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TM
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15 Apr 2012, 7:23 pm

Vigilans wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Incidentally, one has the option of immigrating to Somalia to avoid the grave violation that are taxes.


Equating those who want to pay less taxes with a tribal warzone is more than a bit of a stretch.


You could also try the Korean DMZ


Or, you know Monaco, beaches, nice wines, hot women and a government that figured out "Hey, if we kind of not suck at our jobs, we can figure out ways to make money without taxiing people without services suffering"



TM
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15 Apr 2012, 7:26 pm

ruveyn wrote:
TM wrote:
There is only 1 kind of public money and that is money gained by the government for managing the resources that belong to the public, IE public property. Taxes are more or less telling people "Hi, we have more people who can be violent against you and not get punished for it since we allow them to do, so give us cash"


When the gumbahs of the Mafia run a protection racket we call it criminal activity. When the government does it, it is public policy. When the rich are robbed under the pretense of helping the poor it is even called Compassion.

ruveyn


The thing is, governments can make money without resorting to taxing positive things such as income, savings and investments. However, it requires that they think more business-like when it comes to income and expenditures.



Vigilans
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15 Apr 2012, 7:28 pm

TM wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Incidentally, one has the option of immigrating to Somalia to avoid the grave violation that are taxes.


Equating those who want to pay less taxes with a tribal warzone is more than a bit of a stretch.


You could also try the Korean DMZ


Or, you know Monaco, beaches, nice wines, hot women and a government that figured out "Hey, if we kind of not suck at our jobs, we can figure out ways to make money without taxiing people without services suffering"


Nah, I prefer wilderness to a European city, high class hookers and alcohol. Monaco is a cool place nonetheless


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AstroGeek
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15 Apr 2012, 8:38 pm

Tequila wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Incidentally, one has the option of immigrating to Somalia to avoid the grave violation that are taxes.


Equating those who want to pay less taxes with a tribal warzone is more than a bit of a stretch.

The Somalia example gets old. Really it's an example of the Straw Man fallacy. (This from someone who thinks that taxes should be raised on the upper income levels so as to pay for more and better public services).



marshall
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15 Apr 2012, 10:14 pm

ruveyn wrote:
TM wrote:
There is only 1 kind of public money and that is money gained by the government for managing the resources that belong to the public, IE public property. Taxes are more or less telling people "Hi, we have more people who can be violent against you and not get punished for it since we allow them to do, so give us cash"


When the gumbahs of the Mafia run a protection racket we call it criminal activity. When the government does it, it is public policy. When the rich are robbed under the pretense of helping the poor it is even called Compassion.

ruveyn

If this country didn't rob the rich to pay for WWII we'd probably be speaking German, Japanese, or worse shipped away to die if we happened to not be born with the "approved" racial lineage and features. Thank God the rich were willing to be robbed. But providing the poor and destitute with a social safety net is a much less worthy endeavor than blasting the crap out of certain aggressive countries so they don't get the idea that they can take over a large part of the world at our expense. Less worthy I suppose because it doesn't involve killing and violence, those values that oh-so-macho-conservative males tend to love despite constantly whining about maybe 5% of their tax dollars going to help some people who might otherwise be homeless and destitute due to a disability or whatever else.



marshall
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15 Apr 2012, 10:19 pm

TM wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
TM wrote:
There is only 1 kind of public money and that is money gained by the government for managing the resources that belong to the public, IE public property. Taxes are more or less telling people "Hi, we have more people who can be violent against you and not get punished for it since we allow them to do, so give us cash"


When the gumbahs of the Mafia run a protection racket we call it criminal activity. When the government does it, it is public policy. When the rich are robbed under the pretense of helping the poor it is even called Compassion.

ruveyn


The thing is, governments can make money without resorting to taxing positive things such as income, savings and investments. However, it requires that they think more business-like when it comes to income and expenditures.


Governments should tax negative things, take homeless bums for instance. Since they have no money to extract, simply stick them in the human masher and sell the resulting pink slime to MickeyDees as a revenue source.



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15 Apr 2012, 10:23 pm

If it's being spent on something you don't want it spent on, it's taxpayers' money.

If it's being spent on something you do want it spent on, it's public money.


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Declension
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15 Apr 2012, 10:24 pm

Government money comes from various sources, one of which is taxes. Money is quantitative; you can't say which dollar came from taxes, and which dollar came from loans, and which dollar came from the mint, and which dollar came from return on investments. So I think that "public money = taxpayer money" is basically a fallacy. The ways in which public money should be generated and the ways in which public money should be spent are two separate issues.



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15 Apr 2012, 11:05 pm

Declension wrote:
Government money comes from various sources, one of which is taxes. Money is quantitative; you can't say which dollar came from taxes, and which dollar came from loans, and which dollar came from the mint, and which dollar came from return on investments. So I think that "public money = taxpayer money" is basically a fallacy. The ways in which public money should be generated and the ways in which public money should be spent are two separate issues.

True. How do you define money from user fees, for example? It's not a tax per se. Or what about profits taken from state-owned enterprises. That's how most of Venezuela's social services are funded, for instance. Or what about royalties paid on mineral extraction? And stumpage fees from forestry?

But the vast majority of the public pays tax, so tax-payers' money ~= public money. We just have to remember that the money must come from somewhere so we must make sure it is spent on things which the majority of the public agrees with. For instance, most all Canadians would agree to spending money on health care, education, environmental programs, community infrastructure (although what sort of infrastructure would be cause for much debate) and stuff like that, but they might be dubious about corporate subsidies, government advertising (of which there's been a lot lately), military expenditures ($25 billion for fighter jets that don't really fit what we need? Seriously?), etc. The thing that I'm not sure people realise is that tax cuts often result in public service cuts, so cost of living will go up. It won't necessarily save them much money. (Britain cutting coverage of dental care would be a good example of this--and I think that that happened under dear old Maggie).



TM
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16 Apr 2012, 3:24 pm

Declension wrote:
Government money comes from various sources, one of which is taxes. Money is quantitative; you can't say which dollar came from taxes, and which dollar came from loans, and which dollar came from the mint, and which dollar came from return on investments. So I think that "public money = taxpayer money" is basically a fallacy. The ways in which public money should be generated and the ways in which public money should be spent are two separate issues.


Yes you can, that's why cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements exist. You can't say that dollar note 1221247843 came from taxes while dollar note 244343454334 came from loans, but you can say how many dollars came from loans, how many from taxes and how many from ROI. Furthermore, loans are made on the behalf of taxpayers and have to be paid back, so in a sense thats the money of future tax-income. Hence why the Obama, Bin Laden operation was a combined Seal Team Six, Bank of China, Grandchildren operation.



Saturn
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16 Apr 2012, 3:51 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Robdemanc wrote:
I remember M Thatcher said in one of her speeches that there is no such thing as public money, there is only tax payers money.

.


She is quite right. Money is earned by persons rendering service or by bussiness making and selling their product.. The money belongs to the owners of the business before they pay their bills.

the "public" is an abstraction. Money is privately earned and privately owned.

ruveyn


Money is also an abstraction. In reality there are individual people doing various things, some of which are handing over pieces of metal and paper and watching numbers change on pieces of paper or on computer screens and so on.



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16 Apr 2012, 4:17 pm

Who_Am_I wrote:
If it's being spent on something you don't want it spent on, it's taxpayers' money.

If it's being spent on something you do want it spent on, it's public money.


I like that Image


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ruveyn
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17 Apr 2012, 6:43 am

Saturn wrote:

Money is also an abstraction. In reality there are individual people doing various things, some of which are handing over pieces of metal and paper and watching numbers change on pieces of paper or on computer screens and so on.


Even so, money is property.

If we get rid of the legal tender laws then people can arrange any manner of barter or exchanges of goods and services or other goods and services. Money is the token and the medium of exchange.

ruveyn



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18 Apr 2012, 1:05 am

Any taxpayer who has not yet filed a return most likely owes money to the government. Paying debt with a charge card might appear to be the most practical way to go. After all, that is why the Internal Revenue Service partnered with many major charge card processors a couple of years back. However, most tax specialists say it is not a smart move. Any taxpayer who has not yet filed a return most likely owes money to the government. Paying debt with a charge card might appear to be the most practical way to go. After all, that is why the Internal Revenue Service partnered with many major charge card processors a couple of years back. However, most tax specialists say it is not a smart move. Article resource: Bad idea to pay taxes with credit card.



ruveyn
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19 Apr 2012, 6:05 am

marshall wrote:
If this country didn't rob the rich to pay for WWII we'd probably be speaking German, Japanese, or worse shipped away to die if we happened to not be born with the "approved" racial lineage and features. Thank God the rich were willing to be robbed. But providing the poor and destitute with a social safety net is a much less worthy endeavor than blasting the crap out of certain aggressive countries so they don't get the idea that they can take over a large part of the world at our expense. Less worthy I suppose because it doesn't involve killing and violence, those values that oh-so-macho-conservative males tend to love despite constantly whining about maybe 5% of their tax dollars going to help some people who might otherwise be homeless and destitute due to a disability or whatever else.


I would be happy to pay 5 percent to protect the other 95 percent. When taxes approach 50 percent (or more) it is time for a revolution.

ruveyn



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19 Apr 2012, 4:18 pm

We are conflating many ideas here, and potentially misdirecting ourselves, as a result.

First, we must ask the question about the nature of government. In the United Kingdom and in Canada, the legal theory of government is patently clear--the Crown is a legal entity from which government authority flows, and in which government can hold property. The Crown is limited by Parliament, to whom the Crown's ministers are answerable and from whom Ministers must obtain supply.

Under this theory, Mrs. Thatcher was (at least from a legal perspective) wholly and completely wrong. The moment that money is lawfully diverted from the earner to HM Treasury (or the Receiver General for Canada, or whatever institution prevails in the realm concerned) the money ceases to be the property of the earner, and becomes the property of the Crown.

Now, in a Republican state, the theory of state is different. But I suggest that at the end of the day the legal answer is no different. Congress has created a system of law under which money is diverted from the earner to the US Treasury. Congress has enacted law that says that money is no longer the property of the earner, and is now the property of the US Treasury (or, more generally, of the United States).

From a legal perspective, then, I suggest that it is wholly wrong to claim that government is spending "taxpayers' money." That money stopped being taxpayers' money the moment that it was lawfully remitted.

However, there are other lenses through which to analyse this. Legal scholars will point to the question of whether a fiduciary responsibility exists--and if it does whether a beneficial interest remains. For my part I think it is a nonsensical attempt to put layer equitable principles of trust onto a non-trust circumstance, but the argument exists, nonetheless.

The stronger argument is the policy argument. Given that government must raise revenue through the means at its disposal (whether through tax, excise, customs, seizure, monetary policy or participation in the marketplace) it follows that it is a proper political (i.e. policy) question to inquire into how government raises revenue, how much it raises, and the uses to which it puts that money.

But that doesn't make it taxpayer money. All that it means is that taxpayers have a legitimate political interest in that money.


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