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Forums - General - Why we need a flat tax.

Squilliam on 23 July 2009
mrstickball said:

Charity is indeed an issue in a flat, or any tax system. On one hand, it's a loophole. Yet on the other, I have seen what charity does: It does a far superior job of society welfare than the government does. I feel that if all the government welfare was stopped, but instead invested into private charities...We would see more done.

Here would be my suggestion:

Impose a 'charity tax' on the flat tax system. What I mean by it is this: When a government would go to set up a flat tax, and set parameters for what the tax rate is, to add a surcharge to the tax. If the US government needed 25% of GDP to come in as tax revenue, it should charge 30%.

On the 30%, levy a 'charity deduction' for all people - rich, poor, blue collar, to deduct a portion (lets say 5%, or 1/6th of the net taxable income).

This way, if a poor person making $25,000 a year would give 10% away to charties, he wouldn't pay '$7,500' in taxes ($10,000 minus $7,500 equals a return of $2,500 on his taxes), but $6,250 (25% of $25,000) - therefore 50% of his deduction was returned to him as credit.

Again, it's my belief that such a 'loophole' should be there because a free society needs to give freely. But I do think that it's in the governments interest to have private people run charities. In this scenario, the government will always count on 25% of their revenue (or it could be any other number. It's simply arbitrary), and may get up to 30% in best-case scenarios.

 

Would it not be simpler to call donations to charity a tax deduction as before? The thing with a compulsary donation is that im concerned it may distort the operations of charities and that they may spend too much money advertising and marketing rather than charitable work. With a more flexible system, charities would be more accountable to public opinion and therefore they would operate better as entities working for the good of society. Its the compulsary nature of any contribution whether its tax or charity which allows the receiving entity to act counter to the public good or inefficiently and with charities not being public entities like governments there would be less accountability.

 



Tease.

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dtewi on 24 July 2009
Kasz216 said:
dtewi said:
I have to say I couldn'y be any more thoroughly uninterested in a conversation.

Which is really sad on your part.  I mean it is a very good point when taken at face value.

If tax revenue never changes... tax increseases are worthless.

 

 

The data there is compelling.... of course one wonders what the REST of the taxes are doing.    For example if tax increases for the rich were being countered by decreases for the poor and middle class.  Whether lowering of rates were adjusted also with the closing of deductions etc.

This is hard to see because the it's revenue as a percentage of GDP for total taxes... and not % of GDP paid by the rich.

I'm 13. I don't care.



Kimi wa ne tashika ni ano toki watashi no soba ni ita

Itsudatte itsudatte itsudatte

Sugu yoko de waratteita

Nakushitemo torimodosu kimi wo

I will never leave you

mrstickball on 24 July 2009

If you don't care, why are you here?

And I can assure you that, 10 years from now, you will care.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

dtewi on 24 July 2009
mrstickball said:
If you don't care, why are you here?

And I can assure you that, 10 years from now, you will care.

I was here to read the thread, seemed interesting and controversial. I just was very bored of reading it.

Yes, I will care. I will care. Not now, but later.



Kimi wa ne tashika ni ano toki watashi no soba ni ita

Itsudatte itsudatte itsudatte

Sugu yoko de waratteita

Nakushitemo torimodosu kimi wo

I will never leave you

Slimebeast on 24 July 2009
mrstickball said:
Oh, by the way Slimebeast:

If you ever feel the need, move to America.

- If you are indeed a medical doctor, expect to earn >$100,000 in America. If your good, expect $500,000.
- Work for doctors is always, ALWAYS available. You could find job placement in a matter of a day.
- Taxes are a bit lower here
- Cost of living is lower
- Find a good area, and you can find Swedish women
- If you like the cold, Ohio is a good place for that
- AMERICAN FOOTBALL
- Video games are cheaper and better access


If it was that easy. ^^ My mom is sick, I can't leave her. Plus I would be eaten alive in America. Well, perhaps not. I have a friend who moved to the US for computer work, and he's a real wussy but he's doing great over there. He even left his wife and lil baby daughter here in Sweden because he fell in love with the California weather lol.

I didn't know that it's easy for doctors to get a job over there, I thought the competition was intense because of a surplus of doctors.

But I have had plans to move to America, but sadly I had to abandon them. Life is so short. :/



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Slimebeast on 24 July 2009
highwaystar101 said:
Slimebeast said:


I guess it's like usual then, that u can't discuss the amount of taxes with a liberal/socialist minded. They will always assume that the level set by a government can't be too high, not even abroad.

Kinda the same when discussing immigration, a typical liberal will never admit that the level of immigration is too high anywhere.

I really don't want to be mean, but I just got rejected from a PhD today and I'm in a foul mood tonight...

So that's it? The right is correct and the left is wrong about these things? Is it really that black and white? Almost to the point of where the 'lefties' just can't grasp the concept of tax and immigration and thus all opinions they hold are wrong. Come on now. Everyone here has given some form of valid opinion.


Ok, maybe I replied to Montana with a kneejerk reaction. I had a ruff day too, yesterday, hence my rant about my personal economical situation. But I think I have a point too, that it's a typical phenomenon when these standpoints clash that there's an inability to discuss proportions, but everything is described as black or white (so actually I was first in accusing others for seeing everything in black and white, and now u accuse me lol). I repeat, I've seldom heard one with a socialist mind agree that any tax is too high anywhere, or that immigration could be too high anytime anywhere on earth. It seems like by some kind of principle they're always for it - taxes can by nature never be too high, immigration is always right, there can never be too much emphasis on womens, homosexual's or racial minoritie's rights etc - it's always only positive.

@Montana

Sorry if I replied to you in a hostile way with predujice, but I interpreted your reply to have a bit sarcastic tone. Actually I still think u were.



ManusJustus on 24 July 2009
TheRealMafoo said:

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."

As opposed to "The poor shouldn't have all that money, so we are going to take it from them."

Economically speaking, flat taxes do not work.  It puts a larger tax load on lower income people who need that money to support themselves with housing, food, healthcare, and other basic essentials, as opposed to high income people who use that money for less necessary items.  People with lower income are working demanding jobs to support themselves and their families, the last thing we want to do is make it harder for them to provide for their families.

The end result of a flat tax is either people living in poverty with increased crime rates that hamper the economy, or people depending more on the government than themselves for lost income resulting in more government spending or increased minimum wage.



Kasz216 on 24 July 2009
ManusJustus said:
TheRealMafoo said:

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."

As opposed to "The poor shouldn't have all that money, so we are going to take it from them."

Economically speaking, flat taxes do not work.  It puts a larger tax load on lower income people who need that money to support themselves with housing, food, healthcare, and other basic essentials, as opposed to high income people who use that money for less necessary items.  People with lower income are working demanding jobs to support themselves and their families, the last thing we want to do is make it harder for them to provide for their families.

The end result of a flat tax is either people living in poverty with increased crime rates that hamper the economy, or people depending more on the government than themselves for lost income resulting in more government spending or increased minimum wage.

Or rather... "Everyone should pay their fair equal share."

Also... America already has one of the most progressive tax systems around.

We have more progressive tax brackets then England and Canada for instance.

 



HappySqurriel on 24 July 2009
ManusJustus said:
TheRealMafoo said:

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."

As opposed to "The poor shouldn't have all that money, so we are going to take it from them."

Economically speaking, flat taxes do not work.  It puts a larger tax load on lower income people who need that money to support themselves with housing, food, healthcare, and other basic essentials, as opposed to high income people who use that money for less necessary items.  People with lower income are working demanding jobs to support themselves and their families, the last thing we want to do is make it harder for them to provide for their families.

The end result of a flat tax is either people living in poverty with increased crime rates that hamper the economy, or people depending more on the government than themselves for lost income resulting in more government spending or increased minimum wage.

You're making the assumption that the cost of housing, food, healthcare and other basic essentials do not see increased prices, and the poor and middle class do not see lower wages, because the "Rich" wouldn't try to maintain their standard of living by using their influence to recover the increase in tax. Now, this assumption is false and if you could "redistribute wealth" through progressive taxation why does the United States (a country which already has one of the most "Progressive" tax systems in the world) have one of the least equal distributions of wealth?

Economically speaking, every time a country has moved to a flat tax system the tax revenues of the country has gone up and they have seen faster economic growth than similar countries; and the increased standard of living of everyone typically results in a more equitable distribution of income. Now, it is not clear how much of this can be attributed to the flat tax, how much can be attributed to other "Free Market" reforms that are (typically) resisted by socialists, and how much can be attributed to several other conditions that changed for these countries.

 

Now, if socialists were really interested in reducing the level of disparity of income and wealth inside of their country they would take a look at what makes other countries so equitable. What they would find is that the quality and consistency of an education system lead to far more equitable results. One of the biggest problems in the United States is that its education system is so inconsistently managed that some regions receive far worse results than others even though they spend far more money on their students.



Squilliam on 24 July 2009

What examples are there in the world who have successfully applied a flat tax system and have any gone back to the old progressive system?



Tease.