Income

youbet said:
Actually, we need to tax everything more. We already tax everything.
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Then why Hollande is still able to look for more taxes, while we know that France already has more taxes than the US does?

Oh, I got it. We need to tax everything twice. Thrice would be better. For example, in the case of home brewers, we already tax the ingredients he buys, but we need to tax once more at the final product that he consumes, similar to a value added tax.
 
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REWahoo said:
No we don't. There is no tax on taxes. Think of the revenue opportunity!
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Isn't a tax surcharge kind of a tax on a tax?

Anyway..... tax on taxes..... indeed, a great revenue opportunity!
 
youbet said:
I'd like to see some forms of wealth taxed more heavily, real estate for example. Easy to do and folks are getting a huge bargain today on their McMansions and estate size properties.
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Well, not really. All of my neighbors with similar sized homes pay 1/3-1/2 what I do in property tax. The reason is that property tax here is assessed at the time of purchase or building completion. We built. All in, we spent about $850k to buy the land and build. When completed it was assessed at a cool million. It keeps going up with CPI. When original builders and homeowners in the neighborhood started leaving due to short sales and foreclosures, homes started selling for $325k-425k. Values are back up to maybe $600-650k now, but I'm still paying twice as much as most of the neighborhood. That's fine when my home is REALLY that much more valuable, but when it is arbitrary and automatic based on original price instead of current value, that is a problem. I'd challenge mine, but word is that there are very few successful challenges around here. I don't mind paying my fair share, but we do need a better system of figuring out "fair".

R
 
REWahoo said:
No we don't. There is no tax on taxes. Think of the revenue opportunity!
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Now you're talking! The feds could tax the states on the income they receive from their taxpayers, the states could tax their counties and municipalities, etc. They'll raise their own tax rates to make up for the lost revenues, but that's making things more local, which is usually better.

Also, what about churches? Totally untaxed! If taxing commerce isn't considered a restriction on it, if taxing newspapers isn't seen as a restriction of freedom of the press, I don't see how taxing churches could be seen as inhibiting the free exercise of religion.

We must find more ways to feed the incessant hunger of the spending machine!
 
Rambler said:
Well, not really. All of my neighbors with similar sized homes pay 1/3-1/2 what I do in property tax. The reason is that property tax here is assessed at the time of purchase or building completion. We built. All in, we spent about $850k to buy the land and build. When completed it was assessed at a cool million. It keeps going up with CPI. When original builders and homeowners in the neighborhood started leaving due to short sales and foreclosures, homes started selling for $325k-425k. Values are back up to maybe $600-650k now, but I'm still paying twice as much as most of the neighborhood. That's fine when my home is REALLY that much more valuable, but when it is arbitrary and automatic based on original price instead of current value, that is a problem. I'd challenge mine, but word is that there are very few successful challenges around here. I don't mind paying my fair share, but we do need a better system of figuring out "fair".


R
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I'd appeal. Even here in politically corrupt Illinois, similar homes with significantly different accessments are commonly adjusted to similar accessments during appeals. Your situation would irritate me, as it does you.

But what I was refering to as "easy" about taxing real estate is the fact that the system is already widely in place. Unlike, say, taxing art collections, where there is no existing system, real estate taxation can be increase by simply dialing up the numbers.
 
Tax the poor. There are so many of them, and we can use tax policy to discourage people from choosing a poverty lifestyle.
 
M Paquette said:
Tax the poor. There are so many of them, and we can use tax policy to discourage people from choosing a poverty lifestyle.
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Now you're just being facetious. lol
 
Good discussion... Let me throw out a thought.

Let's suppose that the average family size is 3 persons... that you are age 30, and that your family could get along reasonably well on $200,000 a year. Now let's suppose that as the Partiarch ( or Matriarch) you wanted to insure your extended family's welfare to the third generation.
You have 60 years to live. 60X $200K = 12 million dollars
Next generation has 90 years to live. 90X $200K = 18 million dollars
Next generation. 90X $200K = 18 million dollars

Total 48 Million Dollars.

If, all wealth after that first $48 million were used for the operation of government, and to pay for the current federal debt...

Just thinking out loud.
 
The idea of heavy inheritance tax is not new, and has been proposed before, and particularly aimed at the billionaires who could not possibly spend it all. But I gave it some thought, and not being an economist, just want to throw out some ideas for discussion.

Most of the networth of people like Bill Gates is in the stock of their companies. Even if they have diversified out to equities of other companies, it is not a bundle of cash that the goverment can just grab and to redistribute to pay off debts.

So, if the gummint seizes a big chunk of Microsoft or any other large corporation via the shares that these billionaires hold, what does it do with it? Will the gummint take the role of a part-owner and sit on the board of the company to manage it? Even if the gummint can pull that off (by assigning some bureaucrats to become managers of that corporation), it can only get the income from the operation. It will not be the 100s of billion that the asset is worth on paper.

So, you say let's sell it off to turn it into cash. It will have to be spread out over a time period like 6 months or 1 year, to avoid dumping it and causing its value to crash. But who's the buyer? These "poor people" who do not have any money to start with, or other billionaires? But why other billionaires bother to buy anything if it would be taken from them too eventually?

So, will the buyers be mostly foreigners like the Chinese, who are getting richer everyday, and they can get to pass to their children as it is now? So, won't the "poor people" end up working for foreigners?
 
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NW-Bound said:
....And what's this homebrew stuff? Tax them too, for crying out loud. Got to hire more BATF agents to look for these future tax cheaters.
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Easy now! I pay tax on all of my homebrew ingredients, except a little bit of wheat I get from the local farmer. Maybe I should have to purchase carbon credits to offset the pollution I caused by brewing with propane.
 
Ronstar said:
Maybe I should have to purchase carbon credits to offset the pollution I caused by brewing with propane.
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See how many new taxes we just came up with, after such a short brainstorming session? I hope some French taxmen are surfing this forum. It will give them more ideas. :D
 
We already have large numbers of people who spend more energy on fiddling benefits and subsidies, no need to create another huge class doing this.

Losers would favor it; the productive not so much.

Ha
 
NW-Bound said:
The idea of heavy inheritance tax is not new, and has been proposed before, and particularly aimed at the billionaires who could not possibly spend it all. But I gave it some thought, and not being an economist, just want to throw out some ideas for discussion.

Most of the networth of people like Bill Gates is in the stock of their companies. Even if they have diversified out to equities of other companies, it is not a bundle of cash that the goverment can just grab and to redistribute to pay off debts.

So, if the gummint seizes a big chunk of Microsoft or any other large corporation via the shares that these billionaires hold, what does it do with it? Will the gummint take the role of a part-owner and sit on the board of the company to manage it? Even if the gummint can pull that off (by assigning some bureaucrats to become managers of that corporation), it can only get the income from the operation. It will not be the 100s of billion that the asset is worth on paper.

So, you say let's sell it off to turn it into cash. It will have to be spread out over a time period like 6 months or 1 year, to avoid dumping it and causing its value to crash. But who's the buyer? These "poor people" who do not have any money to start with, or other billionaires? But why other billionaires bother to buy anything if it would be taken from them too eventually?

So, will the buyers be mostly foreigners like the Chinese, who are getting richer everyday, and they can get to pass to their children as it is now? So, won't the "poor people" end up working for foreigners?
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Yeah... I was trying to think through the same thing, and of course it would be complicated, but turning assets over to government would not be a necessity... either as cash or as investment instruments. No reason to stop the "billionaire" from owning or managing the assets... his choice. In effect, it would be be a "tax" ... not unlike the 95% excess profits revenue tax of 1943.

Am not very good at this stuff, so my "take" may be wrong.:blush:
 
Sarah in SC said:
Jonathan Swift had some good ideas for what to do about the poor, didn't he?
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Ah, satire. Problem with Swift was that he was so over the top that his satire was obvious. More of a Andy Kaufman fan here.
 
imoldernu said:
Yeah... I was trying to think through the same thing, and of course it would be complicated, but turning assets over to government would not be a necessity... either as cash or as investment instruments. No reason to stop the "billionaire" from owning or managing the assets... his choice. In effect, it would be be a "tax" ... not unlike the 95% excess profits revenue tax of 1943.

Am not very good at this stuff, so my "take" may be wrong.:blush:
Click to expand...

I just thought of an analogy.

If a goose is productive and laying good eggs and they do not have to be gold, we can take some of the eggs but would not want to kill the goose. The assets of the deceased billionaire should be kept in the form that will stay productive. If the gummint takes over or disbands it, that chance is slim.
 
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youbet said:
I'd like to see some forms of wealth taxed more heavily, real estate for example. Easy to do and folks are getting a huge bargain today on their McMansions and estate size properties.
Click to expand...

It's a little surprising to me that property taxes are flat, not progressive. The McMansions pay more, based on assessed value, but all at the same rate as the shack in the same county.



Gatordoc50 said:
Good point. Let's stop taxing income. Makes no sense.
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As long as we're all talking about things that will never happen, I'm surprised no one has mention the Federal Sales Tax (unless I missed it).

I believe it addresses all the issues presented by the OP. Whether you have a $50,000 COLA pension and spend it all, or have $2,000,000 in 'wealth' and draw a conservative 2.5% (so also $50,000) and spend it all, you would pay the same amount in FST.

That seems about as 'fair' as you can get to me, acknowledging that 'fair' is a loaded term. I'd say that what you actually spend is a better measure of your 'wealth' - it equalizes the pensioners and the savers and everyone in-between.

-ERD50
 
NW-Bound said:
... And what's this homebrew stuff? Tax them too, for crying out loud. Got to hire more BATF agents to look for these future tax cheaters.
Click to expand...

heh-heh, it's 'worse' than you think. Most of the beer ingredients I buy are classified as 'food', and the sales tax is at the lower food rate.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said...
That seems about as 'fair' as you can get to me, acknowledging that 'fair' is a loaded term. I'd say that what you actually spend is a better measure of your 'wealth' - it equalizes the pensioners and the savers and everyone in-between."]That seems about as 'fair' as you can get to me, acknowledging that 'fair' is a loaded term. I'd say that what you actually spend is a better measure of your 'wealth' - it equalizes the pensioners and the savers and everyone in-between.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm...
So if I earn $50K and you earn $1Million:
I'll be paying 6% of my pay for food... $3K Will you pay 6% or $60K?
I'll pay $2000 for gasoline... How much will you be spending?
My Internet and phone cost $2K or 4%... Will you be paying $40K
If my car costs $20K, will you be paying $400,000?

For a while, I had a neighbor who was earning a rather high base salary... over $600K... His spending was more than mine, but nowhere near THAT much more...

So if I spend 70% of my salary on taxable items, will Jamie Dimon do the same?

Or maybe I'm missing something... A change to Sales tax seems to be a favorite option for many members of congress. :confused:
 
How about we just tax id10ts, start with ones in the public view that don't add value, maybe ones our taxes pay for :).

MRG
 
We have to define "idiot" first. We have not been able to reach a consensual definition of "rich", who needs to be taxed more. How about "rich is he who can retire early"?

So, I thought that perhaps we should all be taxed more. Absolutely no consensus there!
 
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