How much should we be taxed?

[Fascinita]

Originally Posted by Australian Lord

Why? Apart from fulfilling your Tall poppy syndrome needs.

You think it should be free?

[1300 Class]

Of course not. It should just be more equal. I'm not suggesting a flat tax such as the successful model used in Lithuania or Friedman's Negative Income Tax mechanism, however they could offer alternatives to the current system.

Capital Gains tax on low to medium private incomes should be stripped, if not removed. Overall, federal taxes should be reduced, with emphisis shifting to the states and local bodies to raise revenue. Its most disgusting when a government can tax the interest of the low and middle classes savings and retirement funds.

[kilo riley]

Originally Posted by Imp

California is facing a massive budget deficit. Why? Well, spending. But also, California (and the nation) rely substantially (in fact, almost exclusively) on capital gains taxes and income tax on the rich. This year, revenues are quite low because capital gains are terrible and the rich don't have consistent enough incomes outside of capital gains in order to be taxed.


That means, a government financed entirely by the rich simply cannot be maintained long term. You may think "the rich" is Wall Street jerks. It's not. In gov't terms, in Barack Obama terms, for example, it usually means pretty much anyone who owns a small business. (In Kerry's case rich was anyone making 60k, FYI).

The true, stable money is in the middle class, and all can agree that they (we) should be taxed reasonably but not excessively.

That means a reasonable tax base can be estimated by simply defining what is an appropriate middle class tax rate, applying it to the number of people that applies to, and then deciding that's the appropriate number to allocate expenses from.

Canonista says 10% is reasonable. I, died-in-the-wool Conservative, says 23.33%. (I'm an evangelical. I'm running home to momma by taking the biblical example.)

I'll run the numbers to determine what a gov't budget would look like if you're interested, but it seems to me that you take this math, determine returns, then divvy up resources from there. Seems a great way to determine what is excessive gov't spending or not.

if you combine all of California's revenue from income tax and all corporate taxes it comes to 66.3% of the budget. That includes all income tax from all taxpayers, not just the wealthy. So it's nonsense to suggest that the wealthy almost exclusively pay for the budget. The rest of the budget comes from revenue from sales taxes, property taxes ,excise taxes, vehicles taxes etc.
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSumm.../32270725.html


The tax burden in California is on the back of the middle class. Anyone making over 44,819 pays 9% in state income tax. If you make 300k a year you pay 9%. Who's more burdened by that tax? The guy that makes 50k and gives 4,500 of it to the state or the guy that makes 300k and pays 27k ?
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/edi...te_tax_Cal.asp

Now think about how many hundreds more people there are that make 50k a year rather than 300 and you'll realize how silly your argument is that the wealthy pay almost exclusively for the California state budget.

Now as far as federal income taxes which I think was your original question. If 23% was the top rate you'd have to cut a lot of spending but you also wouldn't be able to pay off any of the national debt. Because of the recklessness of the republicans the last 8 years we spent 260 Billion just paying off interest on the national debt in 2007. So knocking that top rate down to where you want it would increase the national debt for future generations requiring mandatory spending in the budget to go just paying off the national debt interest.

[SensualDistender]

Originally Posted by Imp

What do you think rates should be in those other taxes?

Well... It would take far more analysis, with information that I do not have immediate access to, to make a reasonably accurate estimate. Mostly, it would require quantifying all the wasted money from all government agencies. I can only make a guess, based on what I see. In my own town, I would estimate our property taxes could be cut by at least 40% if they stopped wasting money. My state does not have an income tax or a sales tax and we get by just fine. I think the higher up you go in government, the more waste you will find. These people make budgets exactly opposite the way you and I would. We start with a paycheck and then figure what we can afford based on that amount. The government on the other hand, decides what projects and services they want to fund, and then take the money from us to pay for it. To make things worse, agencies nearing the end of a fiscal year carrying a surplus, will find ways to spend the extra money because they are worried they won’t get the same (or more) in next year’s budget if they have funds left over. You also need to remember that some taxes are implemented solely for political reasons to discourage certain behavior or activities.

Sorry I can’t give you concrete figures but I guess the only way I could do that would be to get copies of all government budgets and spend time scrutinizing them. But I think many taxes could be eliminated entirely and the remainder could be cut substantially. Think about it... every time you deal with the city, state, or federal government, there is a fee or tax involved somewhere. They "nickel and dime us" to death! It's not hard to see that they simply do not need to tax us this much. As far as budgets go, when you have a seemingly unlimited source of income, it is easy to let the spending get out of hand.

[Canonista]

Originally Posted by Imp

So...1.4 trillion this year would be your number, including all states and local governments?

Seems kinda high...