The Democrat Thread

[StrangeSox]

So the other taxes don't count, just because of their classification. Gotcha.

The top 10% are paying 45% of taxes. 47% pay nothing at all. The system is not progressive. That makes absolute sense to me.

 

lol

[southsider2k5]

lol

 

I just had someone explain to me that apparently people don't pay taxes because they have zero income.

[StrangeSox]

Of course this thread would have about five posts in it if that weren't the case.

 

Zing!

 

But do you get why paying a higher share of total taxes says nothing directly about how progressive the system is?

[Soxbadger]

So the other taxes don't count, just because of their classification. Gotcha.

 

They do count. The article you sited, does not include them, thus the article does not give the full picture of tax burden.

 

I have no idea the total tax burden, never claimed to. I merely stated (correctly) that the article you quoted was misleading, and that the real article (4 years old) explicitly stated that there were many taxes not counted.

 

/shrugs

 

No idea what youre arguing, I quoted the original tax foundation article.

 

Of course, these measures do not include the litany of other taxes households pay in each country, such as Value Added Taxes, corporate income taxes and excise taxes, but they do give a good indication that our system places a heavier tax burden on high-income households than other industrialized countries.

 

Its not my fault that the article you decided to bring to the table purposefully omitted this.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

So 47% of filers have no income?

 

When compared to the income of the top .1%, it's more or less a rounding error.

[StrangeSox]

I just had someone explain to me that apparently people don't pay taxes because they have zero income.

 

Well I'm glad you admit how dishonest and silly your first post was. Arbitrarily excluding certain tax categories (in your case, every single tax in the country but one) isn't the way to make a good argument.

[CrimsonWeltall]

So 47% of filers have no income?

 

Who said that? I was just showing you that a system where rich people pay a huge percentage of the taxes isn't necessarily progressive at all, much less strongly progressive.

[Soxbadger]

Of course this thread would have about five posts in it if that weren't the case.

 

Im not being dishonest, I have no horse in this race.

 

I read your article. It seemed like something I read 4 years ago, but was lacking pertinent information. I then went and got the source material, and found out what it was lacking. I then commented that it was lacking X,Y and Z, therefore it does not give the full picture.

 

For all I know the full picture the high income earners have a larger burden, but I dont know because they didnt actually do the math. Im not going to sit and guess like they are either.

 

they do give a good indication

 

IE Were guessing based on a trend, maybe we are right, maybe we are wrong.

 

Not exactly the type of science Ill hang my hat on.

[southsider2k5]

Zing!

 

But do you get why paying a higher share of total taxes says nothing directly about how progressive the system is?

 

The rich pay higher total shares, higher individual shares, higher percentages of income, and pretty much any other statistic you want to throw out there.

 

As of 2009, the poorest 50% pay 1.85% effective income tax rate. The top 10% pay over 10 times that percentage of their income in taxes. In what world is having over a 1000% higher rate of income taxes paid not progressive?

[StrangeSox]

And taxes that the US taxpayer pays too. Those aren't the only two taxes that rich people pay.

 

but, if you'd bother to read the P-S paper (more lib propaganda?!) or any of the other studies on the total tax system in the US, you'd see that, outside of FIT, the system is damn near flat if not actually regressive depending on the state your reside in.

[southsider2k5]

Who said that? I was just showing you that a system where rich people pay a huge percentage of the taxes isn't necessarily progressive at all, much less strongly progressive.

 

By making up a scenario that doesn't exist in reality. Great. That is superhelpful

[southsider2k5]

Well I'm glad you admit how dishonest and silly your first post was. Arbitrarily excluding certain tax categories (in your case, every single tax in the country but one) isn't the way to make a good argument.

 

I wish for once you could admit how dishonest any of the BS you post is.

[Jenksismyhero]

He is explicitly referring to his own employees, while you claimed he was not. He is telling them that, while they may work hard, he works much, much, much harder, ever toiling away at the business. They have weekends and happy hour and 8-4 jobs, but not he! He is always selflessly working, never taking time off, not even to plan and visit his 90,000 square foot home or use his yacht. Think of the yacht! It sits alone, empty, unused, bobbing in waves like a forgotten bottle tossed to the sea.

 

 

 

 

I know people who have started businesses, and I've seen the tail-end of people who worked literally for days straight without sleep for years in order to succeed.

 

But we're not talking about someone struggling to start a business here, someone begging friends, relatives and banks for a small loan to get his company going. We're talking about a man who started a company decades ago and has made hundreds of millions of dollars off of it. A man who could live comfortably and extravagantly for the rest of his life without a single financial worry for him or the next several generations of his family.

 

The wealthy are not immoral, greedy, selfish bastards cruising on easy street. The middle class are not immoral, greedy, selfish bastards cruising on easy street. The working poor are not immoral, greedy, selfish bastards cruising on easy street. They are all people like you and me; some are immoral, lazy, selfish, greedy, others are moral, hard-working, selfless and caring, and there is no strong correlation between the categories. I don't assume that those above me have some monumentally more difficult job, nor do I assume those below me have it easy. Do I think Zuckerberg has some cushy, easy job? No, I'm sure he works hard. But he also now has many millions of his own to fall back on if he fails. Do you think his job is sufficiently more stressful than the waitress working her second shift worried if she'll make enough in tips to cover the rent check due at the end of the week because her employer only has to pay her $2.15 an hour?

 

[/b]If Paris Hilton was the owner of your lawfirm and sent that email, would you be so sympathetic with the concerns expressed? About how hard she's had to work, about how unfair it would be to take anything more from her for the lazy parasites, and that, if they do, she'll fire you all and run off to the tropics?

 

This is precisely the problem with your take on this whole thing. This guy is not the equivalent of Paris Hilton. He was not just given his earnings. He worked for it - twice. I can see that and appreciate that. You apparently cannot. Yes, his "struggle" of having to lead that company is not the same as the struggle of a waitress working a second shift. But i'm not completely discounting the work involved in either case. You are. You seem to think he's just sitting on his yacht playing golf while making business decisions and raking in the money. That might be what he's done the last 5 years, but not the first 40. So i'm ok with him b****ing about having to pay for someone else given the work he put in for some many years.

 

[southsider2k5]

but, if you'd bother to read the P-S paper (more lib propaganda?!) or any of the other studies on the total tax system in the US, you'd see that, outside of FIT, the system is damn near flat if not actually regressive depending on the state your reside in.

 

So if you narrow the focus to ignore, by far, the biggest source of taxes in the country, it ends up telling the story you want it to tell. And you have the nerve to call someone intellectually dishonest? Give it a rest.

[Soxbadger]

The US tax rate is absolutely progressive.

[southsider2k5]

Well I'm glad you admit how dishonest and silly your first post was. Arbitrarily excluding certain tax categories (in your case, every single tax in the country but one) isn't the way to make a good argument.

 

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING>

[Jenksismyhero]

Uh, his "point" was a big sob story to make you feel sorry for how hard he works, so much harder than everyone else!

 

No, his point was this country is going in the crapper if we have to continue to rely on rich people to pay for everything.

[CrimsonWeltall]

By making up a scenario that doesn't exist in reality. Great. That is superhelpful

 

Just because it's exaggerated doesn't mean it doesn't have a point.

 

The rich in the US pay a larger percentage of total taxes than the rich elsewhere NOT because of the tax system, but because the income gap in the US is far wider.

[StrangeSox]

The rich pay higher total shares, higher individual shares, higher percentages of income, and pretty much any other statistic you want to throw out there.

 

As of 2009, the poorest 50% pay 1.85% effective income tax rate. The top 10% pay over 10 times that percentage of their income in taxes. In what world is having over a 1000% higher rate of income taxes paid not progressive?

 

The world where you are actually talking about tax rates, which is what "progressiveness" of the system refers to, because everything you're flinging out to avoid actually addressing the progressiveness of the tax system is a function of multiple inputs, progressiveness being one of them.

 

You know why the poorest 50% pay 1.85% effective income tax rate? Because that's pretty damn close to what their share of the income is and they can't afford to live if they paid any more. That's why I posted the GINI index, which you ignored. That's why multiple people have pointed out, repeatedly, that you're conflating two separate things. Tax share-by-decile is a function of both rates (progressiveness) and income distribution.

 

TSBD=%R*%I. If %I is really, really high, then %R can be relatively low and TSBD will still be high. Either there's some mental block that is preventing you from seeing this (Morton's Demon), or you're being intentionally dishonest.

[StrangeSox]

This is precisely the problem with your take on this whole thing. This guy is not the equivalent of Paris Hilton. He was not just given his earnings. He worked for it - twice. I can see that and appreciate that. You apparently cannot. Yes, his "struggle" of having to lead that company is not the same as the struggle of a waitress working a second shift. But i'm not completely discounting the work involved in either case. You are. You seem to think he's just sitting on his yacht playing golf while making business decisions and raking in the money. That might be what he's done the last 5 years, but not the first 40. So i'm ok with him b****ing about having to pay for someone else given the work he put in for some many years.

 

I can see and appreciate that he worked for his money. I'm not asking him to live in the slums.

[southsider2k5]

The world where you are actually talking about tax rates, which is what "progressiveness" of the system refers to, because everything you're flinging out to avoid actually addressing the progressiveness of the tax system is a function of multiple inputs, progressiveness being one of them.

 

You know why the poorest 50% pay 1.85% effective income tax rate? Because that's pretty damn close to what their share of the income is and they can't afford to live if they paid any more. That's why I posted the GINI index, which you ignored. That's why multiple people have pointed out, repeatedly, that you're conflating two separate things. Tax share-by-decile is a function of both rates (progressiveness) and income distribution.

 

TSBD=%R*%I. If %I is really, really high, then %R can be relatively low and TSBD will still be high. Either there's some mental block that is preventing you from seeing this (Morton's Demon), or you're being intentionally dishonest.

 

Not accepting your class warfare isn't intentionally dishonest. It is ignoring your intentional distortion of every other fact and statistic out there for reality.

[StrangeSox]

No, his point was this country is going in the crapper if we have to continue to rely on rich people to pay for everything.

 

Well, since real income has stagnated for the middle class and dropped for the lower class since the 70's while it has exploded for the top, it's hard to ask anyone else but those who have been taking almost all of the wealth gains to pay for things.

 

If we want to go with more equitable wages across the board, I'd much prefer that to redistributionist efforts.

[StrangeSox]

Not accepting your class warfare isn't intentionally dishonest. It is ignoring your intentional distortion of every other fact and statistic out there for reality.

 

So, blinders it is.

 

What is my "class warfare" "intentional distortion" of citing an academic paper by two of the biggest names in income and taxation policy? Why can't you even address the findings of that study or the actual concept of progressiveness of the tax system instead of throwing out a bunch of indirectly related "facts and statistics?"

 

What have I distorted? I've completely accepted that, in the US, the top decile (or whatever top-cutoff you want) pays a large percentage of total taxes. This is because they also collect a large percentage of total income. This is indisputable, yet you have failed to even acknowledge a central component of the data you are presenting. PERCENTAGE SHARE OF TAXES IS A FUNCTION OF BOTH RATE AND INCOME SHARE. It's that simple, and yet you can't seem to see it.

[Soxbadger]

The reason rich people should want to pay more taxes is that if this country falls apart, they are going to be the ones who lose the most.

 

You pay your taxes so you get to keep your earned position in society. Its much better to pay an extra 1% than to have a revolution.

 

Its not about fair, its about being smart. At the end of the day, all those pretty 0s in their bank account are worthless if there is no country to enforce the obligations. Its silly, but whatever. I guess the medium rich know the ultra rich will always pay, because they understand that when youre making $100mil, paying an extra $1mil is priceless compared to losing everything.

[southsider2k5]

So, blinders it is.

 

What is my "class warfare" "intentional distortion" of citing an academic paper by two of the biggest names in income and taxation policy? Why can't you even address the findings of that study or the actual concept of progressiveness of the tax system instead of throwing out a bunch of indirectly related "facts and statistics?"

 

What have I distorted? I've completely accepted that, in the US, the top decile (or whatever top-cutoff you want) pays a large percentage of total taxes. This is because they also collect a large percentage of total income. This is indisputable, yet you have failed to even acknowledge a central component of the data you are presenting. PERCENTAGE SHARE OF TAXES IS A FUNCTION OF BOTH RATE AND INCOME SHARE. It's that simple, and yet you can't seem to see it.

 

Individual percentage rates are also extremely higher for upper income brackets, which is the very definition of progressive. Higher brackets pay higher individual rates, even when excluding things like EITC which would turn most of the lower brackets into negative tax rates.