Daryl wrote:I can't quite follow the logic regarding 10% tax on income over $40k. So someone on $30k pays 30%, but someone on $200k only pays 10%? Doesn't seem fair. I personally am self funded retired, still paying some tax, but in my last year of employment paid about $100k tax. That was fair as it still left me with quite sufficient to live.
Statistically here the rich pay very little tax. Leaks from the tax office show billionaires paying less than a thousand. No logic in stopping welfare as incarceration costs much more, and people will steal to eat.
During the GFC our then progressive government copped criticism for spending on stimulus packages, but without that spending our unemployment rate would have gone up costing more welfare and reducing income tax.
Those few rich (several million people) still pay the vast majority of income taxes, especially since 49-50% of the US population doesn't pay -any- income taxes.
The E wrote:It amazes me how much you guys seem to trust in corporations to pass on operational savings to their customers.
They do that anyways. The cost of business is always passed onto the customer. Sometimes in a very small way (gaining more money in volume) or in larger price rises. There is no reason why corporations shouldn't pass on the cost of doing business, to expect them to eat the cost (permanent costs, not one time monetary expenditures like fines) as long as they are reasonable about it. after all over time the costs of doing business will rise on their own.
PeterZ wrote:fallsfromtrees wrote:Neither are 3 martini lunches. They are a cost of doing business, and that is what the corporate taxes would be as well. Since the corporations are benefiting from the services the government supplies (defense, transportation, etc), they should pay for part of it.
Another way to view corporate taxes is to consider the question one of allocation of resources. If no income taxes are paid and all sales taxes are paid by the end user, there would be more resources available in the corporation to reinvest in people and other revenue generating assets. The price of goods and services will adjust to reflect the higher sales tax rates and lower production costs just as if corporation paid income tax on those goods and services. What the corporation would have paid in income tax is now available to reinvest. Since this would be true for all businesses, very few would simply take out the additional profit rather than reinvest. Not reinvesting would place that business at a disadvantage compared to those that did reinvest going forward.
If one uses the massive data available to the US to adjust the national sales tax rate to optimize revenue using price elasticity models, I suspect the after tax prices would fall below where they currently are. This leads to no IRS, no complex tax code for lobbyists to justify their massive expenditures gaming and a more equitable power sharing between the state and federal governments. The states would collect the sales tax for disbursement to the feds.
I cannot see this as being anything but overly complicated. A sliding scale on the price of things depending upon profit and resource allotment? That would tend to make things much harder to plan for since you could have the price of almost everything adjusting on a daily basis. Also what about the stockholders? They are the ones the company works for in the end. Would any dividends the stockholders get be counted as a positive resource allotment?
