What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one

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mikecartwright
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02 Feb 2011, 3:33 am

What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one support it.

Progressive tax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases.[1][2][3][4][5] "Progressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from low to high, where the average tax rate is less than the marginal tax rate.[6][7] It can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole; a year, multi-year, or lifetime. Progressive taxes attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower ability-to-pay, as they shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay.

Progressive taxation often must be considered as part of an overall system since tax codes have many interdependent variables. For instance, the United States has a relatively low top marginal income tax rate of 35% when compared to other industrialized nations. However a 2008 OECD study found that when refundable tax credits other tax incentives are included across the entire income spectrum, the U.S. has the most progressive tax codes among its peer nations.[8]

The term is frequently applied in reference to personal income taxes, where people with more income pay a higher percentage of that income in tax than do those with less income. It can also apply to adjustment of the tax base by using tax exemptions, tax credits, or selective taxation that would create progressive distributional effects. For example, a sales tax on luxury goods or the exemption of basic necessities may be described as having progressive effects as it increases a tax burden on high end consumption or decreases a tax burden on low end consumption respectively.[9][10][11]

The opposite of a progressive tax is a regressive tax, where the relative tax rate or burden increases as an individual's ability to pay it decreases. Sales taxes are often criticized because low income households must pay a greater share of their disposable income to a sales tax than wealthier households.[12][13] In between is a proportional tax, where the tax rate is fixed as the amount subject to taxation increases.[5]

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



ruveyn
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02 Feb 2011, 10:50 am

mikecartwright wrote:
What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one support it.




It makes perfectly good sense. Who does one steal from? One steals from those who have something to be stolen.

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skafather84
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02 Feb 2011, 11:41 am

ruveyn wrote:
mikecartwright wrote:
What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one support it.




It makes perfectly good sense. Who does one steal from? One steals from those who have something to be stolen.

ruveyn



You're really buying hard into this whole class warfare thing, huh?

Yeah, I'd be pissed too if I only had $100,000 instead of $1,000,000 in yearly income.

Oh, wait! I wouldn't because it's still more than enough money to do pretty much anything I please and then some. Some people really need to read Brewster's Millions. :roll:


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ruveyn
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02 Feb 2011, 11:43 am

skafather84 wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
mikecartwright wrote:
What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one support it.




It makes perfectly good sense. Who does one steal from? One steals from those who have something to be stolen.

ruveyn



You're really buying hard into this whole class warfare thing, huh?

:


No. Governments have stolen money in order to operate for the past 10,000 years. It is a matter of historical fact.

There are only two classes. Those who steal/filch and those who produce.

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skafather84
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02 Feb 2011, 11:49 am

ruveyn wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
mikecartwright wrote:
What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one support it.




It makes perfectly good sense. Who does one steal from? One steals from those who have something to be stolen.

ruveyn



You're really buying hard into this whole class warfare thing, huh?

:


No. Governments have stolen money in order to operate for the past 10,000 years. It is a matter of historical fact.

There are only two classes. Those who steal/filch and those who produce.

ruveyn


Okay so it's simply a matter of your not understanding what money is and how it works. Do you know what money is? Do you know what gives it value? Do you know who owns it?


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ruveyn
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02 Feb 2011, 12:39 pm

skafather84 wrote:

Okay so it's simply a matter of your not understanding what money is and how it works. Do you know what money is? Do you know what gives it value? Do you know who owns it?


What is money then. I thought money is a universally accepted trade good. You probably have a different definition.

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xenon13
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02 Feb 2011, 9:47 pm

Money is something that governments demand as taxes. The same governments declare this to be legal tender, that it must be accepted when things are sold. As people must gather enough pieces of this money to pay the taxes this creates more demand for this money. They must produce things to sell for some of that money to pay the taxes. Taxes are the key to making money work. If the government says that taxes must be paid in gold, gold is money. If government creates pieces of paper with a picture on it and say pay your taxes in these pieces of paper, then that paper is money. And so forth.



ruveyn
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02 Feb 2011, 9:54 pm

xenon13 wrote:
Money is something that governments demand as taxes. The same governments declare this to be legal tender, that it must be accepted when things are sold. As people must gather enough pieces of this money to pay the taxes this creates more demand for this money. They must produce things to sell for some of that money to pay the taxes. Taxes are the key to making money work. If the government says that taxes must be paid in gold, gold is money. If government creates pieces of paper with a picture on it and say pay your taxes in these pieces of paper, then that paper is money. And so forth.


And what if people do non-monetary barter. What can the government do about it?

If what you say is true and people chose not to trade in money the government cannot collect. All they can do is take physical goods in payment of tax.

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visagrunt
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03 Feb 2011, 6:28 pm

ruveyn wrote:
And what if people do non-monetary barter. What can the government do about it?

If what you say is true and people chose not to trade in money the government cannot collect. All they can do is take physical goods in payment of tax.

ruveyn


No. The Gray Market is just as taxable as any other market. If you enter into a contract with another person to exchange services in lieu of monetary payment for either service, the government can assign a fair market value to that service and deem both parties to have accrued revenue in that amount.


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03 Feb 2011, 7:51 pm

Actually its true that in pure barter trade things get considerable harder. This is why we invented money.

Even in pure barter trade stuff have a price. People try to balance out with stuff instead with money. Good luck with doing that.

But we can conceive taxes even in barter trade.

In practice the system very fast will fall back in using gold, or what ever is rare enough to be used like currency. Its easier to balance out with nuggets of gold, then with live chickens.

The problem with any form of money system, is that money generates money. Its structurally unstable. If you don't throw in taxation or laws to control the income of the rich. In the end a single person will own everything. Of course you'll have civil war far before that stage.



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03 Feb 2011, 8:33 pm

I think progressive taxation is BS and that generational poverty needs to be dealt with by addressing the culture of poverty rather than through entitlements and handouts. Yes I do believe society should have a safety net, but the safety net is too easily abused as a comfort net.

@ xenon13: Taxes don't make people work harder if they're already working as hard as they can, it simply bottlenecks the rate at which they make investments since they are left with less money for investments after taxes and operating costs. Effort doesn't just go into how many hours you work, but also what type of investments you make and progressive taxing hampers the rate at which people make investments big time.



marshall
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03 Feb 2011, 8:39 pm

Drapetomaniac wrote:
The problem with any form of money system, is that money generates money. Its structurally unstable. If you don't throw in taxation or laws to control the income of the rich. In the end a single person will own everything. Of course you'll have civil war far before that stage.

Exactly. The more money one accumulates the bigger advantage they have in terms of being able to bargain for their gain at the expense of those with less. Anyone who has played the game of Monopoly understands this.



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03 Feb 2011, 8:43 pm

God monopoly is a horrible game, 8 hours of BS breaking of the rules.(my family lacks the patience to play monopoly without cheating) We no longer play monopoly anymore. Risk is much better as long as everyone is present throughout the game.



ruveyn
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03 Feb 2011, 9:19 pm

visagrunt wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
And what if people do non-monetary barter. What can the government do about it?

If what you say is true and people chose not to trade in money the government cannot collect. All they can do is take physical goods in payment of tax.

ruveyn


No. The Gray Market is just as taxable as any other market. If you enter into a contract with another person to exchange services in lieu of monetary payment for either service, the government can assign a fair market value to that service and deem both parties to have accrued revenue in that amount.


First the government has to prove its case.

During WW2 the Federal Government was unable to stop the black market in the U.S.A. and the counterfeiting of ration stamps.. The first thing you learn about government is that it is incompetent and corrupt. Everything else follow from that.

We have had government and cops for over 10,000 years and there is still crime.

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03 Feb 2011, 11:13 pm

visagrunt wrote:
No. The Gray Market is just as taxable as any other market. If you enter into a contract with another person to exchange services in lieu of monetary payment for either service, the government can assign a fair market value to that service and deem both parties to have accrued revenue in that amount.


Which gray markets are you shopping at? The ones I've seen have mostly been pretty informal, small business owners trading goods and services without anything but handshakes and the like. As a long time "tipped" worker with shady friends, I can attest to a healthy shadow market in off the books transactions going on without any taxation or regulation, and not just in illicit goods either.


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04 Feb 2011, 7:54 am

ruveyn wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
Money is something that governments demand as taxes. The same governments declare this to be legal tender, that it must be accepted when things are sold. As people must gather enough pieces of this money to pay the taxes this creates more demand for this money. They must produce things to sell for some of that money to pay the taxes. Taxes are the key to making money work. If the government says that taxes must be paid in gold, gold is money. If government creates pieces of paper with a picture on it and say pay your taxes in these pieces of paper, then that paper is money. And so forth.


And what if people do non-monetary barter. What can the government do about it?

If what you say is true and people chose not to trade in money the government cannot collect. All they can do is take physical goods in payment of tax.

ruveyn


The government can order such people to pay taxes in the money. They will find some money. As for barter, they won't get money to pay taxes from it so this is dissuaded - I mean they need to find some money and they won't get any with barter. When someone shows up with the currency to buy something, the seller must accept it or else end up in a dungeon.