Of course they do as a simpler tax code will save them money. It will save them money on accountants and financial planners since those will be less relevant once so many loopholes are closed. The problem with your argument is that while you yourself acknowledge that the current system allows the wealthy to exploit the system yet you don't advocate a system to address that. I haven't seen anything you have posted to counter that and given your argument about the wealthy using accountants to reduce what they pay that supports my position. I am not wealthy but I too use accountants, as a small business owner, and software like TurboTax to try to reduce the amount that I pay. My main point is that by simplifying the tax scheme people like myself, and by extension the wealthy you love to rail about, will not be able to shield so much of their income from taxes. Related benefits are that collections will improve and fraud will go down as taxes become easier to file. About the only group of people really hurt by this will be accountants and Intuit (who sell TurboTax.) The problem though is politically how do you close so many loopholes. This is where a tradeoff needs to be made with flatter taxes. Also by nature a simpler tax code will be flatter. I find if it interesting that you are accusing me of naivete when there is essentially no hope politically of passing what you advocate while both Obama and Congress are actively looking at ways of simplifying and flattening the tax code.
I've brought this up several times before but as a business owner taxes rarely affect our calculations regarding business decisions. Particularly in the current economic situations with low revenues we aren't paying much in taxes anyway. In principle I could support higher marginal tax rates but as long as our code remains very complex it might not bring that much benefit to overall collections than closing loopholes while the reduction in complexity will save money on accounting and improve collections. What we have gotten in the last 10 years is the worst of both worlds. Keeping rates low while also making the tax code more and more complex.
Missing the point... Effective tax rates aren't as high as what is listed on the marginal tax brackets. Warren Buffet is a perfect example of this. His effective tax rate is below 18%. IMO raising taxes isn't as effective as closing loop holes in the tax code. Simplifies enforcement and payment. You need to make sure that the rich are actually paying the percentages that the government is trying to collect. Simplify the tax code and cut out the loopholes. The effective tax rate will increase even if you lower taxes without the loopholes. What was the name of that committee that was recommending this idea? Further, if you significantly lower taxes on corporations repatriating cash from overseas then I believe you would see a huge boom of investment from these mega-cap corps. MSFT by itself has like $30 BILLION (I think CSCO has $30 billion too) locked up overseas due to the tax consequences of repatriating it. Also, how much has the average life expectancy increased since Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? We need to increase the retirement age accordingly. This would save tons of money. Do you think this is a good idea? It's not just about raising taxes...not sure why raising taxes is the only thing you are talking about.
And a side note....WTF is the CBO doing with its tax revenue projections? It's like they are just making it up lol! I love it. They don't even care. They are just throwing random numbers out there and saying tax revenue will grow by like 10.5% for the next 5 years and 7.5% per year until 2020. Can someone tell my why tax revs will grow by that much in such a short period of time? http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/Chapter4.shtml Look at this ****. 2009 $2.105 T 2010 $2.175 T 2011 $2.670 T 2012 $2.964 T 2013 $3.218 T 2014 $3.465 T (WTF? 1.2+ trillion increase in 5 years?) 2015 $3.625 T 2016 $3.814 T 2017 $3.996 T 2018 $4.170 T 2019 $4.352 T 2020 $4.563 T Looking further into it they are basing this tax rev growth on individual income tax revs increasing by 100% in 5 years and corp income tax revs increasing by 285% in 5 years. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=203 <---link for historical tax revs Even during our BUBBLE economy we NEVER took in more than $2.568 trillion (2007) in tax revs. The CBO has the balls to come out and say that 2011 will be the biggest tax rev year EVER for the US. I hope they are right....but... Man these guys don't give a **** lol.
The CBO bases their projections on current law. I believe that document was written in 2010 - at that time, current law was that the Bush taxes would expire, which is why you see the massive increase from 2010 to 2011. After that, the numbers increase, but not quite as crazily. The first page of the report details a lot of the reasons for the increases: The Congressional Budget Office projects that total federal revenues will be about $2.2 trillion in 2010, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009, under the assumption that current laws and policies will remain in effect. As a share of gross domestic product, revenues will edge up slightly, from a nearly 60-year low of 14.8 percent in 2009 to 14.9 percent in 2010 (see Figure 4-1). CBO expects that about 60 percent of the increase in federal revenues will come from increased remittances from the Federal Reserve System to the Treasury; those payments will rise markedly because of the Federal Reserve’s recent actions to stabilize financial markets to support the economy. According to CBO’s projections, revenues other than those remittances will increase by only 1.3 percent in 2010, about a percentage point less than the anticipated increase in GDP. Several tax provisions enacted over the past decade are set to expire in December 2010. Because of those expirations and a strengthening economic recovery, CBO projects that revenues will increase substantially after 2010, rising by about 23 percent in 2011 and by another 11 percent in 2012, to reach 18.8 percent of GDP in 2012 (see Figure 4-2). The expiration of tax provisions accounts for about two-thirds of the increase in CBO’s baseline projection of revenues relative to GDP between 2010 and 2012.1 Most of the provisions originally enacted in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 are set to expire, as are the Making Work Pay tax credit (enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and many other provisions. In addition, temporary relief from the individual alternative minimum tax expired at the end of 2009; the step-up in AMT liability will have its largest effect on revenues *starting in 2011. Revenues are projected to grow faster than GDP in 2011 and 2012 for three additional reasons. First, the experience of previous downturns indicates that, as economic activity picks up and prices of financial assets rise, wage and salary income, corporate profits, and other types of taxable incomes are likely to grow more rapidly than is GDP. Second, the recession led to a temporary acceleration of tax payments because taxpayers were slow to adjust withholding as tax liabilities fell; CBO estimates that this factor raised receipts in 2008 but should reduce them in 2010. Payments in 2011 and 2012 should return to a more *normal relationship with tax liabilities. Third, CBO anticipates that the unexplained recent weakness in individual and corporate income taxes—beyond that attributable to available economic data—will gradually fade. According to CBO’s baseline projections, revenues will continue rising from 2013 through 2020 (the end of the projection period) to reach 20.2 percent of GDP. Growth in individual income tax receipts accounts for almost all of the increase, mostly because real (inflation-adjusted) growth in income will push more income into higher tax brackets and because inflation will increase revenues from the AMT (see Figure 4-3). However, if the expiring provisions of EGTRRA, JGTRRA, and other tax legislation were extended and if the AMT was indexed for inflation, revenues would be substantially lower than those shown in CBO’s baseline projections. Instead, revenues would rise more slowly relative to GDP in 2011 and 2012 and would reach roughly 17.5 percent of GDP in 2020.
which libertarian candidates are "millionaires and billionaires" investing tens of millions in? can you name just one? i wish millionaires and billionaires were investing "tens of millions" in libertarian politicians - maybe we could garner more than 3% of the vote in any given election! and why is it bad if millionaires and billionaires invest in libertarians and conservatives, but you dont seem to have a problem when they invest in democrats and liberals?
Warren Buffett's effective rate is lower because his income is almost entirely generated through dividend income, which is taxed at a lower rate. Am I to understand that you would like to return the dividend and capital gains tax rates back up to the same as the income tax rates? I am all for it! Personally, if we were to make substantial changes to our tax system I would scrap the income tax, dividend tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, etc., and put up a consumption tax in its place. And Exxon paid no corporate tax at all a couple of years ago. I agree that we need to find a better way to tax corporations. As I said above, I would scrap corporate taxes altogether if it were up to me. Yes, absolutely. We should also means test benefits and raise or eliminate the cap on payroll tax contributions. Because it is the only thing that nobody is talking about, at least nobody in power. There are plenty of spending cuts we can make, on this interactive budget calculator , I was able to balance the budget through 2030 with 36% tax increases and 64% spending cuts. The point is that we will not be able to balance the budget without a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
Seventy percent is a huge increase from the 40% (I believe) top tax bracket today. I wouldn't be opposed to raising taxes on the highest earners though, just as long as both parties can compromise on making cuts to unnecessary domestic and military spending. The fact is, if they don't start doing something to reduce our debt and deficit, entitlement programs are going to leave the federal government insolvent in the course of a few decades, if even long.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer David H. Koch and his brother Charles are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes. It's a problem because--- From 2005 to 2008, Koch industries spent $5.7 million on political campaigns and $37 million on direct lobbying to support fossil fuel industries. Greenpeace says that between 1997 and 2008 Koch Industries donated nearly $48m to groups which doubt or oppose the current consensus on climate change. According to Greenpeace, Koch Industries is the major source of funds of what Greenpeace calls "climate denial". Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $12.3 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
I know, you don't listen to facts, you won't pay attention to evidence, and historical information doesn't get your attention. You never change.
lifelong "libertarians" who give almost all their money to republicans and almost always vote republican. the koch brothers donate more to democrats then they do libertarians. these so-called libertarians do quite a disservice to the libertarian cause when they give thousands of dollars to republican politicians like jim inhofe and sam brownback, who supported such non-libertarian issues like the iraq war, the patriot act, torture of prisoners, a constitutional ban on gay marriage and military support for israel to name a few. again, name just 1 libertarian politician they dontate to...just one.
yawn...the only aspect of the joseph theory in effect here is the one that states that if you are voting for and giving millions to mainstream republican candidates you just might be a republican. samuel, i know you are upset over the fact that pretty much every time you try to argue with me i make you look foolish, but you really need to just let it go...this is not healthy - im concerned for you.
I have no problem with taxing dividend income at regular income rates. However, I would keep the exception for no taxes on muni bond div income. I do think long term cap gains should be kept at a lower rate, but short term should be taxed a regular income levels. With that consumption tax I just don't see how it would generate enough money. I'd be for it cause I make a lot, but don't spend a lot. Further, I think it could become extremely complicated with the tax multipliers and exemptions for certain goods....but that's just my initial thoughts from that blog post. XOM paid no corporate taxes because it made it's money overseas. This goes back to the repatriation of income made in other countries. No reason for XOM to bring it back to the states if they have to pay 35% in taxes on top of the taxes they paid to the country where they made the money. I have no problem with eliminating that cap either....mainly cause it doesn't hurt me Again, I don't think "increases" is the best way to go. I think that one committee that released the propsal to cut stated taxes rates, but eliminate loopholes and raise effective tax rates is the best way to go. I would like to see some innovative ideas like the ones put forth in the debt commission report. http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sit...files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf
That's funny, on that very same budget calculator I was able to balance the budget entirely through spending cuts. That kind of disproves your assertion, doesn't it? In fact I end up with a multi-hundred billion dollar surplus in the long run. Turns out that cuts to the military, social security, and medicare go a long way toward balancing the budget. linkage
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class -- pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class. By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story. That's the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish. Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of hedge funds -- many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout. Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court -- ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott. These three aspects of the Republican strategy -- a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy -- fit perfectly together. They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power. What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us? Reich nailed it and you highlighted the most pertinent part. Good job! Now it's the American people who need to wake up and actually see what's happening to them.
