How do you run a country without people paying taxes especially the wealthy? I know you'll state some bullshit claim about whatever but this country was built on the wealthy sacrificing their money for the greater good of America. What happened to that concept?
Not much to debate TBH. Tax code is complicated for a reason. Im not going to pretend I know what Im talking about.
Rich pay a very low rate in taxes - far less than middle class. Why do you think increasing their effective tax rate to match what the middle class pays is a bad thing? That would generate an enormous amount of revenue that could be used to pay off our national debt.
lol pay off the national debt. Yeah, rich people make enough to pay trillions of dollars in debt each year. How do you know what the rich pay? Have you seen their tax returns?
I don't have a problem with people not paying taxes until you realize the gains or benefit from those gains. What I do have a problem is capital gains being taxed at lower rates than standard income. The Bush Jr era capital gains tax reduction was the biggest giveaway to the rich that I can remember. I used to be against flat tax, but I'm starting to be a proponent. Tax all gains the same, remove the cap from SS/medicare tax and force everyone to pay it on all gains after a healthy standard deduction (~20-25K per family member). The only exception I may consider is gains from the appreciation of your homestead based on how long you have owned it.
I really think we need a major reform in our tax code. It needs to be flatter with far less deductions and treating all income the same.
20% VAT on new goods and services, each individual gets a 6k credit (so no tax on the first 30k of spending). The government has to have a budget that is less than the revenue generated and includes a reasonable schedule to pay off the debt. Easy to collect, easy to administer, fair to everyone.
I think the findings were released. I know many wanted to reform the tax code but it goes much deeper than that. After reading and listening to hours and hours of economics and finance, I've come to the conclusion that we as a society no longer know how to measure wealth.
These are widely available stats - but the top 10% of the country pay about 3/4 of the total federal income tax collected. So yes - small changes with that group can have a massive impact on the ability to pay of the debt.
I don't think you can get away from an income tax and still have enough tax revenue. It's simply too easy for the very wealthy to avoid a VAT by investing income vs spending it.
It depends on how much the Federal government spends. What is enough tax revenue? Are businesses just not going to buy materials? Ship things? Have lawyers and accountants? Poor people would be paying nothing in this scenario, because they wouldn't meet the spending threshold.
According to two former IRS chiefs, it's 500 billion to 1 trillion dollars just by collecting all tax evasion money from the wealthy a year. That's just evasion with no increase in tax rates. https://amp.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/06/15/a-former-irs-heads-plan-to-fix-the-tax-gap
