quote Originally posted by Toddster: A flat tax is not income based. At least most aren't. Some variations published by different economists and think tanks still base it on income but most do not. edit to clarify

Then please explain your idea of a flat tax because the conventional idea is what I posted above.

quote True flat rate income tax A true flat rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all income with no exceptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax

Tax rate would equal a percentage, that is constant, applied to income, a percentage that does not vary based on the amount of income.

[This message has been edited by Khw (edited 09-09-2011).]

quote Originally posted by Khw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax Tax rate would equal a percentage, that is constant, applied to income, a percentage that does not vary based on the amount of income.

Any tax system based on income is flawed and a disincentive. A consumption based tax is the only true way to tax people. It puts the power in your hands to make as much as you can make and KEEP IT ALL! You only pay tax when you buy, or consume something. If you wish to save money then you spend less. If you wish to buy a car you pay a tax, buy a couch, tax. If you buy a $10M mansion, a big ass tax!

It restores the ability to control your destiny to the tax payer

quote Originally posted by ray b: why do you guys repeatedly claim I want something from some one or that I hate the rich or do not understand them I grew up in a upper class world country and yacht clubs the detroit house was on the lake before that we lived in grosse point the house across the street was by frank lloyd wright guys like the owner of the phantom corsair came by we wintered in miami all winter every year my best friend was worth 20 million when he passed his grand dad started what became astro-zenica please keep you BS speculation to yourself

Soooo you knew rich people, are related to rich people and therefore could never have a problem with them?

Yea, sounds logical. have you ran this past your therapist?

Brad

quote Originally posted by Toddster: Any tax system based on income is flawed and a disincentive. A consumption based tax is the only true way to tax people. It puts the power in your hands to make as much as you can make and KEEP IT ALL! You only pay tax when you buy, or consume something. If you wish to save money then you spend less. If you wish to buy a car you pay a tax, buy a couch, tax. If you buy a $10M mansion, a big ass tax! It restores the ability to control your destiny to the tax payer

Ahh, okay. Your comment was in response to a flat tax. I did not realize you were talking consumption tax, hence why I asked for clarification.

how about a poll tax todd
those were nice and flat

but it figures you favor the most unfair taxes
consumption tax hits the little guy the hardest

quote Originally posted by twofatguys: Soooo you knew rich people, are related to rich people and therefore could never have a problem with them? Yea, sounds logical. have you ran this past your therapist? Brad

rich people have neat toys and like to play with them
how many big yachts have you been on
ever start a classic Bugatti
or drive a hemi cuda
hate them hell no they are fun

but I have lots of friends and know of no enemy
some are amazingly well off
others are dead broke


never have had a therapist
never beat the wife of 40 years
never borrowed for anything
but I have owned mortgages and sold on time payments
have often told friends you don't need to pay me
pay it forward [and 20 years before the movie!]

Ray, just how much do you spend on drugs?

quote Originally posted by Old Lar: Ray, just how much do you spend on drugs?

not much
this is miami

but lets attack me and not discuss ideas
that is a standard neo-con tactic
why engage in debate about an idea
when you can make up BS

that is the real

------------------
Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

[This message has been edited by ray b (edited 09-10-2011).]

To bad your parents didn't spend some of that money giving you an education so we could understand your posts without reading them 10 times.

So what your saying is I should be taxed for something I own every year for the rest of my life. That is the craziest liberal nonsense I've ever heard. I put that right up there with palosi wanting to tax everyone's 401k when they retire to give it to people who didn't bother to save. haha It's hard enough to save for retirement but now you want us to save more so we can pay a tax on what we retire with for the rest of our life.

One of my favorite quotes is by Margaret Thatcher. She said the problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other peoples money Think about it ray..I doubt you'll understand it but try anyway

He's a Bible verse for you to read Ray. Ecclesiastes 10:2

Curiosity killed the cat, so I guess I'm about to die. I'd need a % to really consider a consumption tax. Toddster, could you give me a % that you think a consumption tax would be set at? Now consider, this % would have to be enough to generate the revenue currently generated by taxing income, which is taxing what one earns, not just what one spends. So, lets really consider this based on what someone said earlier. The top 10% of earners pay 60% of the taxes.

Let's look at a basic income breakdown and what % is applied to that level of income for taxes.

20,000 - 2,163 - 10.8%
40,000 - 6,430 - 16%
60,000 - 11,430 - 19%
80,000 - 16,518 - 20.1%
100,000 - 22,104 - 22.1%

People making more then $350,000 are taxed at a rate of 35% on anything over the $350,000. (Based off a single earner income)

I would assume the top 10%, who pay 60% of the taxes are in the 22.1%+35% area. Now if 60% of the taxes are paid (on income which is what we are talking about replacing with a consumption tax) at those percentages, what % are we looking at for a consumption tax? I would imagine, personal opinion, that this consumption tax would have to be a rather high percent, like 25% or so, in order to approach the ability to come near what is collected on income. Looking at the idea that one could "opt out" by not spending or reducing their spending, how is that compatible with growing the economy? Wouldn't that hamper expansion?

I don't know, I see several problems with a consumption tax, many of which would hurt buisness and the working poor.

All of us that are citizens of the same country should pay equally for all that being a citizen means and includes. Everyone should pay the same percentage of their income to make things fair. Why should the 'poor' pay less for the same benefits of citizenship just because they make less money? That isn't fair to the rest of the citizens. Government size needs to be reduced and waste needs to be eliminated. No more earmarks, bailouts, or pork should be allowed. Much more would still need to be done, but this would be a good start.
A consumption tax would not work because people could just decide to not buy anything unless they absolutely needed it.

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 09-10-2011).]

quote Originally posted by ray b: not much this is miami

'cause in Miami the drugs are CHEAP?

quote Originally posted by fierobear: 'cause in Miami the drugs are CHEAP?

so I guess you got nothing but BS
typical con

quote Originally posted by ray b: so I guess you got nothing but BS typical con

No, ray, I've posted lots of info and facts for you to consider, and you give the same stock answers. Here, I was just teasing you.

quote Originally posted by ray b: consumption tax hits the little guy the hardest

Sorry I still cant see how you get that. Lets say a small town needs $15000 a month for expenses.

Little guy makes $1000 a month and spends it all to survive and pays 10% sales (consumption) tax or $100. Little guys outnumber rich guys 100:1.

Rich guy makes $100,000 and spends it all on cars, boats and parties, etc...and pays $10,000 in sales tax. Seems to me there both hurt the same percentage to me. Rich guy is paying most of the taxes....

quote Originally posted by rogergarrison: Rich guy is paying most of the taxes....

Hmmm...just like now.

The richest 1% pay 38% of all the taxes.

The richest 5% pay 59% of all the taxes

The richest 10% pay 70% of all the taxes

The richest 50% pay 97.3% of all taxes

and the bottom 50% pay 2.7% of all taxes.

The richest 10% only have 40% of the "wealth"


The "wealthy" already pay their share. The wealthy have the resources to take their money elsewhere (14T of American wealth is held in overseas accounts and will never come back to the USA because of the taxes implemented to "bring it back in")

Our society as we know it is walking a very fine line, teeter tottering on the edge of oblivion.

Heres what people dont understand or dont want to understand. Most of the wealth in this country is "old money". Those families are inherently wealthy, and may not pay much in taxes now, because that money has been taxed time and time again already. The thing is its impossible to "drain" those accounts per say, because compounding interest is the most powerful force in the universe.

The liberals that be, want to tax these people for what they have in wealth, which isnt right. What needs to be done is to release these people from governmental constraint and allow them to produce. These people will put people to work, and by expanding the tax paying base, they will receive more revenue. It doesnt take government programs and bills to create jobs. Jobs were created much before the government even existed.

I will leave my post at this final thought. If you keep taxing the rich and taxing the rich, where is the stopping point? The government will never stop until they have it all. Then where will the revenue come from? Everybody reading this think about this, have you ever had a job working for a poor person?

quote Originally posted by Toddster: Any tax system based on income is flawed and a disincentive. A consumption based tax is the only true way to tax people. It puts the power in your hands to make as much as you can make and KEEP IT ALL! You only pay tax when you buy, or consume something. If you wish to save money then you spend less. If you wish to buy a car you pay a tax, buy a couch, tax. If you buy a $10M mansion, a big ass tax! It restores the ability to control your destiny to the tax payer

Thank goodness someone has some sense.

Taxing should discourage consumption, not production...you tax consumption and you get less of it. You tax production and you get less of it. It's not hard to see that a country will be better off with more production and less consumption, especially in a global economy where supply and demand in a single country do not have to match, i.e. a heavy producer exports surplus goods to others.

It would also be near impossible to escape a consumption tax. But then again, we have armies of tax professionals and IRS agents that would never go for this so it'll never happen...

quote Originally posted by masospaghetti: Thank goodness someone has some sense. Taxing should discourage consumption, not production...you tax consumption and you get less of it. You tax production and you get less of it. It's not hard to see that a country will be better off with more production and less consumption, especially in a global economy where supply and demand in a single country do not have to match, i.e. a heavy producer exports surplus goods to others. It would also be near impossible to escape a consumption tax. But then again, we have armies of tax professionals and IRS agents that would never go for this so it'll never happen...

nice fantasy
and that is a major problem with tea-puppets
they do not like the real world
and refuse to see things as they are

in real world america of 2011
we comsume far more then we produce
we import containers full of 3 world junk
and export empty containers
or used scrap electronics

and sales tax hits workers harder then the upper class
but it is neo-con dogma to tax workers to death
while cutting tax on the top few


income or out go taxes are random
the true way to fairly tax is on wealth
but the right will not support a fair tax

[This message has been edited by ray b (edited 09-11-2011).]

quote Originally posted by rogergarrison: Sorry I still cant see how you get that. Lets say a small town needs $15000 a month for expenses. Little guy makes $1000 a month and spends it all to survive and pays 10% sales (consumption) tax or $100. Little guys outnumber rich guys 100:1. Rich guy makes $100,000 and spends it all on cars, boats and parties, etc...and pays $10,000 in sales tax. Seems to me there both hurt the same percentage to me. Rich guy is paying most of the taxes....

Rich guy doesn't buy cars, boats and parties and spends $1000 a month for survival and pays a consumption tax of $100 gets off at minimum tax levels. Car dealer, boat dealers and party supply business close down for lack of business, lay off all their employees and the employees join the Obama nation living off unemployment and the dole and now the town needs $150000 a month to pay for the larger numbers of the needy class, so they raise the consumption tax to 20% to increase the revenue.

A different senerio for a flat consumption tax.

quote Originally posted by Old Lar: Rich guy doesn't buy cars, boats and parties and spends $1000 a month for survival and pays a consumption tax of $100 gets off at minimum tax levels. Car dealer, boat dealers and party supply business close down for lack of business, lay off all their employees and the employees join the Obama nation living off unemployment and the dole and now the town needs $150000 a month to pay for the larger numbers of the needy class, so they raise the consumption tax to 20% to increase the revenue. A different senerio for a flat consumption tax.

Lets pretend the government needs a fixed amount of revenue to operate (a point of contention to be sure). The only thing is to decide WHERE it comes from, noting that whatever is taxed is effectively punished.

Do you want to punish income and production? You'd get less production and less incentive to work - a bad thing.
How about fuel, cars, boats, and parties? These things drain wealth from society and therefore are a better choice to tax than income.

Note i'm not saying owning cars or boats, burning fuel, or throwing parties are bad things at all!! I love cars and love V8's. But less face it, it's far better to tax (and reduce) cash outflows of society than the opposite.

quote you're discouraging saving and encouraging the destruction of wealth

That is the Socialists and liberals goal.

quote Originally posted by avengador1: That is the Socialists and liberals goal.

and the rightwing nazi's goal is for the few to have ownership of everything

balance is needed
but a single wing party will never find balance

When you remove the incentive to succeed and penalize the successful, you end up with a society of mediocraty. This is where the rays of the country live. A population that takes from someone else who has worked to succeed. The parsites, like ray, do not have the skill sets to succeed, but live off mommy and daddy's success and when that is gone, they want someone else to give them the money for their existance. A sad commentary on what this nation has become. Socialism fails when they run out of other peoples money to spend.

personal attacks abound
and only repeatedly prove your side has no real ideas

why do my tax ideas have anything to do with being a parasite
the country needs taxes to run
those who do not want to support our union
used to be call traitors
today they falsely claim to be patriots

other then a SS check when I reach that age
that I have paid into forever
I expect nothing from the feds

or nasty old farts on this board

quote Originally posted by ray b: personal attacks abound and only repeatedly prove your side has no real ideas why do my tax ideas have anything to do with being a parasite the country needs taxes to run those who do not want to support our union used to be call traitors today they falsely claim to be patriots other then a SS check when I reach that age that I have paid into forever I expect nothing from the feds or nasty old farts on this board

There has been versions of so called "Progressive flat tax" that usually ends up getting modified to fit a special interest. Reagan had it back in the late 80's when they finally got rid of all the crazy deductions you could do, like credit card interest. But all these credits and deductions came right back.

A flat tax would be great, but it would be short lived, because of special interest politics, you are bound to get a loophole to form or a credit for the Democrat poor.

Right now, half of adults in the USA pay no taxes at all and are in fact tax dollar recipients. So we have a socialist country taking care of 50% of Americans on the backs of those that pay.

We cannot afford it even if you tax billionaires and millionaires for everything they have. You have to reduce the people on the public dole, but that doesn't fair to well with Democrat politicians who often use and abuse the public welfare system to buy voters off.

Flat tax cannot help. The only thing that will work is a Fair Tax because it strips a lot of power away from politicians and lobbyist.

/\
Exactly. And as I said earlier, the plan Ray is pushing is neither a Flat or Fair Tax--and again, would result in a massive reduction in Govt's outlays and/or a huge increase in borrowing, but most likely would result in default within 5 years. It simply cannot raise enough tax revenue.

ya what your saying is not a flat tax at all. and truefully while tis simpler and would stop the higher ups on the ladder form cheating...altho they would find someway to do it eventually, a flat tax totally screws the lower and middle class.

for example lets just say 10% flat tax. 10% of a million is 100k and 10% of 10 thousand is 1k....who do you think is gonna miss that money more? the millionare or the guy bringing home 9k a year? thats why flat tax is not a good idea. but thats just my 2 cents.

quote Originally posted by Old Lar: Rich guy doesn't buy cars, boats and parties and spends $1000 a month for survival and pays a consumption tax of $100 gets off at minimum tax levels. Car dealer, boat dealers and party supply business close down for lack of business, lay off all their employees and the employees join the Obama nation living off unemployment and the dole and now the town needs $150000 a month to pay for the larger numbers of the needy class, so they raise the consumption tax to 20% to increase the revenue. A different senerio for a flat consumption tax.

As a general rule, rich people dont just 'survive'. They spend lavishly. Its extremely rare for someone rich to hoard their money. I see your senerio, but dont see it as realistic for that reason.

quote Originally posted by rogergarrison: As a general rule, rich people dont just 'survive'. They spend lavishly. Its extremely rare for someone rich to hoard their money. I see your senerio, but dont see it as realistic for that reason.

Sure, generally true. But the 'Luxury tax' of the early 90's killed some luxury companies completely. Cessna's corporate and small plane business was nearly crushed, and many niche luxury producers simply folded. Many yacht and boat companies went under, or at least the ones based in the U.S.A. that catered to the U.S. market.

'Rich' people can afford to make their big purchases in 'less hostile' areas. Just like they have no problem moving their businesses to 'less hostile' areas. And the 'well off, but not rich' simply stop buying as much.

quote As a general rule, rich people dont just 'survive'. They spend lavishly. Its extremely rare for someone rich to hoard their money. I see your senerio, but dont see it as realistic for that reason.

It's not as rare as you think. How do you think these people became rich? It wasn't by spending money lavishly. Even the rich know how to live within their means.

Must be different elsewhere. Rich I know spend it like theres no tomorrow. They throw birthday parties that cost thousands. One buys new cars galore and dont even drive...he has a driver/ security chauffeur for his limo. He has a $100K new Jag, a new Callaway Corvette, a new Suburban and a Harley custom Hog (like $75000). He hasnt moved them since he brought them home and dont even know how to ride a motorcycle (except to start it). Another I know has a new Cigarette boat with 3 - 502 Chevy motors. Closest lake is 10' deep. He took it out one time when he bought it 3 years ago, stored it since. I think it was something like $400,000. Thats what rich here do.

[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 09-12-2011).]

thats why i hope im never rich roger...you completly lose all respect for money at that point. now i would love to be secure finacially by all means dont get me wrong. but if it gets to the point were your just buying crap to buy crap....you have way to much money. i dont even like buying more than one video game at a time otherwise i end up not playing one.

Most of the rich people I know are frugal and that is how they became rich. One does not amass money by spending it all. I'm not talking rich like an oil sheik, but people whom are worth from a few million to several hundred million. Even Leona Helmsley was known to be frugal, to use her as an example.
I have also known people who flaunted their being rich. One of these in particular ended up having to move, because he shot an armed house invader. There we several of them that followed him home one night and robbed him and his guests of their money, jewelry, and cars. He managed to shoot and kill the last one as he was trying to leave in one of his BMWs. This guy moved out of fear of the dead guy's buddies coming back for revenge. This also happened to occur in a gated community of a very good part of town. Most rich people I know live a modest, but very comfortable life, and don't flaunt being rich, except for special social events.

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 09-12-2011).]

quote Originally posted by ray b: and the rightwing nazi's goal is for the few to have ownership of everything balance is needed but a single wing party will never find balance

Pray tell rayb, what is"balance"?

Let me guess, I work my ass off for a life time and you take most of my efforts as taxes because the fact that I have more than everyone else means it is unbalanced...despite the fact that I worked harder than the next guy...do I read you right?

Yeah, I thought so

People are all for redistribution until something they have is going to be redistributed to someone else.

A cookie in each hand is a balanced meal.