What’s a “Fair Share” for Upper-Income Taxpayers?

Townhall.com ^ | January 3, 2015 | Daniel J. Mitchell

[Kaslin]

Barack Obama and the rest of the class-warfare crowd act as if “tax the rich” is an appropriate answer to every question about fiscal policy.

I’m not joking. Here are some of the President’s main tax hikes that have been enacted or proposed.

[loveliberty2]

Adams Smith, along with the wise Founders of America, seemed to be quite clear that individual liberty and limited government power were and are the foundation stones of opportunity, creativity, prosperity, and wealth creation.

Every step away from the American Constitution's principles and protections for individual liberty and its limits on coercive power has served to reduce wealth creation and to increase poverty.

Let there be no mistake: Democrats never waged a "war on poverty"!

There was a war on "the People's" Constitutional limits on their elected representatives' use of coercive power.

Growing a voter base in order to retain power ceded to them by kind-hearted American citizens who could not distinguish between the merits of private charity and the dangers of coercive collective power has brought us to today's debt, deficits and endangered liberty for all citizens.

Perhaps a reading of Congressman Davy Crockett's (TN) experience might be a revealing exercise for those who don't see the dangers of turning over our individual responsibilities to those who promise to "help us."

The current Democrat appeal for "fair share" and against "inequality of income" is simply "slavery" by another name. Government "masters" buy votes in exchange for retaining their "master redistributionist" status, while their "voters" yield up freedom for themselves and future generations.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis

Hear Samuel Adams:

"Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams

And:

“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.” - Samuel Adams

[M Kehoe]

"Fair Share" of income tax??? There is no fair share, because it's not fair to anybody.

Eliminate the 16th amendment, and institute a federal sales tax (@7%), then you get that so called, "fair."

Oh, and as a byproduct, watch the U.S. economy REALLY boom.

5.56mm

[i_robot73]

I also fail to note where the 16th A. superseded any other Article (Takings clause), let alone expounded their authority to pay for anything aside from border control, Navy, etc.

As another had posted, if 100% taxation on labor is slavery, how does incremental ism not smacked vs. the 13th?

Yes, I know, Liberal logic never makes any sense...

[C210N]

Well, apparently 75% for millionaires don't work.

The eye-catching and eye-watering 75% payroll tax rate in France was quietly killed off by the government Thursday after failing to raise significant revenue. The tax was also accused of driving high earners away from France.

[neocon1984]

We need to get rid of the tax code and 99% of deductions. Deductions are how Congress gets paid and elected. They are the essence of political corruption.

How about a tax form that is completed on a post card? We can argue the flat tax rate later.

[Always A Marine]

....same as in Russia...flat 13%....fill in a postcard size form and mail it in with a check for the 13%

Russia instituted the 13% flat tax in 2001 - fourteen years ago. Our top rate is 39%. Who are the Marxists now?

[PubliusMM]

Taxing income is a BS notion from the start. Taxation should be consumption based, and the FairTax model makes the most sense, without that silly front-end, low-income subsidy piece.
There’s no good reason to tax wage earners differently than wage payers. As a wage earner, you don’t have the ability to offset your income by the cost you incur to generate that income, as do businesses (concepts of gross and net profit, etc.).
If you work illegally (under the counter payments, for example) you are just gaming an unjust system.
Moving to a consumption based taxation model is more efficient (no IRS bureaucracy needed), too.

[raybbr]

The same as the the EITC crowd. About a -10%.

[USCG SimTech]

Federal budget amount divided by 320M + every business. Your bill is in the mail. No exceptions, exemptions, class warfare. Income tax amendment is repealed. Families pay up for those that can’t. Families will “inspire” their other members to get a job and go to work. Every business gets the same one bill as every individual. The harder you work, the more money you have is the reward for working hard not penalized by taking more of your income.

[Taxman]

If the various governments in the USA would mind their own business, and adhere to the Spirit and Letter of the US Constitution, the USA would probably prosper very nicely on an overall (local, county, state and federal) 10% to 20% retail sales (consumption) tax.

Of course, that would mean that the local, county, state and federal troughs would necessarily have to get much smaller.

THAT, of course, means that there would be less room for the local, county, state and federal pigs to feed at said troughs.

THERE TOO MANY PIGS AT THE TROUGH!

How does one shrink the number of pigs feeding at the trough?

There is the problem, my fellow FReepers!

[minnesota_bound]

Here is an article from Minneapolis, Minnesota about property tax increases. They are wanting 14% plus increases.

Read the comments. If you vote for the democrats you will get tax increases.

Mpls. City Hall faced tempest over tax increase
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/287393401.html

[wintertime]

The problem is that it requires an army of IRS workers to process this 10% or more. And....It still requires that businesses pay for the accounting needed to collect that 10% ( or more).

So???.....How many pennies ( the government and private individuals) does it cost to collect $1 of tax? The cost just to collect the tax is an ***ENORMOUS** drain on our economy and the burden and complexity ( even if it is a flat tax) discourages the formation of many small businesses.

There are two better solutions:

1) The 50 State Tax.
The feds take the budget and send a bill to each state. The size of the bill is based on the last census ( including all illegals). Once a year the federal government gets 50 checks (one from each state) to cash in.

With 50 states experimenting on ways to collect the tax, eventually the fairest, least intrusive,least costly to collect, most business friendly, and compassionate methods would emerge.

2) The Fair Tax.

[wintertime]

This would discourage the formation of many new small businesses. That tax bill would be a very tall hurdle to jump.

Also....your plan still requires the existence of the IRS.

Please read my post #52 for two other solutions that would completely eliminate that IRS.

[GeronL]

bump?

[wintertime]

Please read my post #52.

Is there any reason why the federal government shouldn’t simply send out 50 tax bills ( one to each state)?

[GeronL]

because the states are not owned by the feds and the Articles of Confederation are no longer in force.

[Ted Grant]

My problem with the FAIR tax is that it is in lieu of the income tax, but retaxes post tax savings when you buy something.

[skinkinthegrass]

There is the problem,
my fellow FReepers!Let the Federal Pigs starve, Rid the Fed. Gov't. of *Unnecessary duties.....
Impose a 15% Federal Sales-Tax; abolish the IR$, eliminate the odious Income Tax,
repeal the 16th & 17th Fed. Adm't. Limit Fed. GDP to the Sales-Tax Rate.
LIMIT All Legislation (to max. of 15 Legal page size) Bills. All Federal Regulations /
Guidelines SHALL BE read (w/10 days) on the floor and SHALL ORIGINATE
from the Floor of the Congress. Executive Orders, SHALL BE Debated and VOTED upon in 5 Days.

*Unnecessary duties: Any Federal Functions that a State can manage w/o Federal help,
let it do so. Save State/Defense/Coast Guard/Immigration Duties and keep very
Basic Guidelines.

[wintertime]

So?....A 50 State tax plan would require a constitutional amendment?

Would a Fair Tax also require an amendment?

[griswold3]

Eggsactly!
Yet even with those effective tax rates, the Federal Government collected 15% of GDP. (Hauser’s Law)