Posted on 05/18/2016 6:51:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
Two-thirds of Americans do not have any taxable income. The most recent IRS data shows that Americans earning over $100,000 per year pay roughly 80% of all taxes in America. This means that roughly seven percent of our nation pays the overwhelming majority of everyone else's government expenses.
I'm a big fan of the idea of a nationwide flat tax. But here's the problem: We already have a flat tax and an income tax. Almost every item we buy has a federal tax somehow levied on it.
When you pay your cell phone bill you pay a universal access fee which goes for programs such as the Obama-phone which are wrought with fraud. Your cable bill, home telephone bill, automobile, gas, utilities, alcohol and many other products and services have federal and state taxes baked in the cost or on the bill.
Most Republicans and Democrats loathe the discussion of abolishing the IRS because of its likely impact on many of their pet projects and donors. They also realize that each of them are complicit in scamming you. Many argue the federal income tax, compared to historic levels, is low. But, when the top income tax bracket was as high as 90 percent, we didn't have the ‘scam’ taxes (re: flat consumption tax) outlined above.
With numbers as staggering as the foregoing, there's no wonder why our country is becoming lazy, complacent and apathetic. When I read this data, my first thought was “why am I working so hard to give half of it to the government and provide many others with a free ride?”
Let's face it! I still have a real estate license so I can sell three or four homes per year, flip a house or two and live off my rental income for effective tax rate of twenty percent or so. That, I can tolerate. But, why should I work hard, take time away from my family and remain in a constant state of stress only to have the long arm of the federal government strip away half or more of what I earn to fund entitlements, fraud and waste?
We all pay Medicare and Social Security, but there's even a conversation about limiting that to some sort of a means test so the system doesn’t go bankrupt. So, again, we get to pay into a system but never receive benefits commensurate to our input, because we are above average in success?
We are clearly in a nation that penalizes success at almost every level and encourages failure at every other level. This sort of inequity is the main catalyst causing greed and fear top penetrate and drive our culture. If someone breaks into your house to rob you, your immediate reaction is fear followed by anger. Greed is typically justified by anger. What this federal government is doing to successful people is breaking into their homes and robbing them - except it’s fully legal.
In my original point, I stated that the government has already instituted a flat tax on everyone in almost everything we buy and every service we receive. If the income tax was abolished in favor of a flat tax, we would have to also come to terms with the fact that our government is being funded significantly by these hidden fees. In other words, at our current rate of spending our new-found revenue would be unsustainable unless the flat tax was so high it became unattractive. If we truly realized just how much we pay the government each year, it would create a revolt.
Republicans and Democrats in Washington fail to understand that when business leaders and owners are burdened with most of the costs they are no longer interested in sharing prosperity; they become interested only in preserving it. This is precisely why the richest one-percent continue to get more wealthy while the bottom 20% remain stuck in poverty. They adapt, even cheat to neutralize the burden. I’m not justifying it; just explaining it.
Further, this pushes financially successful people into the quandary of either being successful at all costs or succumbing to the pressures to be average. What this means is that it's very difficult to remain successful, philanthropic and Christian all at the same time in a nation that punishes success as a crime.
The result? We are becoming a morally bankrupt country where it's every man for himself and everyone against the government. It's unhealthy, unsustainable and will lead to our ultimate demise.
If we want our children to inherit the incredible country we inherited, it's time to turn off the faucet of free stuff; we must start operating within our means or we will fail. Eliminate the income tax, remove all of the hidden ‘scam-taxes’ charged by the government and institute a flat tax that funds our security, military and basic government operations. There should be no long-term entitlements for anyone who is not mentally or physically disabled. In regards to unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps and similar programs there should be a lifetime benefit maximum. Once you reach it, it’s over.
Yes, it may increase crime. We may lose a generation or two in the process. This is not about lifting the burden off the successful people. It’s about creating consequences for being below average, instead of a lifetime safety-net for failure.
Last I checked, home phone bills still included a tax originally placed to pay the bills for WWI.
People are looking for what ought to be sought as the grace of God, from a secular, godless government that can only be a kind of Robin Hood. God has no problem with “free” when the giving is voluntary, and His own giving in this land has been immense — but know-it-all, self-important regulators have tried to fence it all in and choke off the access.
Your phone bill used to have a Federal tax levied to pay for the Spanish-American War. I think they only got rid of it relatively recently.
‘when the top income tax bracket was as high as 90 percent’,
Why oh why do we keep this nonsense up. At Ben and Jerry were able to explain that the total earned income was not subject to the top tax bracket.
Still the US Fed only collected less than 20% of GDP in taxes even at that rate. (Hauser’s law) Now it’s 26.9% and it’s still not punishment enough.
Unsustainable...
It would be interesting to learn what percentage of that 7% are elected criminals and so called public servant bureaucrats both appointed and life tenants...
My guess would be in the high double digits... at all levels of government.
Paging Donald Trump... paging Donald Trump...
Red courtesy telephone, please...
“Two-thirds of Americans do not have any taxable income. The most recent IRS data shows that Americans earning over $100,000 per year pay roughly 80% of all taxes in America. This means that roughly seven percent of our nation pays the overwhelming majority of everyone else’s government expenses.”
With the Grace of God, hard work, and creating/maintaining the skills needed by those, who paid our salaries.
My wife and I, in our late 70’s, have been and are still part of that 7% thanks to our 401k/IRA investments and money management skills. Also, we spent our money wisely and not wasting it. Our adult children, many of our nieces, and nephews are in that 7%, and they are doing the same money management and investments their parents and we did.
Praeto’s Principle re 20% of the people providing/producing 80% of the results, thanks to PC ism and our harsh taxes has reduced, with the real providers from 20% in America to 7% of the providers/workers.
Many of our younger relatives in their late 40’s to early 50’s are considering doing what many of their parents and I did.
They may be dropping out of the grind in their late 50’s to early 60’s. Then, they will do consulting or part time work. This is due to their tax burdens and job demands to produce to pay for the PC drones not producing where they work.
The worst part: the government is taking in more revenue than it ever has in history, and still, in a couple more years deficits will be back up to a trillion dollars a year.
I am embarrassed to ask, having visited Free Republic regularly since August of 1998, and having suffered through several versions of site software.
How do I create a link to this Freeper thread post directly? Thanks in advance.
In the meantime, here is a link to the original article, which may or may not be "permanent."
If you are late seventies you were earning income BEFORE the rampant expansion of hidden scam taxes. Thus you had money left over to save and spend wisely. Young people today are not as much to blame as everyone seems to think. Their money is taxed away before they ever have a chance to even have something to save.
One of the best ways to increase your income now is to learn to do things for yourself rather than paying others. I recently repaired the power window mechanism on the driver side door of my pickup truck and replaced pins and bushings in the hinges on that door. My total parts cost was less than fifty dollars. Had I taken it to a body shop it would have cost hundreds and that would have been paid with after tax income so the real cost is considerably higher. I do my own plumbing, electrical, carpentry, landscaping etc. I own a lot of expensive tools but they are cheap compared to the cost of paying someone with after tax dollars knowing that the people who receive your hard earned money must charge you more because they have to pay taxes on what you pay them. Anyone who has to hire someone for every repair or building a simple deck etc. needs to have a very large income.
I’m in my early seventies and when my wife and I eat a meal out the sales tax we pay is MORE than the entire cost of the meal PLUS sales tax would have been fifty years ago. A family could have lived very well in 1965 on the tax that my wife and I pay now. Sales tax in this state has more than doubled since I became an adult, the state income tax is seven percent with many people who pay NO federal income tax paying that rate on much of their income. This is in a so-called “low tax” state and I have not even mentioned the “scam” taxes which are unconscionable. It is long past time for a tax revolt, taxation without representation is far more of a burden now than when that was the battle cry of the revolution. Now we have to pay the so-called representatives but they only represent their own interests.
“One of the best ways to increase your income now is to learn to do things for yourself rather than paying others.”
I wished that I had taken a basic electrical course and auto mechanics course after I retired.
I stay away from complicated repairs in those two areas.
In other areas, I have developed some good Rube Goldberg techniques that work and save money.
The first year of retirement, I didn’t work, and did a lot of household projects. My youngest son and I painted our 2700 square foot house for the cost of the paint and an pro electric paint machine. That saved thousands of $’s, and my son learned some excellent skills and kept me off the ladders. I paid him double minimum wages.
When, we first moved into our current house, we needed several hundred feet of French Drains. Both sons and I dug up about 2K’ of ground, laid the sand, gravel and drainage pipes and saved thousands. I paid them adult minimum wage, saved thousands of $’s, and decades later the system still works great.
I do all the maintenance and add on with our kayaks and fishing boats and trailers.
One of my BIL’s is great with auto repair, and he trades his skills with friends/neighbors/relatives for skills he doesn’t have or jobs, he doesn’t want to do.
Our tax rates under LBJ and Carter were on the high side.
We live in Californicator land where hidden scam taxes were invented and new ones come up every day or get voted on by the idiots. Those taxes now equal our property taxes and come on the same billing twice a year. Our state income tax is high. Our state income taxes and license fees for so many things are very costly.
Every younger and not so young person, who has troubles saving and ask for advice, refuse to give up their Daily Starbuck Habit and their IPhone with very high monthly rates. They sneer at our Android phones and Tracfone low rates. They often refuse to shop at Walmart and or Costco.
Then they say they don’t have money left to save or donate to Free Republic and their church if they go.
Well I’m sure there is a little of that but I don’t think young people are going to get ahead by saving Starbucks money. And where do they save that money? In a savings account paying .0001%? In the stock market where even the most informed investor could easily lose 30 percent with just one wrong move? Yes they have iPhones but it’s the service that costs and that does not change with an android. If you are 70, in your youth society had land lines and the bill didn’t have seven taxes added on every month. 3 years of my property taxes would just about buy my parents first house. The vehicles to accumulate wealth have been almost totally closed down. We have been taxed into slavery.
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