My taxes went up today thanks to Obama's turd of a healthcare plan

what spending cuts have we seen?

 

According to the AP, it was both parties that decided to let it expire:

"Obama pushed hard to enact the payroll tax cut for 2011 and to extend it through 2012. But it was never fully embraced by either party, and this time around, there was general agreement to let it expire.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/payroll-tax-rise-article-1.1231335#ixzz2Gr9JsqVT"

 

This is simply not the case. Why do you think the previous rates weren't fair?

We are not determining what tax rate is fair for people with certain income. We are raising taxes from thos people to cover our bottom. A discussion of fair or not fair in your sense isn't made in the current context. Such a discussion could have been made any point of time, why now, why in the face of going over fiscal cliff?

 

Because the effective tax rate (what they ACTUALLY paid in %) was lower for the people at the top than the people at the bottom. This has been well-chronicled/documented.

We have a progressive tax system by design and by choice, not one that is progressive for the low and the middle and regressive for the top. You can call it not "fair" or whatever, either way it's inconsistent with the way the code was designed to operate.

 

I'm not stating that. I don't think there is a fair or unfair or correct or incorrect rate of taxation. You're the one making the claim that the old rates were fair and the new rates are unfair. I'm asking you what makes that correct, vs saying that the old rates were unfair and the new rates are fair?

If I did want to argue that the old rates were unfair, I would suggest that the tax rates we had resulted in the wealthy generating all the new income growth in society. Therefore, I would argue that the tax balance was tilted in favor of the wealthy, if the purpose of balanced tax policy is to provide an opportunity for all people to succeed and improve their lot in life.

Except you could easily argue that the rich not paying enough for the last decade is a part of the reason we are in a fiscal mess, so this would be "fixing" that mistake.

 

Well, I am all for removing tax shelters that are out of control and fine-tune the tax code. But I am against a categorical tax increase based on an arbitrary income number. NOT FAIR.

 

Yallmean, sorry but it is pretty simple in the fundamentals. The Bush tax cuts were largely regressive, away from norms. They very strongly benefitted those of great means.

The tiny new change nudges the system back to something closer to norms of the 1980's and 1990's.

You can argue 00's were the genius era and that the decades before were wrong-headed, but you can't just take this tiny new tweak as an isolated event, free from historical context. (Well, you can, obviously, but most everyone else will kind of scratch their heads and wonder if you understand the bigger picture.)

 

...increasing marginal rates for the very wealthy (and the other fixes) is fine-tuning the tax code. It's unfortunately not the comprehensive reform that a lot of us want, but it's literally exactly what you describe in the first sentence.

As for your second sentence "Categorical" is a meaningless adjective here because the tax code is by definition categorical insofar as it sorts people into various categories and adjusts rates/deductions/credits accordingly.

Any change is going to be "categorical" by definition, be it a rate adjustment, removing overseas tax shelters, a change in deductions, change in excise taxes, estate tax, etc as it only affects the segment of the tax base that claims/is subject to it.

 

Student loan debts are deductable and as you note doctors and dentists generally are fairly well compensated for those years of dreadful student life.

A few percentage increase though in marginal tax rates in the upper brackets isn't going to be punitive on doctors and dentists. There were periods in US history when taxes on upper brackets was much higher and we still had lots of people becoming doctors and dentists.

 

However, maybe certain people "derseve" more wealth due to their talents, efforts, education, knowledge, etc. Don't punish those people. Where does your balance end? If the spending dificit does not come to an end, are we just going to keep on taxing those people extra based on your logic?

[/QUOTE]
Except you could easily argue that the rich not paying enough for the last decade is a part of the reason we are in a fiscal mess, so this would be "fixing" that mistake.[/QUOTE]
I knew you would say this.

 

Just to add I am going to pay a lot more in taxes this year than I did last year and I am happy to do it. That is because this year was a lot more lucrative than last year and I see no problem with paying more if I have more income.

 

That settles it, single payer should be the requirement.

 

Do you believe all those people in the upper brackets all got there through hard work and talent? Do you believe all those people in the upper brackets add positively to society?

 

No, more likely we'll end up taxing them based on a little logic I call "math".

Like I said in another thread, since the 80's we've implemented a set of policies to allow the balance to tilt drasticallly in favor of the very rich to alow them to accumulate an unprecedentedly huge share of income - who's the most logical party to pay for that set of policies? The people with no money, who didn't benefit from them, or those with all of it, who did?

 

Maybe they do. But you have yet to explain why 35% was a fair rate and 39% is not. Were the Clinton tax rates fair? Were the Bush tax cuts fair?

 

That's a wrong characterization of my argument. The Bush cuts were across board from the Clinton rates, if I am not mistaken. Tell me why restoring the Clinton rate only for the high income bracket is fair. Do you not agree that the lower income bracket should pay at least some tax? Why tax them at all?

 

No they weren't - they were loaded towards the very lowest incomes (as cover) and the very highest incomes (surprise!) with added bonuses for the rich and super rich like capital gains tax and estate tax changes.

The whole concept of "across the board" as your portraying it is a myth/nonexistent. The tax code is not an "across the board" simple code, it's far more complex than that - and a very silly basis to ooppose changes.

 

Fine, go tax those whose has benefited from the 80's policies you allude to or tax based on one's networth. That's better than a blanket increase based on income propsectively. To me the blanket increase has limited connections to undo the wrong you are referring.

 

Except you could easily argue that the rich not paying enough for the last decade is a part of the reason we are in a fiscal mess, so this would be "fixing" that mistake.[/QUOTE]
I knew you would say this. [/QUOTE]

These "certain" people that deserve the wealth are not losing their wealth. You act as if all their money is being taken away when they are a success. This is simply not true.

 

They were across the board, but not by the same amount. And things like the extended child care credit and capital gains rates affected different people differently.

I've already said I don't believe there is a fair or unfair amount. Tax policy should be designed to create the most efficient and rational way to fund the government and to provide the population that it serves the best opportunity to succeed and prosper. Raising tax rates on the middle class in a weak economy hurts their ability to prosper far more than raising it on the wealthy.

That said, in an ideal world, I would phase in all of the Clinton tax rates over a 5 or so year period, raising taxes slightly in each year.

I do. They already pay a 15% SS tax that doesn't apply to higher income levels. So your 25% tax bracket person pays a marginal rate of 40%, while your 35% tax bracket person pays a marginal rate of 35%. Why shouldn't high earners pay at least the same marginal rate as the middle class?