Ahh, well that's a socialist point of view: "The rich just shouldn't have all that money, so we are going to take it from them".

And the bolded line confuses me, because this is the same thing I am saying. If you make 10 times more money, the government takes 10 times more money from you.

In my opinion, the government should be taking your effort. If it comes to 100 hours a year, or 400 hours a year, everyone needs to apply the same time in running the country.

Now, the best way to do that, is to not really ask you to come down to city hall a day a week, and work. The best way, is to just say work at whatever you do, and give us what you make in a day (if the flat tax was 14.2%).

And Communism is the opposite of what I am talking about.

In the system I am talking about, Government does not care what you make, other then for the purposes of figuring out how much they need to collect in order to take your fair share of the work to run the country.

How much you keep, is not of there concern. (It is Montana's however).

I hate progressive taxation, in Sweden it's perverted. From every Dollar beyond a yearly income of just $35,000 the government steals 52% from me. If I add the 5% of my salary I have to pay back the students loan, it becomes 57%. So from every $100 extra I earn, I only get $43 in my pocket.

But the government are trixters, because it's not actuallt just 52% in taxes. It's a lot higher than that, because the employer already pays some 30% in taxes with just a different name on every Dollar he pays me in salary (without that tax, our salaries could be higher of course). So it's hidden taxes. And not only this, but in Sweden u get 25% VAT on almost all consumption (actually 75% on gasoline and liquor).

All my sweat and tears go to pay the living of all these leeches that don't wanna work, or who cheats with state wellfare, and the hordes of immigrants etc. It sux.

I'm not sure we need a flat tax... but what i know we need for sure is a ratio tax.

A tax where if someones taxes rise.... EVERYONES taxes rise... so it's not so easy to solve everyones problems by taxing a small minority of people.

That's the real problem.

How much the rich should pay is always contigent on what else people want to get passed.

The US has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world already.  It's more progressive then the UK.

Additionally all income should be taxed the same.  Including money made from investments.  It's gained money afterall.

I'm feeling a good bit ill today, so I don't have the energy to get into a whole big argument. Hopefully we can continue this later today Mafoo. And as for Highwaystarr and Akuma, thanks for the praise, but you guys need to work harder. Off Topic used to be completely dominated by liberals, but all the liberals just sort of gave up after Obama won and stopped caring. Continue the good fight, political threads are nothing without debate.

Slimebeast yeah Sweden has high taxes, but on the bright side we're not passing the costs to future generations by having a budget deficit, as the US and other countries are doing.

edit - I just checked and right now it seems the budget is in deficit, due to the crisis I guess. Still not as big a deficit as other countries, I think?

My general view on progressive vs flat tax is this.

If you take $1 off someone with $10 vs taking $10 off someone who has $100 its likely that the person with $10 would feel the loss of $1 more than the person who has $100 would feel the loss of $10. So for me, progressive taxation evens out the burden of governance. Not every person has equal means and equal incomes and a flat tax would cast a greater burden of hardship upon the people who have more limited means for whatever reason.

My problem with a flat tax rate is that the rich spend less of their money proportionally than the poor.

It's called the marginal propensity to consume, and it essentially means that the more money you have, the lower percentage of it that you spend.

Let's just say you have one guy who earns £100,000 per year, of that £100,000 he spends £80,000, and saves £20,000. Or, we could have two guys who earn £50,000 and they spend £45,000 a year, and save £5,000 - totaling £10,000 a year saved.

The economy benefits more from people spending their money, than it does by people saving it. And if people aren't spending their money because they have nothing that they need, then the money is essentially being wasted.

I'm talking about the vastly wealthy, now. The people that have millions in the bank, and no matter how much of it they spend, they will always have millions in the bank.

So rather than letting this money sit around, the rich get a higher proportion of their wages taken away so that the Government can spend the money, and help improve the economy.

Sure, it's not fair. But, fuck it, life's not fair.

This !

/thread

First off, a point I will repeat once again is that progressive taxation doesn't (really) increase the tax onhigh income earners because they have the power and ability to pass those added costs onto other people through higher cost goods and services or through lower payments and benefits to their employees. What this means is that only the people who have limited ability to pass the costs along (generally the poor and middle class) see the negative effects of higher taxation.

Now, even if you suppose that you could tax high income earners through progressive taxation why would you want to?

People who are successful at building their own wealth have demonstrated a high level of skill at efficiently using money to build products or services that are in high demand; and their money tends to be fully re-invested in the legitimate economy through the purchase of goods, services and investments. By taking money away from these people you're taking money away from the people who have the best understanding of how to re-invest the money to maximize the growth of the economy, and you're preventing the money from being passed along the "Food Chain" to companies who employ people and buy goods and services from other companies, who employ people and buy goods and services from other companies, and so on ...

In my opinion the true benefit of a flat tax system is simplicity ... Everyone just adds up all of their income and all of their taxable benefits multiplies it by the tax rate and mails a post card into the Revenue Agency (depending on your country) where they verify your numbers against the values your company sent in and issue a bill or credit appropriately.

When you eliminate loopholes and stop giving tax credits or deductions to certain individuals to promote their way of life the ammount of bureaucracy associated with collecting tax is greatly reduced; and a simple and straightforward tax and legal system is a huge advantage for companies who want to do business in your country.

^ I agree with you that money is never sitting idle. Im pretty sure the money in my bank account has been lent to other people/entities. The only idle money really is cash in your wallet and gold under your bed.