Posted on 07/18/2008 7:31:08 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
New York tax filers reporting more than $375,000 a year in earned income may end up paying nearly 60% of their wages in taxes to the government under a Barack Obama presidency, economists who have analyzed his plan said.
The Democratic presidential candidate is proposing not only raising the federal income tax, but also adding a Social Security tax for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. For New Yorkers, that could mean that if the current Social Security rate is applied, the marginal tax rate, or rate on every extra dollar earned, could rise to 58%.
"This is a very eye-popping number," a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Alan Viard, said.
Under current law, there is a 12.4% Social Security tax on salaries up to $102,000 a year. While the Social Security tax is split equally between employers and employees, economists widely hold that employees shoulder the entire tax burden because employers simply pass along the cost of the tax in the form of lower wages.
Mr. Obama has spoken of creating a so-called doughnut hole, where those earning more than $250,000 would have to pay an additional Social Security tax; anyone earning between $102,000 and $250,000 would be exempt.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Okay, so who is it that we should be punishing?
I'm self-employed, and I don't like paying more than regular "employees" either. Your own distaste for paying more than others, however, should illustrate to you exactly the reason why taxes should not be "progressive."
“And yet the dumbo New Yorkers will vote for more taxes. Wait and see.”
The dumbo New Yorkers making under $250K which is still the vast vast vast majority. Of course some dumbos making over $250 will vote for him too.
Yet NY will vote heavily for Osama.
while the fica tax is a flat amount up to the maximum earnings amount, the benefits are progressive because social security calculates benefits based on income “bend points.” contributors with lower earnings get more back in retirement benefits.
The answer to the Socialist Security Ponzi fraud scheme is to dismantle it. Everyone should have the option of leaving the system now by taking a lump sum distribution. Everyone should have the right to not participate. Socialist Security is unconstitutional, since it takes your property (income) and gives it to someone else. Those who earn more do not receive proportionally higher retirement checks. Instead, their money subsidizes (increases) the retirement checks of those who earn less. For example, I paid in 5 times as much as a friend, but she will receive half as much as me - about $750 vs. $1,500.
No one has an “account” at SS. There is no “trust fund”. Some SS taxes are even used for purposes totally unrelated to SS.
If a corporation constructed its retirement plan in the same manner as SS, the company directors and execs would be sentenced to jail.
Everyone should contact his Congressmoron to demand a lump sum payment, and termination of his participation in this fraud. The lump sum should be calculated as all taxes paid by the employee and employers, plus interest over the years, less any retirement benefits already received.
That also means raising taxes on every single business in America that has employees making that much because businesses have to match the Social Security tax. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB...
232 years ago that sort of thing got some people really pissed off!
America has seen this before. McGovern was going to soak the “rich”, the evil Corporations and raise up the poor and give them free homes.
If Obama wins, it won’t destroy the country, Americans are too resilient for that. It will only wake a whole bunch of College educated Socialists out of their brainwashing, to the realities of the inevitable world.
Unfortuanately the people who need to see this information never will. The magic negro led MSM will never dare to report this information. And the fleecing will go on as scheduled.
Then why are you on a site like FreeRepublic? You should be over at DailyKOS or DemocratUnderground.
BTW, we are not all dunbos—just those who vote for certain demos.
GOP
What will happen is that investments in R&D and corporate infrastructures will drop by an amount that covers these loses, making American corporations less competitive.
But why are people on the bottom paying to much, when they are paying the same as everyone else. Whether you earn 20,000 or 80,000 15% is still 15%.
To the extent that the tax is onerous, I think the solution is to lower the tax equally for everyone. But, whenever a tax becomes progressive it becomes a tool of wealth redistribution. In fact, one of the ten planks to be used by communists to destroy capitalism is a progressive tax system. (Communist Manifesto).
A progressive tax system is destructive for at least two reasons: 1) it leads to class animosity and 2) it separates many voters from the cost of government.
A progressive tax system leads to class animosity because it essentially defines haves and have-nots and tells the have-nots that they are entitled to everything possessed by the haves. Additionally, it perpetuates the lie that wealth and success are merely a function of luck and not of individual choice, or alternatively that wealth is a result of the state. Under either of these theories, the government and all others are entitled to the benefit of another’s work.
Additionally, because certain classes of people are not paying the same percentage of taxes as others, they do not understand the cost of government. These lower-tax classes can safely vote for increased spending or social programs and not ever experience the cost of that program. This encourages wasteful government and porkbarrel politics.
I can understand feeling like one is getting screwed when one is already paying ridiculous amounts of federal and state income taxes and then FICA on top of that. I am finishing up school, am married, have a child, and live in New York City. I earn about 20,000 dollars a year, and need every one of those dollars to cover my costs. But, it is good that each of the dollars I give the government hurts me. If they didn’t hurt, I couldn’t understand the burden of government.
Although I would like lower taxes, the cost of increasing the progressivity of the tax system is far higher than the 7.5% FICA that I have to pay. If the system needs reform, then we need to reform the system for everyone.
how many new yorkers can speak english?
And yet, despite this and 9/11, New York is poised to hand Obama a huge margin of victory over McCain.
Who are you calling a dumbo? I’ve got an IQ of 145. Of course, I’ve never voted for a democrat.
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