Anonymous wrote:Estate tax is fair because in our society, when money changes hands, it is taxed. Your employer pays you for your hard work, you pay taxes. Your father pays you after he's dead, you pay taxes. It's not complicated, and it's not unfair. The exception is "gifts" and even then there is a limit, just like with estates and everything else.

And there does not need to be a flat tax, because we all theoretically pay the same amount of taxes on the same amount of money. If there is a progressive tax rate of 15% on your first 100k and 25% on more than that, everyone pays 15% on their first 100k of income. If you make 125k, you only pay 25% on 25k of that income.

A flat tax is ridiculously stupid because asking a single mom making 30k to pay 25%, just like the billionaire making 50 million, is dumb.

I have found in casual conversation that people just do not understand these very basic principles and that basically ruins any possibility for sane tax reform, because Republicans propose all kinds of unfair, regressive nonsense, and people just believe them because they have no idea what is going on.

In your 30k example, that’s why it was suggested there be a base amount that is tax-free. Whatever it is, 25, 30, 50k for every person is not taxed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

No, this would be patently unfair.

If everyone is paying the exact same %, how is that unfair? Seems to me it's the very definition of 'fair'.

No, it's "equal." You're conflating the two. "Equal" and "fair" are not synonyms. Our tax code is progressive for a reason.

If I earn $50,000 and the flat tax is, say, 15%, I have to pay $7,500 (plus payroll taxes, but I'll leave that out for now), so I'm left with $42,500. But if someone earns $1 billion, he pays $150 million and is left with $850 million.

I know, I know, you think that's fair. The problem is -- the rate cannot be 15% in order to be revenue neutral. It has to be closer to 30%. So, now I'm left with $35,000 (plus payroll taxes). The billionaire is still left with $700 million.

I don't think that is fair. He has a greater ability to pay than I do without affecting quality of life. That's the issue.

OK, you simply want the rich to pay their "fair share". Got it.

Life isn't fair. But our forefathers stated "all men are created equal". We should be taxed as such.

+1
I’d be happy that the rich person is paying $150 million. A lot more than they pay now with various exemptions and deductions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Estate tax is fair because in our society, when money changes hands, it is taxed. Your employer pays you for your hard work, you pay taxes. Your father pays you after he's dead, you pay taxes. It's not complicated, and it's not unfair. The exception is "gifts" and even then there is a limit, just like with estates and everything else.

And there does not need to be a flat tax, because we all theoretically pay the same amount of taxes on the same amount of money. If there is a progressive tax rate of 15% on your first 100k and 25% on more than that, everyone pays 15% on their first 100k of income. If you make 125k, you only pay 25% on 25k of that income.

A flat tax is ridiculously stupid because asking a single mom making 30k to pay 25%, just like the billionaire making 50 million, is dumb.

I have found in casual conversation that people just do not understand these very basic principles and that basically ruins any possibility for sane tax reform, because Republicans propose all kinds of unfair, regressive nonsense, and people just believe them because they have no idea what is going on.

Why reward poor choices

Right, the only reason people are poor (or rich) is their choices? Luck has no part in it? You do know that 70% of all wealth in this country is inherited? Is it a poor choice not to inherit wealth?

Anonymous wrote:Estate tax is fair because in our society, when money changes hands, it is taxed. Your employer pays you for your hard work, you pay taxes. Your father pays you after he's dead, you pay taxes. It's not complicated, and it's not unfair. The exception is "gifts" and even then there is a limit, just like with estates and everything else.

And there does not need to be a flat tax, because we all theoretically pay the same amount of taxes on the same amount of money. If there is a progressive tax rate of 15% on your first 100k and 25% on more than that, everyone pays 15% on their first 100k of income. If you make 125k, you only pay 25% on 25k of that income.

A flat tax is ridiculously stupid because asking a single mom making 30k to pay 25%, just like the billionaire making 50 million, is dumb.

I have found in casual conversation that people just do not understand these very basic principles and that basically ruins any possibility for sane tax reform, because Republicans propose all kinds of unfair, regressive nonsense, and people just believe them because they have no idea what is going on.

Why reward poor choices

Estate tax is fair because in our society, when money changes hands, it is taxed. Your employer pays you for your hard work, you pay taxes. Your father pays you after he's dead, you pay taxes. It's not complicated, and it's not unfair. The exception is "gifts" and even then there is a limit, just like with estates and everything else.

And there does not need to be a flat tax, because we all theoretically pay the same amount of taxes on the same amount of money. If there is a progressive tax rate of 15% on your first 100k and 25% on more than that, everyone pays 15% on their first 100k of income. If you make 125k, you only pay 25% on 25k of that income.

A flat tax is ridiculously stupid because asking a single mom making 30k to pay 25%, just like the billionaire making 50 million, is dumb.

I have found in casual conversation that people just do not understand these very basic principles and that basically ruins any possibility for sane tax reform, because Republicans propose all kinds of unfair, regressive nonsense, and people just believe them because they have no idea what is going on.

Anonymous wrote:10% flat tax

Doesn't raise enough revenue and leaves capital gains and passive income untaxed. No thanks. Horrible tax policy.

10% flat tax

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

Flat tax should have the first 25k or whatever exempted to allow the working poor to have a chance.

Flat tax would need to cover all current taxes: estate, dividends, etc.

I ask about estate tax, because some people think estates shouldn’t have a tax. (Yes usually the ultra rich ha ha.) But it may be a matter of principal, the idea that the money has already been taxed. (Unless it is from a foreign relative!)

I don’t want to get this sidetracked, but what do we all think?

The Republican plan now eliminates the estate tax but keeps the stepped-up basis, meaning most wealth was never taxed and never will be.

Most large wealth is from capital gains from stock, not from income that is taxed. Capital gains are taxed only when sold. You pay tax on the difference between the price you paid and the price you sell it at.

Bill Gates, for example, has very little taxes as his wealth is from the appreciation of Microsoft stock from a basis of essentially $0 to tens of billions today. He's now worth $90 billion. He has only ever paid income tax on relatively modest dividends and salary. If he sold it all today, he'd owe 15% of $90B, or $13.5B in taxes. But it he died today and left it to his children who sold it the next day, they'd owe $0 in taxes because their basis is the value as of the date of death of the person who left it to them. So now, not only was the $90B in gains never taxed to Gates, it will never be taxable to his children.

In essence, there is no "double taxation" with an estate tax for most large estates. Actors and athletes get their huge fortunes through taxable wages, but most uber-rich got it through stock gains that were never taxed and under the GOP plan never will be.

The only sensible thing to do if eliminating the estate tax is to eliminate the stepped-up basis on death so that if Gates children sell the stock after his death, they pay the same tax on the same $90B gain as he would if he'd sold it while alive. But the record-keeping on this would be very hard--for most assets, it's easier to establish FMV as of the date of death rather than what a now-dead person paid for it eons ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I ask about estate tax, because some people think estates shouldn’t have a tax. (Yes usually the ultra rich ha ha.) But it may be a matter of principal, the idea that the money has already been taxed. (Unless it is from a foreign relative!)

I don’t want to get this sidetracked, but what do we all think?

Founders had a very strong desire to ensure that the US would not end up with another aristocracy. Accumulated generational wealth is extremely damaging to a democracy.

I think an estate tax is almost a necessity to keep democracy thriving.

-- Some who stands to inherent an estate that will likely somewhat exceed the Estate Tax threshold

And we had an estate tax before an income tax.

The estate tax is about the most American of all taxes. Plus, it makes a LOT more sense to tax dead people than living ones.

The New England colonies had estate taxes from the very beginning, often before property taxes. It existed in England at the time and the colonists brought it with them. Some of the oldest documents in New England are the probating of wills, which was necessary to pay the estate tax. They paid on everything, those old probate documents list how many cords of wood, tons of hay and pounds of lard the deceased owned, in addition to their clothes and furniture.

It wasn't until the federal estate tax came along in the first half of the 20th century that the New England states started having an exemption for small estates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

No, this would be patently unfair.

If everyone is paying the exact same %, how is that unfair? Seems to me it's the very definition of 'fair'.

No, it's "equal." You're conflating the two. "Equal" and "fair" are not synonyms. Our tax code is progressive for a reason.

If I earn $50,000 and the flat tax is, say, 15%, I have to pay $7,500 (plus payroll taxes, but I'll leave that out for now), so I'm left with $42,500. But if someone earns $1 billion, he pays $150 million and is left with $850 million.

I know, I know, you think that's fair. The problem is -- the rate cannot be 15% in order to be revenue neutral. It has to be closer to 30%. So, now I'm left with $35,000 (plus payroll taxes). The billionaire is still left with $700 million.

I don't think that is fair. He has a greater ability to pay than I do without affecting quality of life. That's the issue.

OK, you simply want the rich to pay their "fair share". Got it.

Life isn't fair. But our forefathers stated "all men are created equal". We should be taxed as such.

That's called a poll tax.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

No, this would be patently unfair.

If everyone is paying the exact same %, how is that unfair? Seems to me it's the very definition of 'fair'.

No, it's "equal." You're conflating the two. "Equal" and "fair" are not synonyms. Our tax code is progressive for a reason.

If I earn $50,000 and the flat tax is, say, 15%, I have to pay $7,500 (plus payroll taxes, but I'll leave that out for now), so I'm left with $42,500. But if someone earns $1 billion, he pays $150 million and is left with $850 million.

I know, I know, you think that's fair. The problem is -- the rate cannot be 15% in order to be revenue neutral. It has to be closer to 30%. So, now I'm left with $35,000 (plus payroll taxes). The billionaire is still left with $700 million.

I don't think that is fair. He has a greater ability to pay than I do without affecting quality of life. That's the issue.

OK, you simply want the rich to pay their "fair share". Got it.

Life isn't fair. But our forefathers stated "all men are created equal". We should be taxed as such.

That doesn't even track logically.

Our forefathers made a lot of mistakes. And that "all men are created equal" rhetoric was undercut by another document a decade or so later called the US Constitution, which defined black men as less than equal.

It isn't me who wants the rich to pay a higher share. It's a founding principle of the income tax.

You want to discuss a different method of taxation, I'll have that conversation with you. But if you're a conservative and you love this Republican tax plan, then I know you're an idiot because only five years ago Mitt Romney's 47% gaffe had your jock strap in a twist because you were absolutely FURIOUS that nearly half of all Americans don't pay income taxes (although it never occurred to you that the reason for this is they are TOO GODDAMNED POOR TO DO SO, and why that might be a problem.) And now you've got the dotard literally bragging about removing more people from the rolls.

BTW, do you even know that the "flat tax" by definition exempts non-wage income from tax?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

No, this would be patently unfair.

If everyone is paying the exact same %, how is that unfair? Seems to me it's the very definition of 'fair'.

No, it's "equal." You're conflating the two. "Equal" and "fair" are not synonyms. Our tax code is progressive for a reason.

If I earn $50,000 and the flat tax is, say, 15%, I have to pay $7,500 (plus payroll taxes, but I'll leave that out for now), so I'm left with $42,500. But if someone earns $1 billion, he pays $150 million and is left with $850 million.

I know, I know, you think that's fair. The problem is -- the rate cannot be 15% in order to be revenue neutral. It has to be closer to 30%. So, now I'm left with $35,000 (plus payroll taxes). The billionaire is still left with $700 million.

I don't think that is fair. He has a greater ability to pay than I do without affecting quality of life. That's the issue.

OK, you simply want the rich to pay their "fair share". Got it.

Life isn't fair. But our forefathers stated "all men are created equal". We should be taxed as such.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the flat tax (on everything - dividends, rental income, ect) and no deductions. Though if taxing @ 15% I would probably start at 50k or 60k. I'm not sure how reasonable/workable that is, but I'm self employed with fluctuating income and with all of my required expenses taxing @ 15% after 50k\60k seems so much more doable imo. Otherwise, I'd support a flat of 5%-7% on all income starting a $1, that way every single person is paying. Again, I have absolutely no idea how reasonable this is. I just want something easy and simple and fair.

Except 5 - 7% wouldn't come close to what the government is collecting now. I've heard something like 17% would match current revenues! and that allows for an exemption of the first $25k or so.

Try closer to 30. This has been studied extensively.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I ask about estate tax, because some people think estates shouldn’t have a tax. (Yes usually the ultra rich ha ha.) But it may be a matter of principal, the idea that the money has already been taxed. (Unless it is from a foreign relative!)

I don’t want to get this sidetracked, but what do we all think?

Founders had a very strong desire to ensure that the US would not end up with another aristocracy. Accumulated generational wealth is extremely damaging to a democracy.

I think an estate tax is almost a necessity to keep democracy thriving.

-- Some who stands to inherent an estate that will likely somewhat exceed the Estate Tax threshold

And we had an estate tax before an income tax.

The estate tax is about the most American of all taxes. Plus, it makes a LOT more sense to tax dead people than living ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eliminate ALL deductions and exemptions. Institute a flat % tax.

No, this would be patently unfair.

If everyone is paying the exact same %, how is that unfair? Seems to me it's the very definition of 'fair'.

No, it's "equal." You're conflating the two. "Equal" and "fair" are not synonyms. Our tax code is progressive for a reason.

If I earn $50,000 and the flat tax is, say, 15%, I have to pay $7,500 (plus payroll taxes, but I'll leave that out for now), so I'm left with $42,500. But if someone earns $1 billion, he pays $150 million and is left with $850 million.

I know, I know, you think that's fair. The problem is -- the rate cannot be 15% in order to be revenue neutral. It has to be closer to 30%. So, now I'm left with $35,000 (plus payroll taxes). The billionaire is still left with $700 million.

I don't think that is fair. He has a greater ability to pay than I do without affecting quality of life. That's the issue.