An idea for tax reform: Abolish the payroll tax

Washington Examiner ^ | 12/26/2012 | Editorial

[dalereed]

You’re attacking the wrong guy, I’ve been collecting Social Security for 10 years ever since I was 65.

The baby boomers and younger are going to get screwed but they need to keep paying so I keep getting mine.

I figure in another 20 years i’ll be 95 and won’t give a damn.

All ponzi schemes work the same way, get in early and collect big get in late and get had!!

I paid both halves for most of my life and want to recover it!!!

[DustyMoment]

If Republicans and Democrats are serious about tax reform in 2013, they should throw away the tired old playbook and consider bolder ideas to fundamentally change the flawed tax code. One such idea would be to eliminate the payroll tax.

If there is anything bipartisan about the political abyss called Congress, it is their universal love of taxes and the tax code. Throw it away!?? What has this guy been smoking??

[An.American.Expatriate]

Repeal ALL income taxes and go to the consumption tax, the FAIR TAX and be rid of the failures of Keynesian economics once and for all.

The US does not have a tax problem - we have a spending problem. Changing the source of our "income" will do little or nothing to solve our reliance on Debt to cover our expenditures.

We currently spend 50% more than we earn , and we have been spending more than we earn every year for (at least) the past 30 years.

[Figment]

All ponzi schemes work the same way, get in early and collect big get in late and get had!!

I paid both halves for most of my life and want to recover it!!!

People who worked for someone else paid both halves also. They just didn’t see it being taken out of their weekly check. The Supreme Court ruled the same on SS as they did on Obamacare, it’s just a tax. It all goes into the general fund. If SS is eliminated from withholding, it will only increase income tax withholding

[slowhandluke]

the payroll tax I paid for 40 years is what funds Social Security checks to gizzers.

Nope. It was a Ponzi scheme, what you (and I) paid in over 40 years was spent on other stuff.

Now that I'm a geezer, I'd like my kids and grandkids to be free of this monstrosity. Instead, they've been saddled with the additional Obamanation of ObamaCare.

[BobL]

“In addition, because the tax is capped at $110,000, it disproportionately reduces the take-home pay of lower- and middle-class Americans.”

These are the people that need start paying some taxes. It is them getting a free-ride, or so they think, that enables them to vote for higher taxes “on the rich”, which is anyone that makes more than they do.

That’s the some same reason I’d just love to go over the cliff (although I still don’t think the Republicans have the stomach for it) - it’s time the DEADBEATS and FREELOADERS started paying their share too...and millions will, if we go over the cliff.

[entropy12]

You are both correct in that SS is a Ponzi scheme. Also correct in that there is no lock box and they have spent all the spare/excess SS taxes in general budget.

My point is that if the FICA is eliminated, they will just increase other taxes which will harm businesses—>followed by jobs. The people in lower income brackets pay no federal income tax now, and some even get credits for working. Which means all the burden will be shifted more to the most productive.

The correct solution is to re-evaluate SS benefits, such as age of retirement and some means testing. Why are people who never worked and paid ANY payroll tax getting SS benefits? Let their sponsors support them financially. Immigrants sponsor their older parents for immigrant status and then they are paid supplemental social security checks! I have a concrete example in my own family who arrived at the age of 75, lived to be 100 and was paid SSA checks for 20+ years!