionately beneficial to the poor.

Fraggle said:

...part of the reason why tax systems tend to be so complicated is to deal with loopholes that rich people would otherwise be exploiting to avoid having to pay tax. Ultimately the tax system is a game that rich people can play better than poor people because they have the money to hire accountants who can do it for them.

I may possibly have misunderstood your point, but I’d say taxes become more complicated due to the inclusion of loopholes in the first place. Instead of it simply being “if you earn X you pay Y”, there are generally numerous special exemptions or different rates that may apply in different scenarios. You pay Y, unless you perhaps work in a certain favoured industry, or if you or your partner doesn’t work it changes again, or if you declare yourself a subcontractor and call your salary dividends and so on. These kinds of things are abused by the rich to legally reduce their tax liability, but they were probably very popular at election time with the (probably less rich) target constituency. I’d argue that tax complexity is more the cause of tax avoidance/evasion, and less so much the symptom and it would be preferable to try and reduce it through simplification rather than further complexity.

[myk]

Maes said:
And yet, things are not exactly like that. Denmark, Norway etc. have flourishing economies and are the world's most stable states and also rank high on competitiveness indexes despite their high taxes, their "socialist" welfare programmes, etc. while countries like Bulgaria, despite looking great on paper (external debt in the low 10s, bulging economic growth, low salaries, flat taxation, low unemployment etc.) are not exactly big players on the world's economic scene, at most they are something like the Bangladesh of the Balkans, used by Greek investors to outsource production.

Bulgarians themselves are emigrating en-masse to the rest of the EU from this "neoliberalist paradise". Why is that, if they are doing so "well" by the book? No amount of hard work will ever get them to the level of even Greece and they know it, so there must be something else at play here.

What's competitive in countries like Bulgaria is some of the companies operating in them, from an global perspective and to their own benefit as multi-investment corporations. As countries, they're the equivalent of dogs weakened by multiple parasite infections.

sheridan said:
I don't mean this as a hand-wave really, but sometimes I get the feeling the Scandinavian model just wouldn't work if the world economy on the whole wasn't as thriving and healthy as it is.

It is a mess, with stagnation, institutional damage to democracy and growing levels of military or terrorist violence. If anything, the Nordic countries play an important role in stabilizing and strengthening Europe, since the key motor of an economy is the participation and incentive of its individuals, which thrive best when they're fulfilling good living standards through their access to housing, work, health care, education, political participation, peace, and recreation. The things that make people happy and tend to make them respect and value each other in a collective way.

It doesn't matter if they have little in the way of natural resources and a local economy, they can just ride off the fortune of the rest of the free world.

Again, these have pretty good levels of economic autonomy through half-decent care of their local populations.

I find it doubtful for example that giants like Comcast and Verizon (and consequently the fat cats sitting on top of them) would exist if that industry was managed the way it should be.

You mean if "the market" were pure like a virgin it would create idyllic equal opportunity and competition. Also, if we lived in heaven, we'd play with angels with sapphire-blue eyes, fluffy white wings and golden hair.

I mean it's easy to look at government as the obvious and convenient solution to "natural" problems in the economy but in general I think death by a thousand competitive cuts is a way more effective way to permanently dethrone corporate giants than to simply leave broken systems as they are and play whack-a-mole with the 1%.

The problems in economies are hardly limited to the size of dominant corporations. Again, let's forget that idyllic self-maintaining market. To avoid the confusion of considering the economy as a means onto itself based on a "model", an ideological net of popular delusion to serve the economic structure for a political status quo benefiting certain dominant elites, you'll have to see it as a means to face social issues. It's a messy political instrument for the people, and not just a separate national finely-tuned "motor" vaguely related to them that needs to be tended according to certain established and dehumanized standards based on nominal targets for indicators like growth, inflation or fiscal balance.