Taxation

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Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,14:08

I suggest flat tax for all citizens, and a different method of taxing businesses. Possibly no taxes of businesses. Very much less, relative to current USA taxation. No more than 10% of income....flat percentage tax is probably a better way of describing it.
Just enough to enforce the laws and keep the roads paved.


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Posted by: Cakedaddy on Aug. 28 2001,14:22

I vote for a sales tax, so that ALL money is taxed as apposed to only the reported income being taxed.
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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,14:22

My favorite is always "1 dollar, 1 vote, " but I doubt anybody would go for that. Another idea I had would be to allow people to count time served doing something like jury duty as taxes paid. For example, suppose I make บ/hour, and serve 10 hours jury duty. That counts as 贄 of taxes. A guy who makes ŭ/hr can count his 10 hours as โ in taxes, while Bill Gates would only have to serve about 1 nano-second of jury duty.
I think ANY income tax is a bad idea, because it ALWAYS grows. I would certainly be against draining it out of one's paycheck month-to-month, because then people don't see the full impact of it and it allows the government to ratchet it up.

Another bad idea is to let the government decide how much it wants to spend, with no regard for what actual revenues are: i.e., deficit spending. Make them do it the way we all have to: add up what comes in and figure out what's most important to spend it on.

Let's face it: any form of taxation that is used to support "free" services is income re-distribution. There's obviously some things that a government must do---military is one of them---but by god we've got to be careful about what we allow to go in this category.


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Posted by: Cakedaddy on Aug. 28 2001,14:30

Define free services then. It seemed like you were glomming the military in there. Would that include Police and Firefighters as well? If so, then the plaque on America II's Statue of Liberty will read "Poor people need not apply". Which is valid in some regards, but America II is going to need ditch diggers too.
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Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,14:30

I agree with a percentage of income being a bad idea.
I'm also intrigued by the idea of community service being barter.

As for "Bill Gates = 1 nanosecond," How bout minimum 2 or 5 days per year mandatory community service? This would only apply to folks not already doing full time Federal Service, who, by the way, would not pay taxes.

It's always seemed foolish to me that we tax Federal employees who are paid with tax dollars.

And here's an idea: Our "President" and "Congressmen" are paid exactly the average National income. Our, better yet, the mean income.


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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,15:46

I would be opposed to mandatory service. I'm pretty much opposed to mandatory anything. How about giving folks the option of paying taxes in cash or working it off?
Cakedaddy, I believe that some government services are necessary, and that they must be paid for somehow. Military and police are some things that I think should NOT be "pay as you go." However, the list of such things should be VERY small. I'm not sure whether fire-fighting and other rescue services ought to be on it. Although it would be a real kick in the pants to have your house burn down and then the fireman gives you a big fat bill for saving your ass. Then again, how much is it worth to you to have your ass saved?


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Posted by: Cakedaddy on Aug. 28 2001,16:44

The other part of the fireman's job is to keep the whole neighborhood from burning down. So, your house might go down, but he saved all the others. . . . In other words, it's a total loss for you, but he earned his pay for all the others. Plus, you should have been more careful while frying those potatoes. . . .
But actually, if we just screen the occupants of America II correctly, we won't have any thieving pyro morons in America II. So, is there a need for police and firefighters? I guess there's the occasional lightning strike. . . .


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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,16:48

Perhaps a levy on property, proportional to the value of the property, to support fire fighting services. I must mull it over.
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Posted by: Cakedaddy on Aug. 28 2001,17:03

Hmmm. But even then, I think the poor would be putting a higher proportion of their income toward the service. If it's a flat rate of 贄 per 10k of value per year. . . . I think that would end up screwing the poor based on proportion of income. Thus contradicting the 'flat rate' goal. Otherwise, you have a sliding scale of 贄 per 10k up to 100k then 贝 per 10k to 500k, etc. But then that's punishing the rich. Or is it? Does it cost more to fight a more expensive house? Perhaps. You could assume it's a bigger house. Therefore, more dangerous to deal with, etc. On the other hand, I could have a small, solid gold, house. So, perhaps we base it on home size. But then again, you can get some pretty huge Victorian homes in the ghettos that cost next to nothing. . . .
In other words, we'd need to let some accountants into America II so they could do a cost/risk analysis on firefighting.

I keep going to an idea of doing it on a neighborhood basis. Perhaps you can find a closer 'equal' payment scale by broadening the criteria to the neighborhood level instead of the individual level.

Over all, I think the best way to do it is to figure out how much it costs to protect the whole country, and divide that by total income. Total cost of firefighting/total income for everyone in America II = the percentage of your income that goes toward firefighting. Fire houses/trucks are distributed evenly across the land. Priority of service is based on the population density of the effected area. Two people call for service. One is an apartment complex, the other is a single family dwelling. . . .


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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,17:49

Or maybe just have each neighborhood support its own fire unit, and at the end of the year, when the bill comes due, they decide how to divvy it up.
The beauty of not making things part of the government, and writing everything about them into laws, is that people can get together (or stay separate---asbestos house, anyone?) and find innovative solutions that suit their needs. Government solutions typically imply one size fits all.


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Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,18:18

Seems to me community volunteer fire departments work pretty well on the small scale. Nat'l government pays for the initial equipment costs, and the community supports the maintenance from then on.
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Posted by: Vince66 on Aug. 29 2001,10:34

Flat tax split 50/50 between income (catches those that make purchases "outside" the system), and sales tax (for those making money "outside" the system).
Taxes will never be withheld. Tax payers must write the check on the full amount owed the government on tax day, which will be exactly one week before election day.


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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 29 2001,12:38



---------------------QUOTE-------------------
Quote: from Vince66 on 9:34 am on Aug. 29, 2001

Taxes will never be withheld. Tax payers must write the check on the full amount owed the government on tax day, which will be exactly one week before election day.
---------------------QUOTE-------------------


oooooh...I hadn't thought of that! Talk about pissing people off at the incumbents! Sweeeeeeet.
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Post by TheCatt »

Flat tax good, but some per-person tax credit or something, so the poor are quite as taxed, but rich aren't significantly over-taxed.
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Post by TPRJones »

IMO, income taxes are the moral equivalent of armed robery and blackmail, and they are the primary cause of the majority of the moral decline of our society.

I don't like 'em.
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71-1085092892

Post by 71-1085092892 »

Income taxes = moral decline?
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Post by mbilderback »

I'm not going to say that income tax=moral decline, but I do love the idea of sales tax only. That will mean that you will spend more money because you have more money and there will be pleanty of revenue from that. The only thing you need to worry about is overspending and deficit spending. Specifically prohibit spending money you a)don't yet have, b)don't have in the bank, or c)you expect that you might have.

With no deficit/interest on stuff, the country will be in a superb position to continue profitability.

Also, with no taxes but on what money you spend, if things get tight and you really tighten the belt when it comes to spending, you can last much longer before things become money critical.

Also, no sales tax on food like some states (Iowa), so that someone who is really tight on money can still pay for himself without giving money to the gumment when he needs it more.
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Post by TPRJones »

GORDON wrote:Income taxes = moral decline?

Yup. IMO.

The enacting of the income tax made the federal government the enemy of the common man. Before that there were probably plenty of folks that didn't like the government, but income taxes taught everyone to dislike it. It encourages cheating and makes nearly everyone consider ways to weasel out of as much of it as possible. IMO this started the American citizenry into a moral decline characterized by a growing hatred (or at minimum a high-level annoyance with) our own government. This was later expanded into the moral issues of having a welfare state, and all sorts of other moral degredations encouraged by a federal government with too much money and everyone wanting to find a way to get a piece of it.

We have a tradition of tax revolts in the U.S. I'm just waiting for the next one.

As to the Sales Tax, I'd make it so that basic food items are untaxed (in Texas it's unpreparred food items, and any packaged food items that are not "serving size" in nature - i.e. a "grab bag" of Doritos is taxed, but the regular full-sized bag is not). Also, housing costs up to the average housing expense per-capita is untaxed (i.e. if the average per-capita housing expense in your locality is $450 per month per person and you pay $800 per person for your household, you only pay sales taxes on $350 of the expense). Basic clothing costs below a certain threshold, utilities, etc, the the thresholds established similarly as to the housing example above and recalculated on an anual or bi-annual basis.

Set it up right, and the bottom 20% of your populace can get by without paying taxes, along with anyone who is willing to live like they are part of the bottom 20% in order to avoid taxes.

Sure, sales taxes slow down the economy, but I think that would be more than balanced by folks having more money to spend from not paying the income taxes they are now.
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