America going broke, I say flat tax
 

Please try to sway me from the idea of running a flat 7% across the board. The way I see it, if this were implemented we would start pulling out of debt slowley but surely.

NY janitor making $33,000 a year pays an effective tax rate of 25%. And the effective tax rate for a resident of the Park Avenue building, earning an average of $1.2 million annually? A cool 14.7%

http://www.google.com/url?source=img...6b8cYkJsqPAI4Q

-Buts ... buts... the janitor only has to pay like 8,000 and you want ME to give you 250,000?

-yes

-But ... erm...

-Shut up and pay your share

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I'm kind of interested and upbeat about the collective of rich folks, headed by Bill Gates I believe, that is campaigning for higher taxes on themselves and their tax bracket to pay their fair share.

And what's funny is they're saying "What?! Shut up, shut up! Sheesh. Keep your money, we'll figure out a better way" ... because they're not having any luck convincing them to let them pay their fair share yet.

Everyone should get zapped 22% of their earnings until we get our **** together. I'm poor and I'm for raising taxes on everybody. I don't mind. I've been living paycheck to paycheck for 6 years now. I already get taxed at 20% roughly. I take home a whopping 11k a year after taxes. I eats a lotta canned food :p:

Make it X% for everyone, so that the rich can't "But, but..." and close some damn tax loopholes FIRST

I also think it'd probably be a good idea to more closely monitor who gets Welfare benefits, food stamps (EBT) and the like.

My best friend's fiancee's sister has food stamps + is on welfare, yet she drives a 2010 Mustang and she and her husband both have iPhones and new laptops, and go out to eat at like, Red Lobster at least twice a week.

It would be pretty sweet if they actually monitored whether or not they were incurring necessary expenses in order to receive the benefits, like watching closely where the income goes.

I'm not against people having nice things, I just think that too many people abuse government benefits and **** things up for everyone doing things like this. I know plenty of people who aren't receiving any government aid who don't do the things they do. Ridiculous.

And yes - the taxing of all Americans is something that would be pretty damn helpful.

Well I live from welfare benefits and I can assure you there's no way I'm going to be able to live that expensive from... What's it... 1200 dollars a month.
Because of the province I live in I can buy a semi-attached house with a lot of help from my parents and a mortgage. But that's just my luck.
Eitherway, they do monitor these benefits very closely here. It's tough. Sometimes there's a thin line between being able to work and not being able to work. Especially for cases like me. At first glance I seem perfectly 'normal', but still...

Eitherway, it's a risky thing to decide who can has a benefit or not. But listening to your story I think there should indeed be some stricter rules there. I am just so afraid for the lives of the people who's need for such a benefit gets misjudged :(

I actually emailed my professor weeks ago, and just moments ago emailed my entire Sociology class about something we read in one of our books about taxes. It was a graph showing that from 1970 basically everyone's taxes have increased at the same rate with the exception of the rich. They've definitely gotten the most tax break... Which seems unfair and retarded to me since they are making the most money. If I can locate that graph I'll post it, I remember being pretty shocked by it.

With welfare... Here's the thing. Welfare gets abused a lot and I do think it should be monitored way more closely. The majority of people don't abuse it and legit need it to survive. THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH WELFARE is that it doesn't give most people much of an incentive to strive to better themselves.

Let's take an example... A woman with three kids gets government assistance. She has a low paying job and hardly any education. She is a single mother who doesn't get child support check regularly (another huge issue which needs fixed). She works hard over the years and gets a small raise. YAY! Well not really, because if that raise puts her over a certain amount of income, she loses government assistance. So they counter each other out. She either has the same amount, or even less money from working hard for a raise because the government assistance got dropped.

So what's the incentive to be socially mobile?? Make more money so you can lose welfare assistance. Does anyone else see the problem here?


Also s_k I don't know you personally obviously. But I really can't bring myself to see how you couldn't hold a job. You sit around all day and collect a government check without any apparent desire to hold a job. It sounds to me like your own laziness or something is preventing you from working. It's hard for me to believe you couldn't be a janitor or do some kind of low end job. Maybe deep down you just don't want to do a low end job so you sit around all day and collect your government aid. And I know you'll say "you don't quite understand how i function :):):)" but I'm just callin it like I see it. You aren't retarded.

I think too many people get too many government benefits for retarded reasons.

One simple question: Would you hire me from what you know about me now?

Fuck no I wouldn't hire you, but that has more to do with my worries regarding smiley face graffiti all over the walls and inappropriate hugging of every female that walks through the door.

Seriously though, I jut consider you a weird guy from what I know (and you may think I am weird, no offense taken on my apart). It doesn't seem to me like you have a debilitating disorder or that you can't function normally enough to do some sort of job. Again, I don't know you personally but you seem to have generally well thought out ideas and you aren't mentally retarded and I really just don't see how you couldn't hold a job. I do think some of it may be laziness since you seem content without even trying anymore.

I just think it's weak to live off the government and not try to somehow benefit society and just get complacent collecting a check for doing nothing

Let's put it this way; I was even told to **** off at places where I worked voluntarily.
They (reïntegration) have officially told me it's impossible to get me a job.

I'm not so sure about that, so I'm keeping my eyes open for opportunities all the time.
But it's completely useless to do this the regular way. There's millions of people in this country and most of them are a lot easier to handle as an employee.

My last job was at an institution for mentally disabled people. E.g. down syndrome and such. I was (literally!) told that I provided them with more problems than the down syndrome people. I don't really see why myself, but that's usually exactly the point. People somehow don't know how to handle me. I don't see what I do wrong, they don't even see what I do wrong, they just want to get rid of me.

Eitherway, things like that are killing me. And I'm not going to go trough nerve-wrecking job interviews that cost me months of my life, these things really destroy me, only to find out after a couple of months that they don't want me to work there anymore. It's just not worth it. At this point in time I work all day long for my friends, forum etc. I don't think I'm abusing the money I get in any way. I do think though that a lot more effort should be put by the government in getting people like me to work. It should be possible, but in the current dutch climate there really isn't space for people who are even the slightest bit different.

But as I said, I keep my eyes open. I know some people with companies who know about my situation, I drink coffee in my local record store regularly, just waiting for one of them to offer me a job (I don't care if I get paid, I just like to do something 'real').

Eitherway. I hope you understand a bit more now.
But, Dirty. Whatever you do, never ever call me lazy again.
Because that's just bull**** coming from someone who hasn't got the slightest idea what he's on about. Not getting paid for a job doesn't mean not doing anything.

I don't mind explaining a bit, but you probably shouldn't jump to conclusions BEFORE you let me explain.

P.s.: Would you like to trade your job for being a full-time autist? I would, regardless of what your job is.

1. Yes, flat tax is a good idea, at least as far as taxes go.

2. The economy crisis lies within the perpetual bailouts of failed banking.

The rich don't even pay taxes. I mean, that is why they have Swiss Bank Accounts, you know.

Really, Rich people are geniuses at tax evasion. I heard at one point the owner of Coca Cola gave himself a 1$ a year wage, and made all of his money of untaxed stock gains(See that's why we have a stock market).

You could abolish income tax for the poor entirely. I mean, after all, if Bill Gates wanted to, he could probably send every citizen in America a thousand dollar check in the mail. Problem is, the sneaky ****s at the top know how to cheat the system. In fact, that's why our economy crashed in the first place.

Steve Jobs does the same thing. He takes a buck for his yearly salary and makes the rest off of the 5-6 million shares he holds in Apple Computers. At the end of 2010, all of those stock holdings were worth approximately $2 billion. Two billion dollars of untaxed revenue!

Steve Jobs' salary is just $1, but his Apple stock is soaring - The Globe and Mail

That, and also the fact that American banks are not regulated by the government, so they can do whatever the hell they want when it comes to mortgage rates and investments. Also, the Federal Reserve is separate from the government, almost like a third-party actor, and it doesn't help that interest rates are determined by a non-governmental institution.

I don't actually think that's true.

You ever hear of the Marginal Propensity to Save? Basically, the cost of living is (X) and income is (Y). (X) is constant, and the greater (Y) gets above (X), the lower % of income is spent.

So, someone making - say - $30k a year spends more of their income than someone making $250k a year, meaning Joe $30k is more stimulative for the economy. So, logically, taking 7% from Joe $30k has a starker economic impact than taking 14% from Mr. $250k.

While there are many problem with America's tax code, the "income tax" in the contemporary USA has devolved into, largely, a tax on working. It doesn't make sense to tax inheritance less than a paycheck, or dividends (for non-retirees).

It is problematic, but you're forgetting that "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" (TANF, the program you mistakingly call 'welfare'), is not unlimited and has conditions that must be met for it to be dispensed. Welfare Reform under Clinton ensured that nobody can recieve Federal funds, from this program, indefinetely.

You're saying that the economic crisis was a result of the wealthy avoiding taxes, not a gigantic credit bubble which was international in scope?

1) Banks are regulated by the Federal Government, as well as State Governments. This is why smart shoppers take note of what State their bank calls home.

2) It's a good thing the Federal Reserve is not polititicized, otherwsie we'd have interest rates manipulated by politicians for crass, short term political gain. The last thing we'd want to do is subject monetary policy to the horrors of the election cycle.

Would 7% be the only tax or the only Federal Tax?

They are somewhat. That's why Swiss Bank accounts are so popular. They're anonymous, and tax free.

Perfect for your tycoon and druglord.

For ****s sake.

How does this money get to Switzerland without being accounted for? If they managed to sneak it in, how would they then manage to access the funds with no one noticing?

...

You do realize that we're not talking about dollar bills or gold bars or stuff like that? Transfer money from one acount into another. Done.

And reported by the bank to the government.

Everyone has a paper trail, and if you're going to be making a transfer from one account to another, or even just making a straight cash deposit into your Swiss bank account, there has to be a transfer number involved somewhere.

And how many transfer numbers does that amount to in a year? And how many resources does the government have to check it? And how much are the Government even allowed to check on these without consent or suspicion?

Though, admittedly, I'm not American. You might have some very weird laws on privacy. But it's such an enourmus amount of information, and I didn't think that you were allowed to just make random searches on it, and then, I can easily see how people can not notice.

Well, I guess as long as the transactions are kept secret, nobody will find out, right?

And I'm not American either, so I don't have a clear idea of US privacy laws.

Well, many smaller amounts of money can be transferred from many sources.

Oh facepalm.

You know what? Let's put that questionable logic aside.

Ok, you've managed to succesfully transfer funds from Europe to the USA with no one being onto you. What then? You won't be able to invest the money; and, obviously, this applies to more than the stock market and bonds and what have you. No real estate. Anything that'd require substantial insurance is out of the question. So, congrats - you can't grow your money. (Y)

Further, since 9/11 the USA hsa "convinced" other nations (yes, including Switzerland) to disclose sketchy account activity. So, you'd have to duck not only domestic agencies, but international organizations and agencies of the nation you're drawing the fund from.

I mean, FFS... you do realize the most commonly held bachelor degree held by FBI agents is accounting, right?

Judging by the comments here I don't think people really understand how offshore tax havens work so allow me to explain as simply as I can.

Let's say you own a business in the U.S.
Now let's assume one year you make a nice profit on that business, you have to pay tax to the U.S. government on that profit, there's no getting away from that so you do so.

So now you have your perfectly legal taxed profit. So what you do is what any sensible business man does, you put it in the bank to gain interest.
Problem is if you do this in an American based bank you're going to get stung for tax again on the interest those profits generate. So you simply register a company on an offshore tax haven such as the Channel Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda or Liechtenstein. There you can leave your profits generate high levels of interest and because the money has nothing to do with the U.S. government they can't touch it.
You can also stick your companies assets in there too and then they become exempt from tax too.

And then finally you can choose to re-locate there and then that means you can transfer your companies profits to your own bank account and avoid the government getting their hands on that in income tax as well.

So basically you don't need secret bank accounts or smuggled gold bars because you can avoid paying 2 lots of tax perfectly legally.

Of course it's much more complex than that but that's the basic set up.

As Janszoon pointed out, that's simply not true. Well, the banks themselves may be private, but the banking system in which they work is heavily regulated, which is why we're facing such a vast financial crisis.

The US needs Donald Trump to take charge and tell the Chinese who's boss. Let OPEC know that we the west are not going to pay thier prices. Get the US out of debt. Like he says, "everybody knows I'm a smart guy and I have a great, great company."

Like Obama said, " a sideshow and a carnival barker." Trump has gone into bankruptcy four times and has ripped off thousands investors and this guy is leading in the GOP polls. :yikes: This man is dangerous, delusional, and a criminal.

Can he really be serious about running for the president of the US?

Thank you for this. I was going to post something similar to this after reading the first two pages.

Another thing that I would like to clear up that people have a misconception about.

Income earned from the stock market is NOT untaxed. Sure, it's not fully taxed like regular income but it is still partly taxed. The two taxes that you don't have to pay on income earned through the stock market is social security and medicare tax. You have to pay the other two taxes though.

It's not a knock on Bill Gates. Only trying to illustrate the massive gap between top, and bottom.

As for the annonymous accounts, I do believe they exist. I do believe there is a concept of hiding money away undetected. Anybody who doesn't is naive. I mean, drug lords have to keep their money somewhere.

Besides, even for the open tax evasion, it shows how powerless our ultra-right wing system is to tycoons, really.

You're forgetting that the USA is unique in that we tax overseas profits of individuals and corporations. So, even if you did have it generating a nice profits overseas, bringing the money (or goods purchased with the money) back to the USA will result in your ass getting nailed with fees and/or federal penitentiary time.

This is why, during the most recent Tax season, the IRS was offering mitigated penalties to people who were not-disclosing funds they had stashed overseas.

The money gets laundered so they can actually put it to use and prevent repossession of their ****.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but when you get busted for dealing any appreciable amount, you don't just have to deal with the drug charges. They estimate how much your drugs were worth, how much income you didn't disclose to Uncle Sam, and then proceed to - basically - take all your (valuable) **** you can't account for having paid for with clean funds.

...hence why they launder the money, so they can provide a proper paper trail that can be used in their defense.

I believe I already covered that.
You want to get out of paying that you base yourself in one of those places and become a tax exile.
Something I hear is becoming more & more predominant in American business. Hell even the UK offers better tax breaks than the U.S. currently and it seems that U.S. businessmen have not been slow to notice this.

I'm pretty much loving the fact that the US dollar is worth less than the Australian dollar at the moment, been buying loads of stuff from America for tres cheap! :laughing:

But in seriousness, I don't really know much about the US economy but why is the US dollar plummeting so low? Is it because of debt? Or has it got more to do with interest rates?

One reason, if not the reason:

YouTube - Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis

The U.S. dollar is currently worth ~95 cents for one Canadian dollar, so American products are slightly cheaper than they would be if sold here. But I think I'm going to wait until it drops a little more so I can get a real good discount!

I'm impressed with the New Zealand dollar right now, it's a good time for me to shop online. But we are in the shitter in regards to our economy so don't feel bad America it's not just you.

The devaluation of the dollar is a good thing; amongst other items, it devalues America's debt & reduces the trade deficit.

Dotoar; could you please post a link to text or kindly summarize your position? I don't feel like sitting through 40+ minutes of half ass video when I've a suspicion it's just going to dole out Libertarian idiocy.

Its because they're printing a ****load out. Look up quantitative easing.

If I had 100, $1 bills out in circulation yesterday. And tomorrow I have 200, $1 bills in circulation, those bills are about .50 cents.

I could, but it still would be libertarian idiocy. You're welcome to discuss the subject seriously and without invectives the next time around.

Debating Libertarians has the same pitfalls as debating Marxists; most important of which is that both groups absolutely refuse to acknowledge historical precedent (as is relevant to each ideology), usually by claiming something along the lines of (A) that system as put in place wasn't sufficiently ideologically pure and (B) the persons implementing the ideology lacked the courage to fully implement it. This is when they even accept the validity of such methods; god knows Libertarians love their axioms.

Libertarianism is a sham; it's a crackpot ideology that has been thoroughly disgraced. It's not by accident that fewer than 10% of economists self describe as libertarian. I could go on and on but....

...let's be succinct and say Libertarianism is the last remnant of the cult of Modernism. Mises, Rand - they will take their place next to Le Corbusier, Marx, and the rest of that oh so boorish crowd.