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SamuelRSmith on 13 July 2009
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HappySqurriel said:
akuma587 said:
HappySqurriel said:

I want to let you in on a little secret that few people seem to be able to understand ... Regardless of how "Progressive" your tax system is, the people who don't have the ability to pass their increased costs along to someone else (the "Poor" and "Middle Class") pay all of the taxes. Now, you may not directly be paying these taxes but when you don't get a good pay increase (and everything you buy has gone up in price) in order for the wealthy decision makers to have more money to pay their taxes and maintain their standard of living you're not better off; and you have paid their taxes for them.

Yes, because we all know that the rich are kind, benevolent, and pass along every extra dollar they can to those beneath them. They certainly wouldn't just keep it to themselves.

Seriously, do you even believe what you just posted, or do you live in a box isolated from all human contact. Rich or poor, human beings are greedy, greedy individuals who think of themselves before anybody else.

As TheRealMafoo pointed out I think you misread the post ...

A progressive taxation system only works if you make the assumption that wealthy people have no ability to pass their costs onto someone else, or that they're kind and benevolent and are willing to take the losses for the greater good. While that may be true in a couple of isolated cases, wealthy people generally have far greater control over their companies payroll and what they charge other people for their product; and they will manipulate these things in order to maintain their standard of living.

In contrast, the peon in Sector 7-G has no (real) ability to dictate their own wages and has no way to pass increased costs along to anyone else; so when they get a 2% pay increase in a year (rather than the 4% they would have gotten otherwise) and the cost of everything they buy goes up by 6% (rather than the 4% it would have gone up otherwise) they're the ones who are paying the tax increase on the wealthy.

Win.