Posted on 10/18/2008 7:22:26 AM PDT by babygene
The fallacy of taxing only the rich
As the U.S. tax laws today stand, and their only going to get worse with the "Spread the wealth around" polices of a future Obama presidency where the super achiever in this country pay most of the income tax, is that the wealthy people can opt out.
That's right. People who have worked hard and saved and have been winning life's lottery so to speak, really don' t NEED to work or pay income taxes.
I say that based on my personal experience; Although I had never came close to the $250K trigger point in my career, at 55 I decided to get out of the rat race...
Almost 8 years later I am doing very, well thank you... I do still pay some taxes on my monthly 401K draws and my Social Security, but it's a pittance. I don't have two new cars every year, but my over-sized high value house is paid for and I get medical from my retirement, and my income is still above average.
Just as "white flight" decimated many of our cities (been there and done that too), "rich flight" can happen as well and most likely will. This socialist idea of spreading the wealth is "Crazy Talk". It didn't work for the former Soviet Union, nor is it working for are high-tax states or urban areas. It has never worked where ever it has been tried.
Many people in that top 5%, the people who create wealth and employ others, don't really NEED to work. And many of them will make the same decision I did almost 8 years ago if their wealth is "spread around" any more than it is today.
If you ask anyone that profess’s taxing the rich the following.
1. Do you work?
2. Does the government take out taxes?
Of course they answer yes. You then shake thwir hands and congradulate them for being rich and say that’s the dirty little secret, Democrats think anyone with a job is rich.
“are high tax states” = “our high tax states.”
How many people do you know that work for a poor person?
It’s pretty obvious an increase of the top rate to 39% from 36% will be a disincentive for people to make money. It’s a proven fact that increasing taxes like that discourage people from trying to make more. Why would I want to make $300,000 if that last $50,000 will be subjected to a 39% tax? That’s almost $20k of that last $50 right in the hole. What’s the point? It’s better to have nothing than $30,500.
Obama (and the rest of the well-known Commies) believe in penalizing the producers, and they “tell” the non-producers that they are going to benefit from this typically socialist move. What you really do is DE-MOTIVATE the producers, penalizing them for being successful, so that they QUIT PRODUCING and providing jobs.
Hey Obama, you stupid thug communist, see the problem with your “buying the Presidency” scheme???
The truth is that the poor are lazy. They need to be induced to work at some income producing job that is taxable.
When they are productive and taxed, they become Americans.
More likely, many "rich" and successful, small operations will start to fudge reported income, as was the case prior to the JFK tax cuts for the "rich." The end result? Dwindling tax revenues and consternation in Washington as the legislature tries to sugarcoat the new and necessary taxes for ALL taxpayers.
If the tax laws were to actually tax the rich, then we'd have wealth taxes, and people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Jerry Sinefeld would get slammed.
No, what we have is a tax on productivity. The most productive people in our society are the ones facing the highest tax burden.
There are some concessions, both to the rich, and through realizing that if the tax burden becomes to onerous, the rich will, as you so rightly state, move their money elsewhere. This is how Warren Buffet gets away with "complaining" that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Because the majority of his income is either sheltered or comes through investments, which are (currently) taxed at a lower rate than income.
But what happens to investments when the capital gains tax rate, as well as interest and dividend rates go up? People move their investments elsewhere. And that could well mean out of the country. And if those investment dollars move out of the country, what happens to the economy?
Mark
Obama plans to take money from the producers in society and give it to the non-producers, all of whom vote democrat.
And this is why, the Socialism spilled out of the snake-charmer’s mouth........
I’M WITH JOE! This theme needs to go big very fast. I’M WITH JOE!
Freepers need to spread the word in every place there is a MAC or BO raly.
Purchase plungers and make signs in this theme to take to the rallies.
We are all plumbers now that need to unclog the system from impending over-taxation (Socialism) and the legalized ‘theft’ of our hard earned income.
Call to MAC/Palin campaigns and organize people to go with you.
If you are going to bring a plunger, remember that you can’t bring the stick part into a rally. So if you are staying outside a BO rally, that’s fine. If you are headed into the rally, you need to replace the stick with rolled corrogated paper carried separately until you’re in the rally.
This theme needs to be the universal cry against Socialism and carries the implicit message of unclogging the “waste’ from the system.
A dozen guys with plungers just freeped a stinkin’ BO rally in VA!
Support Joe, the first average Joe to stand up to the tyranny of neo-Marxism!
Plus we can shout his middle name, “JOE” without the fear of taking a lead pipe to the knees! Try and escape the wrath of the Left if you are bold enough to utter.......barack HUSSEIN obama.
I had the same discussion with a person I knew, years ago. He liked the democratic party and I like the republicans. He mentioned one time that “democrats were on the side of the working people and republicans were on the side of big companies”. I said “Really? You and I work for very large companies. Without them, you and I wouldn’t have a job. Is that what you want?” We never talked politics again.....he was my father and the hatefulness of politics wasn’t worth loosing that friendship and love.
The “FAIR TAX” would fix all this ‘class warefare’ crap in my opninion. Everyone would contribute.
A nation is doomed that allows voters to vote themselves money.
Reparations by any other name is still reparations.
I'm trying to remember what state it was, but there was a state that got greedy when it came to taxing casinos. They decided that they were going to raise the tax rates by a substantial margin. Nearly 30% IIRC. Well, the casinos ran the numbers, and realized that they could continue to operate in the state, however, they needed to substantially cut back on their hours of operations in order to keep their business profit margins up. So they went from operating 24 hours a day to 12 or 14 hours business days. Their take went down, so although their profit margins were down somewhat, they were still profitable. But the state actually got less money, since the 30% increase in tax rate didn't cover the lost revenues from shorter hours. Plus, the casinos in the state wound up laying off a lot of workers (I believe about 1/3 of their staff), since the shorter hours didn't require the number of employees.
In the end, raising the taxes on the casino put a bunch of people out of work (and on state funded unemployment), and reduced state revenues. But everybody felt better because the "rich casinos" were finally paying their fair share.
Mark
Obama wants us to do just that....we work, they get the paycheck.
Those of us who are “rich” don’t need to shop, either
Frankly, my family of 4 having been bypassed for the last “child credits” and “stimulus check” for being “too rich”- I decided to NOT SHOP
The marxists democrats spout their mantra about growing the economhy “from the bottom up”. Well then.
I will create as little wealth as possible
for them to tax, ony what I need for my fmaily.
As a blue state captive, I will be helpless as my political non-representatives eagerly concur with Obama Reid and Pelosi in bankrupting our treasury to send checks to “the bottom” of the economy.
I will watch the results as the democrats let “the bottom” spend the democrats into prosperity for the next election.
I will watch. I will reduce my debt while taking on no new debt. I will take no capital gains, my assets will sit fallow, wither if they may.
In these times, reducing debt may be a better way to build and conserve wealth enough to survive, than creating pools of taxable, seizable, deflated value savings or investment.
The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $64,702) earned 68.2 percent of the nation’s income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (86.3 percent).
The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $388,806) earned approximately 22.1 percent of the nation’s income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.9 percent of all federal income taxes.
That means the top 1 percent of tax returns paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95 percent of tax returns.
from taxfoundation.org
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